Walter Gillespie

The Case

Walter (Wally) Gillespie lived a life marked by extraordinary tragedy and injustice. At just 17, he lost his father to a heart attack, and not long after a devastating fire claimed the lives of his mother, brother and four sisters. Their deaths left him with only his young daughter, whom he was working hard to be better for.  

In 1984, he was wrongly convicted alongside his close friend and co-accused, Robert (Bobby) Mailman, of the brutal murder of George Leeman. Although Wally was never the primary focus of the police investigation, he became collateral damage in a prosecution determined to secure convictions. The police pressured him to implicate Bobby, but Wally refused, unwilling to sacrifice his loyalty and integrity. His loyalty came at a devastating cost, resulting in more than two decades behind bars and the rest of his life spent fighting to clear his name.   

The case involved numerous systemic flaws common to wrongful convictions, including tunnel vision, non-disclosure of crucial evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, judicial bias, destruction of key evidence after trial, and unreliable eyewitnesses.  

One witness, Janet Shatford (Wally’s ex-girlfriend), pleaded guilty to a reduced manslaughter charge, receiving 13 years, which was later reduced on appeal to 6 years. In exchange, she testified against both men, implicating them in the murder. Another witness, John Leeman, was secretly paid for his testimony – a fact never disclosed to the defence. Both witnesses also later admitted to lying under oath and repeatedly changed their stories.  

The first trial on March 27, 1984, ended in a hung jury. At their second trial, and within six months of Mr. Leeman’s murder, Bobby and Wally were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole eligibility for 18 years.   

The Fight for Justice 

For more than 35 years, Bobby and Wally maintained their innocence and fought to overturn their wrongful convictions. They appealed to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal on February 10, 1988, but the case was dismissed. With limited resources, only one of them could seek leave to the Supreme Court of Canada. In December 1993, Wally applied, but on January 7, 1994, the court refused to hear the case.   

Despite crushing setbacks, they refused to give up. In 1997, lawyers Ed Derrah and Gary Miller filed an Application for Ministerial Review with the Criminal Convictions Review Group (CCRG), based on fresh evidence. On May 8, 2000, CCRG lawyer Allan Ferguson completed an Investigation Brief concluding that the convictions rested solely on the evidence of the two unreliable eyewitnesses. There was no forensic evidence or any other evidence connecting Bobby and Wally to the murder. The defence’s extensive alibi evidence, though presented at trial, had been vigorously attacked by the Crown and rejected by the jury.  

The Investigation Brief was leaked to the media before it could reach the Minister of Justice, stalling the process entirely.   

Mr. Derrah and Mr. Miller were also unsuccessful in obtaining undisclosed evidence from the Saint John Police despite their best efforts and pursuit of it for several years.  

Bobby and Wally were finally released on parole in 2000 after 18 and 21 years of incarceration. Even after their release, the fight continued to clear their names.   

In 2005, they applied to AIDWYC (now Innocence Canada). Innocence Canada hired private investigator Steve Jones to conduct interviews with key witnesses, which revealed fresh evidence beneficial to Bobby and Wally.  

On November 28, 2019, Innocence Canada counsel attended the Saint John Police Headquarters and was provided with a previously undisclosed and vitally important report written by Constable Holt. Less than a month later, on December 24, 2019, Innocence Canada submitted a s.696.1 application on Bobby and Wally’s behalf to the CCRG.  

The Exoneration   

Just before Christmas, on December 22, 2023, former Justice Minister Arif Virani delivered the long-awaited news: Bobby and Wally were granted a new trial.  

Just two weeks later, on January 4, 2024, Chief Justice Tracey DeWare of the King’s Bench in Saint John, New Brunswick, declared them innocent. Nearly 40 years after they were wrongly convicted, they were acquitted of the murder of George Leeman.  

At the hearing, Chief Justice DeWare stated: 

“Mr. Mailman and Mr. Gillespie have been deprived of decades of their liberty and shrouded by the shame of a murder conviction. Hopefully, their acquittals… will provide… a sense of peace accompanied by the public recognition that they have been found not guilty of this crime.” 

Life After Exoneration  

Wally endured 21 years of wrongful imprisonment before his name was finally cleared. At the time of his exoneration, he was 80 years old, an elderly man who had lost the best decades of his life to injustice. 

Tragically, his long-awaited freedom was heartbreakingly brief. Just 106 days after being declared innocent, Wally passed away on April 19, 2024. Though his time as a “free” man was short, he left this world with his dignity restored and the truth finally recognized.