It’s not often a journalist is invited to an RCMP award ceremony as a guest. Usually we are invited to witness the event: take a few photos, do a few interviews, etc.
That’s what made last Wednesday’s ceremony at the Port Alberni RCMP detachment especially sweet for journalist Shayne Morrow.
The ceremony was to present retired RCMP Staff Sgt. Dale Djos with two Commanding Officer’s Commendations for his role in solving the murders of two children in Port Alberni 20 years apart. Two others—Cpl. Dan Smith of Campbell River and forensic scientist Hiron Poon of Vancouver—received similar awards. Morrow was an invited guest at Djos’s ceremony.
Djos and Smith were lead investigators on the murders of 12-year-old Carolyn Lee in 1977 and 11-year-old Jessica States in 1996. They and their large team of fellow investigators used DNA technology to help them solve both cases. Poon, a civilian, led the RCMP’s DNA analysis team in Vancouver, and was the person who first identified the suspect in the States case. His discovery, coupled with Smith’s work in gaining a confession from the suspect, led to a conviction of first-degree murder in that case.
Morrow was a fairly new reporter with the now-defunct AV Times when the States murder happened, and was granted unprecedented access to the investigations of both murders. He spent years covering the cases and subsequent court appearances, then convictions, of the men found guilty of both crimes. In 2019 he wrote The Bulldog and the Helix: DNA and the Pursuit of Justice in a Frontier Town, detailing the use of DNA to solve both crimes.
It was because of his book that Djos, Smith and Poon have been formally recognized. Last week, Djos made sure Morrow was part of his ceremony. Shayne made sure I was there to witness it on his behalf.
“Shayne spent so many years working on putting this book together,” Djos said outside the RCMP detachment last Wednesday.
“I understood some of the difficulties he had in gathering the information but he never gave up. He continued on. We talked a number of times and I was able to find some of the members that were here in 1977 on the Carolyn Lee file. Shayne picked it up and called them, interviewed them and got some great information outlining the history back then. That was a real personal touch, I thought, for him to go to that length.”
Djos praised Morrow for his thoroughness, especially with the Lee case—it was already considered “cold” when Dan Smith was working on it because it didn’t land on his desk until 11 years after Lee’s body was discovered. Djos also appreciated the way Morrow wove the history of Port Alberni into his story.
Morrow said he leaned on Djos a lot when he dug down into the research for the book.
“I must say, Dale (Djos) was my anchor throughout this,” Morrow said. “The things I was able to uncover. I wanted for the life of me to talk to the ‘test tube’ guy that made the match. To find out that Hiron Poon graduated from the same high school as I did, it was quite amazing.”
Part of Morrow’s objective in writing The Bulldog and the Helix was to help people realize the extraordinary contribution these team members put into their police work. Standing beside Djos in his red serge, holding onto his commendations, “this is the summation of my writing,” Morrow said.
“I’m just so hopeful this brings some more attention within the RCMP about what an amazing job these people did. Roddie Patten picked the absolute worst place in North America or the planet to pull off an egregious murder in the way that he did. Because this was the DNA frontier.”
Susie Quinn is the Alberni Valley News editor. The Bulldog and the Helix is available at Salmonberry’s Emporium and Mobius Books in Port Alberni.