Wilson innocent?

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Hobbema Indian Wilson Nepoose is Alberta's Donald Marshall, says investigator Jack Ramsay.

Armed with new and old evidence showing that the 45-year-old Samson band member has already spent four years rotting behind bars for a murder he didn't commit, Ramsay says he wants a "full public inquiry" to investigate the reasons behind what he calls "a clear miscarriage of justice."

Marshall is a Micmac Indian who spent 11 years in a Nova Scotia prison convicted for a murder he didn't commit. Ramsay says I mirrors the Nepoose case because of similar circumstances - poor police work, prejudice, and perjured evidence.

The Marshal case led to a public inquiry that eventually concluded that Natives aren't treated the same as non-Native people by the judicial system.

A former RCMP officer, Ramsay says he believes Nepoose is in prison because he is Native. Nepoose is serving a life sentence.

Ramsay says the RCMP bungled the investigation even though they used "illegal threats and intimidation tactics" to get two key prosecution witnesses to lie on the stand.

He also charges the prosecution went after a conviction even though the evidence showed Nepoose was likely innocent. As well, Ramsay claims the defense lawyer did a lousy job.

Nepoose, currently kept in a constantly drugged state at Saskatchewan's maximum security Prince Albert Federal Penitentiary, has steadfastly maintained his innocence since his arrest in July, 1986, and subsequent conviction, for the strangulation murder of Rose Marie Desjarlais, of Edmonton, a couple of weeks earlier.

The Attorney General's office is currently reviewing the case, according to Ramsay, who was hired a couple of months ago by Nepoose's brother and sister-in-law who have spent a small fortune trying to prove Wilson's innocence.

Lester Nepoose, a Samson band councilor, says his brother was convicted because of lies told by the prosecutor's two main witnesses, and the failure of the judge, prosecution, and defense lawyer to ensure justice was properly served.

One of the witnesses has since dies, and the other, Delma Bull, told Ramsay that she was pressured by police into lying. Bull, who now lives in Valleyview, and couldn't be reached for comment.

Ramsay, Lester Nepoose and his wife Debbie, all contend "this case would never have gone to court" if Wilson were white - based on dubious witnesses, conflicting evidence, and an almost ironclad Wilson alibi showing he wasn't near the murder site at the estimated time of the killing.

The information uncovered by Ramsay is so strong the normally conservative Alberta Report, which often opposes any government concessions to Native people, did an usually long three-page cover story September 24, questioning Nepoose's conviction.

The full cover of the weekly newsmagazine was titled "WHITE MAN'S JUSTICE New Evidence : Maybe Wilson Nepoose didn't murder anybody after all."

Even the Edmonton Sun says transcript of court records it obtained "reveal conflicts between physical evidence and testimony which led to Wilson Nepoose's conviction" of second degree murder.

Willie Littlechild, the Tory MP for Wetaskiwin, which includes Hobbema, also compares the case to the Marshall case.