Police probe 1969 killing Hamilton victim's sons join former accused to demand answers
John Burman and Cheryl Stepan
TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE
 HAMILTON - Police will review a 32-year-old murder case after the victim's sons joined a man once convicted of the crime in demanding it be reopened.
The announcement to examine the case of taxi driver Gerald G. Burke, who was slain on Dec. 5, 1969, follows the launch of a $6.1 million lawsuit alleging that Hamilton investigators deliberately withheld key evidence at the time because it did not fit their theory of who committed the crime.
Gary Staples was convicted but later acquitted on appeal in the death of the father of two children. He served nearly two years in prison.
The suit filed by Staples and Burke's sons alleges investigators did not provide ``highly material evidence'' to the crown or Staples' lawyers. That evidence concerned two witnesses who saw three youths - possible witnesses or suspects - fleeing the scene.
The murdered cab driver's two sons, Darrin Burke and Robert Denison, were among the many who believed Staples was the one who fired the shots and left their father slumped in the front seat of his cab behind an industrial plant.
Not anymore.
A quest to get to know Gerald Burke, the father taken from them when they were just 1 and 2 years old, recently led to some stunning revelations about the investigation into his murder.
They now believe Staples didn't kill their father and yesterday stood beside him in a show of public support.
``Gary Staples didn't murder my father. Somebody else did, and I'd like to know who. If it was your father, I'm sure you'd like to know,'' Denison said at a news conference.
``What better way to have people believe you didn't do it than having the victim's sons sitting beside you?'' Darrin Burke said.
Besides reopening the investigation, Staples also wants an apology and a declaration from police that he did not kill Burke. That would free him of the shame and whispers he's faced in Dunnville for decades.
The statement of claim, which contains allegations not proven in court, maintains that Hamilton police conducted a malicious prosecution.
That is based in part on a note that Burke's sons and some law students uncovered in police files and suggestions that investigators deliberately suppressed evidence which could have exonerated Staples at the time.
Staples' ordeal began when he was dragged from his bed at gunpoint on April 26, 1970.
Police were led to his door by his jilted lover who gave them information on Burke's murder in exchange for leniency on robbery charges she was facing.
She said Staples had killed Burke for $40.
Staples thought the arrest was a trick until an officer waived an arrest warrant at him.
``At that point, I said if this isn't a joke, it's some kind of mistake. For months, I thought they made a mistake,'' Staples said in an interview.
But he was tried, convicted and given a life sentence.
Staples spent 22 months in prison before winning an appeal and was acquitted in a second trial after his mother found witnesses who corroborated his alibi - that he was getting his car fixed at the time of Burke's slaying.
``We have nothing to hide,'' Hamilton police Chief Ken Robertson said yesterday.
``If anything was done wrong, if anything needs to be followed up in investigation, that will be done.''
At the news conference, Staples' lawyer read a statement from Justice Walter Stayshyn, now a judge in the Ontario Superior Court and one of Staples' lawyers during his trials.
``I was upset and disappointed to learn long after the fact that material information was suppressed, which led to a miscarriage of justice, and to Gary Staples being imprisoned for almost two years for a crime he had not committed,'' Stayshyn's statement says.
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