System failed to catch 'textbook psychopath' - Bid to have 'sick, twisted individual' declared dangerous offender after 19-year history of sex assault, murder and child rape
KaEfEr
about rapists. This man is one of them that deserve to have a rod
rammed up his tool. Unbelieveable that it took 20 damn years to stop
this animal!
KaEfEr
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December 19, 1999
System failed to catch 'textbook psychopath'
Bid to have 'sick, twisted individual' declared
dangerous offender after 19-year history of sex assault, murder and
child rape
By GRETCHEN DRUMMIE -- Toronto Sun
The nine-year-old girl was savaged by the 300-pound
"monster" who raped her on the floor of a vacant building.
The child's vicious assailant then cleaned off her blood,
apologized and sent her home on a bus. Child abuse expert Dr. Marcellina
Mian said later it was the worst genital injury she'd seen in 18 years.
The "brute" was Melbourne Lee -- killer, child rapist
and, today, dangerous offender candidate.
Lee admitted to that ruthless attack in the winter of
1997. He had no choice. His DNA proved to be a silent witness.
And, his DNA was also matched to the unsolved murder in
1994 of young mom Milica Nikolic, who was nearly decapitated in a
violent sex attack.
The DNA match was a major break for authorities. Perhaps
Lee wouldn't have been convicted last spring of that murder if he'd
managed to control what two forensic psychiatrists testified is his
untreatable drive to have sadistic sex, be it with a baby girl or an
adult woman. Nikolic was a total stranger to Lee.
Since the trial, prosecutor Rita Zaied and Det. Ed Lahaie
have doggedly pursued a dangerous offender label for Lee. That
designation would see him jailed indefinitely, easing fears that in 15
years -- under the faint hope clause -- Lee could persuade an
unsuspecting jury to let him out before 25 years.
To be declared a dangerous offender, there has to be a
pattern of vile behaviour and evidence of future risk.
In Lee's case, Zaied not only detailed his criminal
record of 24 convictions since 1980, but several unproven allegations as
well. Justice Patricia German will decide Jan. 14 whether Lee is
dangerous and whether Zaied has proven these allegations beyond a
reasonable doubt.
In the background to the dangerous offender arguments is
the lingering question: How did Lee manage to keep falling through the
legal cracks when it came to the allegations?
They date back 20 years. Yet, there's a litany of
dead-end investigations, destroyed evidence, lost warrants. Lee's prior
convictions amount to a bunch of frauds, mischiefs and other crimes
that netted him, at most, 14 months in jail.
(The police are already looking into their past probes.)
"It's incredible how this one lonely man manages to elude
what is considered one of the best police forces in the world," said
Nikolic's sister, Luba Taylor. She said it's as if police allowed Lee to
"do as he pleases with our women and children" and that it's
"unforgivable" he wasn't stopped, especially after a rape allegation
just three years before her sister was murdered. Taylor said she
believes Nikolic would "be alive today if Lee had been arrested for the
brutal rape."
Lee has been diagnosed a "textbook psychopath." He
registered the highest scores on the test for the personality disorder
ever seen by Dr. Philip Klassen and Dr. Mark Ben-Aron.
Both expert psychiatrists testified Lee is untreatable
and, from their perspective, fits the criteria of a dangerous offender:
In short, they say lock him up until they find a cure.
Lee's background is vague. He said he was born in Jamaica
in 1960, but his mother, Ivy Fenton, testified she came to Canada in
1959. She said he was raised in St. Louis by his grandmother and "he
came back to us when he was 17."
Lee says he has sired up to 26 children -- "the ones I
know about ... I'm a good father." He said he's been married four
times, had eight "common-laws" and several relationships.
When he was arrested, court heard, Lee was involved with
five women: Three in Toronto, two in Detroit.
Lee told court that he once harboured a desire to be a
minister or a Detroit cop. While living in Toronto, he was a pro
bodybuilder nicknamed "Lightning," he bounced at a strip club and
allegedly owned a boxing club.
Swelling with pride, Lee told court he has toted a gun
since age 13. When the prosecutor pointed out that's illegal, he
replied: "You make it sound like it's something bad."
According to evidence at Lee's dangerous offender
hearing, his one-man crime wave began in 1980 when his mom, Ivy, babysat
a three-year-old girl.
The child became infected with gonorrhea. Medical tests
cleared all of her family members and, court heard, the focus shifted
when the tot told her mom: "Bunny did it." Melbourne "Bunny" Lee.
Lee was investigated by now-retired Toronto Police Sgt.
David Grinell, who testified he can't remember the 20-year-old case.
However, court heard the occurrence report he filed at the time in which
he said he interviewed Lee for two hours and felt afterward Lee could
never have committed such a crime.
He also wrote it's common knowledge that gonorrhea can be
"transposed" through contact with bed linen and toilet seats.
Meanwhile, Lee tested positive for gonorrhea. Dr. Peter
Schmalfuss testified he remembers the case because Lee was the first
asymptomatic carrier he's ever seen.
Grinell testified that after Lee was found to have
gonorrhea there should have been a continued investigation but he
doesn't know why it was not done.
Lee was never charged.
On the stand, Lee angrily denied sexually assaulting the
girl, and testified he didn't even know he'd tested positive: "Nobody
told me that I got no gonorrhea, understand. Ain't nobody say, 'Hey
nigger you got it'."
In other shocking testimony, a statuesque woman told
court Lee held a gun to her head and kicked her in the stomach while she
was pregnant, then raped her two weeks after she gave birth in 1987.
In 1990, she testified, Lee showed up at her home and
raped her again. Then, he laughed at her, saying nobody would believe
it. The woman said she reported the '87 assault, but court heard there's
no occurrence report and charges weren't laid.
Lee took the stand to say, "No, I did not rape her." In
fact, he said, "I still love her as a person. I don't hate her."
In 1988, Lee again faced allegations he'd sexually
assaulted and given gonorrhea to two children: An eight-month-old and a
three-year-old girl.
The elder girl, now a teen, was so afraid to testify she
had to tell her story over closed circuit TV in another room.
She told court that in addition to the assault at age
three, Lee also attacked her at age six in 1991. Court heard she's the
older sister of the nine-year-old girl Lee violated in 1997.
The girl testified that when she was six, Lee told her he
was going to have sex with her, but he would make it "easy" by putting
her to "sleep." He then demonstrated a choke hold on her, but the girl
escaped before he could rape her.
Weeping constantly, the girl testified that three years
later, in 1994, Lee did rape her.
And, in 1997, the girl told court, she sat in a stairwell
as her baby sister cried out "stop" as Lee viciously raped her. She said
she heard Lee say "shut up or else he would choke her."
Back in 1988, when Lee first started assaulting the
girls, he was charged by Peel Region police when the older girl told
them he put his "privacy" in her mouth. The charges were ultimately
withdrawn.
'300-POUND BRUTE'
It came out in court these officers were unaware of the
1980 allegations and that Lee had tested positive for gonorrhea.
In 1990, Lee was convicted of assault causing bodily harm
on a woman who alleged he had raped her in 1989.
While the jury acquitted him of sex assault, Justice Hugh
Locke said at the time Lee was a "300-pound brute" who might have killed
the victim. The woman testified Lee savagely raped and choked her,
causing hemorrhages to the roof of her mouth and her eyes. "I couldn't
see anything in front of my eyes ... he was shaking me and had his hand
around my throat and said, 'Take your clothes off or I'll kill you,' "
she testified. She said she hit him in the face with a phone and fled.
Locke said Lee reacted to an "infinitesimal" scratch to
his face. Lee said he "freaked," admitting he "went for her neck" and
lifted her off the ground by her throat. "The jury may well have been
lenient in its verdict," said Locke.
Lee was sentenced to six months.
This same victim testified again in 1999 still
maintaining she was raped. "I tried to fight him off," the woman
testified. "We were not involved. He forced me."
She told court: "I can still feel his hand around my
throat. I was afraid for my life."
Lee had another version, noting he was acquitted of sex
assault. He claimed they had consensual sex and she got angry and
scratched him. He admitted he choked her: "I lost it, okay, I lost it."
In 1991, Lee allegedly raped again, this time a
16-year-old girl. She testified Lee sexually assaulted her while he was
"choking me. He asked me if I wanted to die."
The girl blacked out and, when she came to, Lee was
sleeping beside her. She fled and made a hysterical call to police from
a phone booth, had a rape kit, ID'd Lee and took officers to the scene
where they seized bedsheets as evidence, she said.
She had bruises on her neck, face and eye hemorrhages.
Det. John Reynolds, the officer in charge of her
investigation, testified he believes he took out a warrant for Lee
sometime between the day after the incident and three months. However,
court heard no warrant was ever found or executed.
The victim testified she called Reynolds three times and
he finally told her he couldn't do anything because Lee was working for
the RCMP. Lahaie, meanwhile, testified Reynolds told another
detective the RCMP had asked him to hold off on the investigation
because Lee was assisting them.
Reynolds told court he can't recall the conversation.
When confronted with the victim's testimony, he said he must have told
her that but he should not have.
Reynolds also testified he can't remember who the RCMP
officer was and there is nothing in his notes about it.
Court also heard that all of the evidence -- the torn
nightie, sheets, and rape kit -- has been destroyed. Reynolds testified
he does not know who ordered the destruction.
(Lee testified he was not a police informant. "That's a
joke," he snorted. "I was never 5-0.")
Lee said he didn't know about the 1991 rape allegation
until 1997 after his arrest for the child sex attack.
"You can never forget you brushed with death and
evil,"said the victim. "I am scarred for life."
Lee was arrested six times between 1991 and 1997 on other
matters and a warrant for the 1991 incident was never executed,
court heard. Three other detectives testified they were involved
with Lee from '95-'97 but never saw a 1991 warrant.
On Dec. 4, 1994, Nikolic's body was found by her mom and
three-year-old daughter face down on a carpet stained with her blood. An
ugly wound revealed severed jugular veins and carotid artery. A knife
had repeatedly sawed at her throat, cutting deeply into her spine. Semen
was found on her body.
Court heard Nikolic, 37, was a stranger to Lee, who was
visiting a friend at the single mom's east-end apartment building when
he followed her into her home. Lee's explanation for his DNA was that
it was consensual sex, notwithstanding the fact she didn't know him.
The jury didn't buy it, even though, as Klassen says, Lee can be
incredibly charming and convincing -- hallmarks of a psychopath. Even
Klasssen found it an "extraordinary experience to meet" the textbook
psychopath.
Six weeks later, with Nikolic's blood barely washed from
his hands, Lee tried to replicate the same crime with another woman,
Zaied alleged. Court heard Lee was babysitting for the victim and, when
she came home, found him sitting in the dark in his underwear. She said
she went to bed and told Lee to wake her up on his way out so she could
lock up. Instead, the woman said she awoke to find Lee looming over her
and a knife embedded in her skull.
"I woke up with a knife in my head, " she said. Lee was
over her "cutting me ... my neck was slashed ... I grabbed the blade
when it was in my head, trying to fight him off. I said, 'What are you
trying to do, kill me?' " Lee then gave her a towel and fled.
"He's a sick, twisted individual."
Court heard a warrant was sworn for Lee's arrest and put
on the police computer in January 1995. He was arrested in October
1995. However, the victim didn't show for a preliminary hearing in
December and Lee got bail. Zaied alleges the victim was simply terrified
of the fiend.
Meanwhile, in August 1995, two months before he was
arrested for the stabbing, Lee allegedly stole a BMW owned by a Toronto
doctor, Ralph Osbourne. Osbourne reported it to police. Later that day
he got a tip that some of his stolen property was in a dumpster; oddly,
police allowed him to go alone to get it.
There, he found Lee shining his car.
He said he confronted him but Lee ran him over. As Lee
fled, Osbourne noted Lee's plate on his car -- HIGHKICK. A few days
later, Lee was stopped at the border in Detroit and detained. Detroit
detectives called Toronto police but Osbourne didn't learn for a month
his car had been found -- Toronto didn't tell him. Osbourne ultimately
picked Lee out of a photo lineup in Detroit; by then, Lee had been
released. Even though Detroit police told Toronto cops Lee was ID'd,
court heard a warrant wasn't issued. It's not known why.
Finally, in June 1996, Det. John Conroy learned about the
Osbourne case and, realizing there had been no probe, he investigated it
himself. Conroy learned Lee had been in custody on the knife attack but
was released on bail on condition he live at his mother's home. Court
heard Conroy tried in vain to find Lee there, but soon after he got a
call from Lee telling him to leave his mother alone or he'd "f------
kill him."
(One of the few times Lee showed any real emotion during
the hearing was concerning his "mamma," whom he asked the press not to
identify. "I don't want anyone messin' with my mamma. She's the only one
I got.")
It was the last Conroy heard from Lee until January 1997,
when the brute raped his last little girl. Lee has been in jail since
then. Perhaps forever.
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
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jenndon...@gmail.com
Greg Carr
mreva...@gmail.com
> Does anyone know where Melbourne Lee is now? There is hardly any information on this case and no current information. This guy should be notorious, but the internet is curiously absent of information.
Greg Carr
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/melbourne-lee-a-dangerous-offender-1.225395 he was declared a dangerous offender 20 years ago. Yet another reason for a return to capital punishment.