Dennis Perrin Stratford Obituary, kidnapping rape and murder

Investigation Perrin: Murder, lies and justice denied

A day before Valentine's Day in 1989, Beverley Perrin walked through a darkened parking lot with her bags in hand. She walked to her car, disappeared.

On February 13, 1989, about 6 p.m. The evening was unseasonably warm. The 55-year-old primary school teacher had taken the week off with her husband Eugene recovering from cancer surgery. She left St. Joseph's Hospital, taking her daughter to a night school class. Despite the long day at A&P on Barton Street and Centennial Parkway, Perrin avoided buying chocolates for her young students at Tapleytown Elementary School.

Hours later, her own children, concerned she hadn't returned, started phoning hospitals, police and ambulance, but there was no sign of their mother. Two days later, about 4 p.m., a farmer's field off Tapleytown Road found Perrin's body. Four's mother was kidnapped, beaten, and strangled.

Her murder set off a spiral of events that would end 27 years later without justice for her or the four men caught up in a terrible, unthinkably wrong investigation and trial.

There's no justice for Perrin today—her murderer was never convicted of her kidnapping, rape and murder.

And no justice for Chris McCullough, who has been accused of a murder he has not committed, spent nine years in jail and has since been unable to find a decent job.

And not for Nick Nossey, who, charged with first-degree murder in the attack, spent 19 months reading the Bible in Barton Street jail and waiting for his acquitted trial. While he has built a good life with a loving wife and two kids, he remains haunted by Perrin's murder.

Nor will there be any compensation: in May, McCullough and Nossey dismissed the $10-million case against Hamilton Police for wrongful arrest and negligence.