The Suspicious Cases Of Dr. Charles Smith

Tammy Marquardt isn’t the only person convicted of committing a murder to maintain she was wrongly convicted. There’s a large number of cases that pathologist Dr. Charles Smith has worked on that have since come under a very different microscope.

William Mullins-Johnson may be the best known ‘victim’ of the testimony of the disgraced expert, but he’s not the only one. Here’s a look at some of the other people he implicated through some questionable findings that eventually prompted him to apologize at an inquiry in November 2007.

1993

William Mullins-Johnson (pictured)

One of the first cases tied to Smith’s work and the most notorious. Mullins-Johnson’s four-year-old niece is discovered dead early one morning by grief stricken relatives in her Sault Ste Marie home. Forensic evidence assembled by Smith appeared to show she’d been physically assaulted and strangled and the Crown used it to point the finger at her uncle.

They managed to secure a first-degree murder conviction and Mullins-Johnson was sent to jail for a dozen years, all the while pleading his innocence. His was finally released in 2005 on appeal after concerns were raised about the pathologist’s evidence.

The convicted killer finally had his day before the Ontario Court of Appeals on October 15th, 2007,   giving gut-wrenching testimony about that terrible morning so many years ago.

“I was sleeping on the couch,” he recalled, frequently breaking down in tears. “And the next thing I hear was Kim barreling down the stairs. She was crying, screaming. She, uh– she woke me up out of my sleeping with all that noise. And I asked her what was wrong.  Then she told me that Valin was dead. I couldn’t believe my ears, and I yelled back to her, ‘What?!’ And she screamed back at me, ‘Valin’s dead!'”

When the Crown stood up and agreed there was a miscarriage of justice in the case, his vindication was assured. “An acquittal is really required in this case,” Crown prosecutor Ken Campbell told the three-judge panel, adding that six world-renowned experts found “no evidence of homicide and no evidence of sexual injury” to suggest Valin was sodomized and strangled.

Mullins-Johnson walked out of court a free man. Evidence presented showed Smith had lost tissue samples that could have proven the child died of natural causes.

The now cleared suspect has since launched a $13 million lawsuit against the man whose testimony lead to his long incarceration.

Marco and Anisa Trotta

Marco Trotta of Oshawa is found guilty of physically abusing and ultimately killing his eight-month-old son. An initial assessment indicates the baby died of SIDS, but evidence presented by Dr. Smith seems to indicate otherwise.

Marco is convicted and spends nine years in jail, before being released in May 2007 on appeal. Mom Anisa is convicted of criminal negligence causing death and serves a five-year term.

But when the case went back to court in November 2007, a judge ruled that Smith’s track record couldn’t be trusted and ordered a new trial for the husband, who has always professed his innocence. 

1995

Lianne Gagnon

An 11-month-old Sudbury child crawls under a table and bumps his head. The injuries prove fatal. Two years later, his 22-year-old mother Lianne is questioned and accused of murdering her youngster, even as she denies the accusation.

The child’s body is exhumed and examined by Smith, who believed the boy was murdered. But after two long years under a cloud of suspicion, other experts take a second look at the case and decide there’s no evidence of any foul play.

1996

Sherry Sherrett

When her 4-month-old son died suddenly in Trenton, Ontario, Smith’s autopsy showed Sherry Sherrett’s son suffered a skull fracture and neck trauma, leading to first degree murder charges, and one year in jail for the devastated mom.

A probe by the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted helped to get the body exhumed and re-examined by other pathologists, who found the child choked to death after accidentally getting caught in his bedding.

“I woke up to my son gone. He was taken from me. And from that day on, I became a baby killer. It haunts me still to this day,” Sherrett recalled. “People had labelled me as a baby killer, and when you hear this for so long you begin to doubt yourself. Only Joshua knows at this point that I never harmed him.”

As a result of her arrest and imprisonment, her older son was taken away from her and adopted.

Now Sherry and her supporters want her exonerated, and are demanding the government step in and expedite the process.

1997

Louise Reynolds

The Kingston mother spent more than two years in jail facing a murder charge, after Smith found that her seven-year-old daughter was stabbed to death with a pair of scissors. After a review, new evidence showed the girl could have been attacked by a pit bull. The charges were dropped.

Brenda Waudby

Smith claims Waudby’s 21-month-old died from blunt force trauma while she was home alone with her mother at their Peterborough residence. A single pubic hair is found on the body.

Months later, her mother is charged with second-degree murder. But two years later, in 1999, conflicting medical evidence suggests it didn’t happen that way and the charges are dropped.

Smith denied knowing anything about the hair, but in 2001, it’s discovered in his desk drawer and turned over to police. Still, the case remained unsolved.

Then in 2005 comes the break investigators have been waiting almost a decade for. An undercover operation leads to a confession from the child’s former babysitter. A boy admits he hit the little girl repeatedly, punching her at least six times in the stomach.

His confession claims he was simply angry over having to look after the child. In December 2006, he pled guilty to manslaughter.

Anthony Kporwodu and Angela Veno

The Toronto couple is charged with murdering their baby. But Smith takes so long with the autopsy report – more than seven months – that a judge is forced to throw out the case because it violated the right to a timely trial for the pair.

1998

Maureen Laidely

A three-year-old Toronto boy dies under peculiar circumstances and Smith finds reason to believe foul play was involved. His father’s girlfriend, Maureen Laidely, is subsequently charged with murder. But just as her trial is set to begin, the Crown withdraws the accusation. The reason?

A trio of other pathologists rule that the child was most likely killed after he accidentally fell off a coffee table.