Named in double slaying, N.L. man says convict will be killed in prison
Oliver gets 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to manslaughter
Last Updated: Thursday, May 28, 2009 | 4:15 PM NT
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- Glenn Payette reports: Oliver will be killed in prison, suspect in double-slaying predicts (Runs: 4:10)
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- CBC News reporter Glenn Payette interviews Shannon Murrin (Runs: 7:05)
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Shannon Murrin, interviewed Friday at his home outside St. John's, claims Joey Oliver killed Dale Worthman and Kim Lockyer in 1993. (CBC) Shannon Murrin, the man named in Newfoundland Supreme Court as the shooter in a notorious double slaying outside St. John's, predicted a violent end Thursday for the man accusing him of murder.
Joey Oliver was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday for manslaughter in the 1993 shooting deaths of Dale Worthman and Kim Lockyer. Oliver claims he drove the couple to a remote wooded area on the outskirts of St. John's, where he says Murrin shot them to death.
Joey Oliver pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Worthman and Lockyer shootings. (CBC) Justice Carl Thompson deducted four years from Oliver's sentence, giving him double-time credit for the two years he has been in custody awaiting trial. The sentence matched a joint recommendation from the Crown and the defence.
Asked if he had anything to say, Oliver said no, "Other than I apologize to the families and to the court."
Oliver insists he never knew that the couple would be shot when he lured them to a wooded area, for what he said was supposed to have been a beating.
But Murrin, who has never been charged in the case and insists he is innocent, told CBC News on Thursday he expects Oliver will not survive his prison sentence — while also insisting he is not threatening Oliver.
"He'll probably get killed," Murrin said.
"No one likes someone like him.… When he goes to prison, there's people just can't wait to see him. And that's the way it is," said Murrin, who was identified in an agreed statement of facts presented by the Crown and defence as the man who is believed to have shot Worthman and Lockyer.
Autopsies showed both were shot multiple times in the head.
"[But] it got nothing to do with me. I don't want anybody to go hurting anybody," Murrin said.
"I would not set anything up. I do not correspond with guys in the pen and they don't call me. Through the grapevine [I hear that] they're waiting for Joey Oliver to arrive."
Kim Lockyer and Dale Worthman were last seen alive in August 1993. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave 13 years later. (CBC) In the agreed statement of facts, Crown prosecutors Jim Walsh and Elaine Reid said Oliver's claim about Murrin being the shooter is uncorroborated.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary says the investigation on the Worthman and Lockyer shootings remains open, but the force will not discuss whether it has any particular suspects.
As for being named in public documents as the shooter, Murrin — who was found not guilty in 2000 of the slaying of B.C. schoolgirl Mindy Tran — is vowing to clear his name and seek reparations.
"That really, really pisses me off," he said in an interview.
"They're going to pay for that. I'm not letting them off with this... [There is] no evidence against me. They got me investigated now for 14 years altogether."
Murrin, meanwhile, said he believes Oliver shot Worthman and Lockyer himself. Murrin said he had only met Worthman once in passing, and didn't know Lockyer at all.
"There was no animosity between us. Joey is just looking for a way out," he said.
"I believe he owed Dale a lot of money and didn't want to pay him. He's probably telling you what happened when he says, 'This is what Shannon Murrin done,'" said Murrin.
The agreed statement of facts says Oliver made an unusual request months before he eventually told police in 2006 a full account of what happened off Thorburn Road in 1993.
Asked for marijuana, job
At a September 2005 meeting arranged in a parking lot of the St. John's blood bank, Oliver asked an RNC officer for two pounds of marijuana, as well as a job paying at least $15 per hour, before he would divulge details about Worthman and Lockyer.
The RNC declined.
Oliver eventually came forward in July 2006 and led officers to the wooded area where the skeletal remains of Worthman and Lockyer were found.
Oliver said he stepped forward out of remorse, as well as fear of Murrin.
Murrin said he doesn't buy either argument.
"Sure, I was locked up in prison for five years in B.C.," he said, referring to his incarceration in the 1990s in the Tran case.
"Why didn't he come forward then if he was remorseful?... Asking for drugs in return for the body doesn't sound very remorseful to me. That sounds like a plan."
Asked how well he knew Oliver, Murrin said, "I didn't know him all that well, apparently."
Murrin has made strong comments about Oliver in the past. Just days after Oliver was charged, Murrin told CBC News, "if Shannon Murrin took the trouble to dig two graves, why wouldn't he dig three graves? I mean that's only common sense."
He added, "What, am I going to let a piece of garbage like him go around all out of it, all the time, saying things that can put me away for life? I never harmed anybody in my life with a weapon."
Oliver told Thompson earlier this week that Lockyer and Worthman had been involved in drugs, but that he didn't know the source of the dispute with Murrin.
The RNC initially treated the Worthman-Lockyer case as a missing persons case, and while it officially remained that, police eventually came to suspect they had met with foul play. Repeated searches for their bodies, though, were fruitless until Oliver stepped forward and took investigators to the scene of the crime.
Their bodies were later identified by forensic examination.
The Crown told the court earlier this week that if Oliver had not stepped forward, the crimes would likely have remained unsolved.
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