Transcript
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Hannah Berner (0:31)
Hannah Berner Are those the cozy Tommy John pajamas you're buying?
Paige de Sorbo (0:35)
Paige de Sorbo they are Tommy John and yes, I'm stocking up because they make the best holiday gifts.
Hannah Berner (0:42)
So generous.
Paige de Sorbo (0:43)
Well, I'm a generous girly, especially when it comes to me. So I'm grabbing the softest sleepwear, comfiest underwear and best fitting loungewear.
Hannah Berner (0:52)
So nothing for your bestie?
Paige de Sorbo (0:53)
Of course I'm getting my dad Tommy John. Oh and you of course it's giving.
Hannah Berner (0:58)
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Paige de Sorbo (1:00)
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Canadian True Crime Narrator (1:13)
Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad free and early on Amazon music included with Prime, Apple podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening. Hi everyone. I hope you're well. Last year a listener from Alberta reached out with a case suggestion that immediately caught my attention. It's deeply personal to her. She tells me that when she was an adolescent, her family was shaken by a profound and sudden loss the murder of a close family member. It was a high profile case, but she was too young to understand exactly what happened to her loved one or the circumstances around it. And as the decades have passed, she's had a very difficult time trying to make sense of it all. Of course I was intrigued and immediately started looking into the case. I soon saw exactly what she was talking about. She tells me that what she's really looking for is to hear an independent, unbiased account of her loved one's case so she can make her own determination about what happened. Her email read I trust that the research you are able to do will help answer some of the burning questions that have been on my mind for many years, so that I may be able to finally find peace. You'll hear exactly who she is later on in today's episode, along with some additional facts from behind the scenes that she would like you to know. Facts that haven't been made public until now, and frankly, my jaw dropped to the floor when I read some of them. So with that, it's on with the show. July 17, 1997. A Thursday morning in Calgary, Alberta. It's the summer holidays and a couple of bored teenage boys are hanging out in a deserted office building in the city's east. The following sequence of events would be reported by the Calgary Herald. At around 10am a 15 year old girl named Tanis is around the back of the building by herself when the back door suddenly bursts open. A teenage boy staggers outside. He's completely engulfed in flames. Tanis has no idea what's happening or who it is, but then the boy calls her name and reaches towards her for help. She realises it's Dylan Lestage, a friend she knows from junior high. She can smell gasoline. Tannis runs to a restaurant nearby and starts yelling to them. He's on fire. Call 911. But no one believes her. Meanwhile, passersby have started dousing the teenager with water to put out the flames. Someone has managed to call 911 and he's soon rushed by ambulance to the hospital. That evening, as Dylan Lestage is surrounded by loved ones, he passes away. The press would report that he had suffered Burns to 100% of his body. He was just 15 years old. No one knew exactly what happened to Dylan or why, but the police were already on the case. So was the local media. The following day, the headline on the front page of the Calgary Herald read Boy set on fire Dies, Teenager Charged. According to a police spokesperson, Dylan Lestage was in the deserted office building with about four other teenagers when an argument broke out. All that was known at the time was this quote. One teenager apparently lit Dylan's shoe on fire, then doused him with turpentine which ignited as Dylan's entire body turned into a ball of fire. The other teenagers left him and fled the scene on foot. Police had picked them up in a nearby alley shortly afterwards and brought them to the station for questioning and so far they had reportedly charged one of them with second degree murder, which means a deliberate killing that occurs without planning. The incident that caused Dylan Lestage's death was named Calgary's fourth homicide of 1997. The details that had been reported about how it happened shocked and saddened local residents. It seemed almost too horrific to be true. Why would anyone do something like this? Eyes quickly turned to the teenager who had been charged with second degree murder. Like Dylan, he was also 15 years old and couldn't be named under the Young Offenders Act. At the time. We'll refer to him as Jason. According to a police spokesperson, Jason was an acquaintance of Dylan Lestage and it appeared that the police were frustrated by him after his arrest. Police had to wait for more than an hour before they could speak to the teen before because he refused to speak until his mother was present. Reporters had descended on the scene soon after to get as much information as they could from bystanders. They came across the teenager named Tanis who had identified herself as a friend of Dylan's from junior high before his recent transfer to another high school. She said that he used to write her notes in class. Tanis told reporters about how she first saw Dylan emerge from the back of the building engulfed in flames. And in those panicked few seconds, she said he told her exactly what happened to him and why Kids from his new school set him on fire because he wouldn't share his drugs or alcohol with them back at school. This particular detail set off a new wave of headlines. Friends blame fight over drugs for death. This news strongly suggested that Dylan's refusal to share drugs with his acquaintance may have inadvertently provoked the horrific attack that led to his death. It was almost too much for Calgarians to comprehend. The youths were clearly out of control and something had to be done. This dominated the news cycle for a few days. But there were quite a few people who disputed this information. One was the police. They said they had no evidence that drugs and alcohol were a factor in the altercation that led to Dylan's death. And while they had not yet identified a motive for the attack, they they were continuing to investigate. Another person who disputed those claims was a 15 year old girl named Cindy who said she'd known Dylan since grade four and attended junior high with him as well. And she told the press that he was, quote, one of those guys who always tried to get people off drugs. He didn't do them. Cindy added that in the previous year, Dillon Dylan had come to a crossroads at school. He'd been identified as being in danger of dropping out and mentioned to her that he was thinking of doing just that and finding a job. But then he was accepted into a special program at another school, a kind of last ditch effort to keep at risk teenagers in school by invigorating their interest in education again. Cindy told the press that it had only been a few months since Dylan transferred to the new school, but he'd already changed his mind about finding a job and had decided to recommit to his education. Cindy also said that Dylan had made friends with some new people she didn't know. He thought they were cool and that's maybe how he ended up there in that building. She said Dylan didn't get along with everyone, but he knew it was far better to walk away from a conflict than to get involved. Quote, he didn't fight. To Cindy, the stories being told about Dylan just didn't seem right. Dylan's own family also disputed that what happened to him had anything to do with drugs or a dispute. His uncle, Dennis Bennett, stepped up as family spokesperson and confirmed that any suggestion that Dylan used drugs is unfounded. And the claim that what happened to Dylan was the result of his refusal to share drugs was simply not true. Describing his nephew as a happy go lucky kid who loved the outdoors, Dennis Bennett said that like most teenagers, Dylan wasn't a saint, but he was generally a good kid. The family was shocked by the savagery of the attack. Dylan's mother Carol had been unable to sleep since her son's death and his 13 year old sister Nicole and stepfather Tracey were equally distraught. They're going through hell. And as For Jason, the 15 year old charged with Dylan's second degree murder, the family had talked about it and believed youth court wasn't where he belonged. Dennis Bennett said the attack was extremely barbaric. Jason needed to be elevated to adult court. He has to deal with the consequences of what he's done. Age should not determine the sentence he gets. The act should decide his sentence. At the time, Jason faced up to seven years in a youth facility if convicted under the Young Offenders Act. But if he was moved up to the adult system and convicted there, he could be sentenced to life in prison at an adult correctional facility with no chance of parole for five to seven years. The facts of the case weren't known or confirmed yet, but the way the incident was portrayed through the headlines was enough for many Calgarians to decide. That's exactly what should happen to Jason. Apparently, public sentiment was so strong that it prompted the Calgary Herald to print a special editorial note that read, we share the community's revulsion over this incident, but we caution against jumping to conclusions about the circumstances leading to Dylan Lestage's. Untimely death. But the headlines and news stories that suggested otherwise did not stop a man named Vic Rampassad. The owner of a Calgary pool hall named Tom's Family Billiards came forward to tell the press that Dylan Lestage had been hanging around at his establishment the night before he died. The details he provided resulted in a lengthy front page article on the Calgary Herald Saturday edition tit titled Teens last night spent with Paul hall pals. It suggested it had a connection to Dylan's death the following morning. But the article itself included almost nothing about Dylan that night or even who he was with, just that he was seen joking around. In fact, the only positive thing the pool hall owner said was that he never saw anything that would indicate Dylan was using drugs. End quote. He often would meet other kids his age whom he appeared to get along with reasonably well. The bulk of what the owner did have to say were some not very nice observations about Dylan in general. For no apparent reason, Dylan Lestage regularly hung out at his pool hall and was always dressed in a black jacket and a running suit. He added, I kicked this kid out hundreds of times. He could be a very annoying person, sitting on tables, doing jump shots, bugging people. But I always let him come back because it seemed he needed to be here. He respected me because I didn't let him get away with things. Other places couldn't control him. I would say, you know the rules and he would quit it right away. Vic Rampasad's son recounted a random incident about a year earlier when Dylan apparently burst into their establishment saying some kids were after him because he had taken a bike. The owner's son added that Dylan was, quote, always yelling and screaming at people and making them mad at him or he'd get thrown out of McDonald's across the street. He'd always come in here and we could sit, settle him down a bit. Owner Vic Rampassad also told reporters that Dylan often paced nervously, was never still, and repeatedly checked the return slots on coin operated video games for forgotten change. And if that wasn't bizarre enough, these comments led the entire front page article. It began, quote, the Calgary teen burned to death after getting doused by turpentine and lit a flame. Love to play billiards, smoke cigarettes and check video slot machines for loose change left behind by gamblers. And three days later, the Calgary Herald would issue a very strange correction notice. It simply stated that Tom's family billiards does have coin operated pool tables but does not have coin operated video slot machines. It's unknown what the Rampassades were trying to accomplish with their disparaging comments about Dylan just 24 hours after the 15 year old died in hospital from his horrific injuries, or what the Calgary Herald was trying to accomplish by publishing these comments. The timing couldn't have been worse for Dylan's own family. Everyone soon learned that the date he passed away was just five days before his 16th birthday. But what the public didn't know was that his own mother's birthday also fell during those five days. Dylan died on Thursday evening. His mother Carol's birthday was on the following Monday. It was the worst birthday she ever could have imagined. The day after that was Tuesday, July 22, Dylan's own birthday. It was a week that should have been marked by two celebrations. But the cruel twists of fate for Dylan's distraught family did not stop there. On Dylan's birthday, a court appearance had also been scheduled for Jason, the youth charged with his second degree murder, and the funeral would be held the day after that. Dylan's immediate family were too distraught to attend the court hearing, but family spokesperson Dennis Bennett was there to represent them. Described as fighting back tears, he said any death is shocking, but something like what happened to Dylan was difficult to comprehend. He said Dylan's mother, Carol, alternated between disbelief and rage when thinking of the horribly painful way her son must have died. The press described Jason, the 15 year old charged with second degree murder, as emotionless, seldom making eye contact with Dylan's uncle. Jason's mother was also reportedly in court, but declined to speak to the media. Dylan's uncle, Dennis Bennett, said he felt sorry for her after adding, I think we all do. But he stated that the family disagrees with a teenager's identity being put under a publication ban. They believed Calgarians had a right to know what happened to Dylan and who did it. The Crown applied for Jason to be bumped up to the adult court system, but in the meantime there was still the question of Bailey and whether Jason should be released. While he waited for that hearing and later a possible trial, the judge ordered Jason to undergo a psychiatric assessment to help him form his decision. The investigation was still in its early stages. It had been only a few days since Dylan's death, but the media frenzy and dramatic headlines about what might have caused caused it weren't over yet and it would take even longer for the actual truth to be known.