On the evening of June 9th 1959, Steven Truscott was seen by multiple witnesses riding his bicycle with his classmate Lynne Harper in Clinton Ontario. According to Truscott, he dropped Harper off on Highway 8 where she had planned to hitchhike a ride home. Later than night, Harper was reported missing by her father and two days later, Lynne Harper’s body was discovered by a nearby wooded area. She was found to have been victim to sexual assault and the cause of death was strangulation. As the last person to have been with Harper, Truscott became an immediate suspect in the case and on June 13th, he was formally charged with the first-degree murder of Lynne Harper. Truscott pled not guilty and his case was transferred to adult court. With the jury trial lasting fifteen days, many witnesses claimed to have seen Truscott and Harper together riding the bike. The prosecution was based on the assumption that Harper would have never hitchhiked as she was careful. This assumption led to the alleged sexually assaulting her, strangling her with her blouse and then covering her remains in the wooded area. Both eyewitness testimony as well as Truscott’s statement link Harper to Truscott that evening, however an additional eyewitness, a child, saw Truscott cross the bridge with Harper on his bicycle and later saw…show more content… Truscott’s lawyer has more recently said that the crown and police actively buried eyewitness sightings and forensic evidence that would have persuaded the jury of Truscott’s evidence. Further, he went to discuss that the police and prosecutors actively concealed evidence capable of proving his innocence (Makin 2016). Not allowing certain evidence into the trial and actively concealing evidence to make sure Truscott was convicted of a crime he did not commit is undoubtedly an example of professional misconduct in the courtroom. By allowing only specific evidence in court, would have led the jury to see Truscott as a
