Death's Shadow by Jon Wells Page A

that it would go like this. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of having his name out there, but knew it was probably inevitable. Still, while relieved to hear that Carl was in custody, he was fearful, if Carl was released or found not guilty in court, that he’d be coming after Shane and his family. When the detectives told him that Carl had been taken into custody for a charge in Brantford, fear rippled through him. He wondered if Carl had ended up in Brantford looking for him, to exact payback.
    Shane told Don Forgan everything Carl had confessed to him. As he spoke the goosebumps returned; Shane shook with the memory of that night. He was going to be an effective witness on the stand, Forgan reflected. The detectives dropped Shane off at his home. Warren Korol turned to Shane’s wife, Shannon. “You should be proud of your husband,” he said. “He did the right thing.”
    Forgan now tightened the screws on the case. He found a man living in Toronto named Paul, who had been a previous tenant at 781 King East, Charlisa’s apartment. Carl’s confession to Shane had suggested that Carl killed Pat and Charlisa out of mistaken identity — that he intended to get payback on a drug dealer. The man named Paul admitted he had indeed known Carl and sold him drugs. There had been a dispute between the two.
    Was it enough to offer a motive? Perhaps it was, given that Carl was a man prone to anger and violence, and that he was routinely high on crack for days at a time. And Forgan now knew, through Shane, that Carl was feeling anger the weekend of the double murder for not being allowed to see his daughter on Father’s Day.
    On April 16, 2002, Carl Hall was charged with the murder of Charlisa Clark and Pat Del Sordo. Before the news was released to the media, Forgan informed the families. When he met with Charlisa’s mother, Sue Ross, she wept, feeling pain and regret. The murders, she now knew, were a random act. Her Char had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She couldn’t help but reflect that if Sue had helped find Char a different apartment than the one on King East, her girl would be alive. Don’t do that to yourself, others told Sue. She could not have known what would happen. Yes, yes, of course, Sue knew all that, the logic of it, but it was no good. She had failed to protect Char. The guilt would not fade; Sue could not stop retracing her steps, as though doing so might retroactively turn back time and alter Charlisa’s fate. Why that apartment, of all the places in the city? For that matter, why did Sue even have to get remarried — if she hadn’t, maybe she would have lived with Char, in a nice house, and she’d still be alive.
    A week after the arrest, Forgan came by Sue’s house for Eugene’s fifth birthday party. The boy now knew that the bad man was in jail. He cheered when he heard the news. It was, Eugene thought, the best birthday present ever.

— 15 —
    Bitter Justice
    At the preliminary hearing, family members of Jackie, Charlisa, and Pat heard details of the murders and watched video of the crime scenes. At one point Ruth Del Sordo experienced something very odd. She was certain, after a court officer turned on the crime-scene video from the apartment, showing her murdered son’s body, that while the judge and lawyers could see the images on the screen, she could not. The picture appeared fuzzy; she could not make out anything. To her it was as though a higher power was protecting her from seeing Pasquale like that.
    Charlisa’s father, Al Clark, meanwhile, confined to his wheelchair, burned with rage seeing Carl Hall in the prisoner’s box at the hearing. If he were able, he felt that he would jump over the barrier and take the guy out himself.
    Jackie McLean’s older sister, Cindy, was a regular in court. At times she cried, but other times she just felt so angry. She felt like she could kill Carl if she had the chance. She stared at him in court, trying to make eye contact, send a