Docuseries ‘Darkness in Daylight’ to explore the murder case of Christine Jessop | The Canadian News

TORONTO – The creator of an upcoming documentary series about the 1984 murder of a Ontario girl says the project will allow his family to finally speak their full truth.

Toronto Folklaur actress and producer Chevrier says she has exclusive rights to the story of nine-year-old Christine Jessop and is developing “Darkness in Daylight” with the permission of the family, including mother Janet Jessop and her brother Kenneth Jessop. .

Christine disappeared on October 3, 1984 while on her way to a park to meet a friend after school in the southern Ontario town of Queensville. His body was found on New Year’s Eve that year, in an Ontario farm field about 55 kilometers away.

In 1995, DNA evidence exonerated Guy Paul Morin, who had been convicted of first degree murder in a retrial three years earlier.

In October 2020, the case took another major turn: Toronto police said DNA evidence indicated that the late Calvin Hoover had sexually assaulted Jessop and was the likely murderer. Hoover, who died by suicide in 2015, had lived close to Christine’s family.

Chevrier says he wants to do the true crime limited series because he feels Christine needs a voice.

“We have all heard the story of Guy Paul Morin, respectfully, but we have never heard of Janet and Kenneth Jessop; we have never heard an unpublished version, we have never heard its truth and we have never heard why his life has been hell, “Chevrier said in a telephone interview.

Chevrier said its journey with the case began more than a decade ago when an anniversary made headlines. “There were some other events” that Chevrier took as a cue to investigate the story, saying she became “engrossed and almost obsessive about it.”

The founder of production company Folklaur Films said she initially planned a project for the big screen and reached out to the Jessop family’s attorney Tim Danson, met with Janet and Kenneth in person in Keswick, Ontario, and spoke with her father. Christine, Bob Jessop, on the phone. Chevrier also met Morin and his mother, Ida.

With all the material gathered, Chevrier realized that it would be better to turn it into a television series in three or four parts.

Then the project “went completely in a different direction” with last year’s news about Hoover.

“We had to change the entire trajectory of the story and the series, because now the case is solved,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we have an ending. There really isn’t, because … for the Jessops, essentially, it’s not about closure for them.

“They will always be missing half of their hearts. They will always be the mother of a murdered daughter and the brother of a murdered sister. For them, it’s about moving forward and, for the first time, speaking their truth. “

Chevrier said it does not have a station but is “in the process of finding who will be the right one to run this project and broadcast it.”

She plans to go into production next year and feature the Jessops as key themes. While the family has given interviews before, “they always had to be very careful what they said and frankly they were afraid to tell the truth,” he said.

Chevrier also plans to interview Hoover’s now ex-wife Heather for the series.

He said the Jessops “face guilt and more questions than they have had in the last 36 years,” and wonders: “How can the perpetrator be someone close to them, someone who helped in the search, someone who I help?”

“They are full of anger and also pain and disbelief,” he said.