MANDEL: Mother and slain daughter finally reunited

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On the 40th anniversary of their breakup, they were finally together.

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On October 3, in the sunlit Queensville cemetery behind the farmhouse where nine-year-old Christine Jessop had disappeared exactly forty years earlier, her mother Janet was reunited with her slain daughter: her ashes were buried next to her daughter, just as she had wanted.

“It was a beautiful service,” says her son Ken. “I had my closure.”

Janet died in March at the age of 81, finally at peace with the knowledge that her daughter's killer had been identified after such a long wait. The breakthrough came in 2020 for a new forensic geneology scientific tool led by Toronto Police Detective Sgt. Steve Smith and his team investigating the case of Calvin Hoover, a former friend and neighbor of the Jessop family who escaped justice by taking his own life in 2015.

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The mystery that had tormented her for so long was finally solved. Her son Ken successfully defeated his demons and has just celebrated two years of sobriety. She thinks she has decided it is safe to go now.

And he knew that October 3 was the right day to bury his mother.

“It's been 40 years since Christine disappeared,” says Ken. “It seemed appropriate. I just feel good. They are getting back together after 40 years to the day.”

It was on this day in 1984 that Janet took Ken to the prison where his father, Bob, was incarcerated.

Heather Hoover and her husband had He worked with Christine's father at Eastern Independent Telecom – he was a cable installer, she was a dispatcher – and since they had children the same age, the families often met together. Heather she was one of only three people who Janet told that she was leaving Chrissie at home because she was too young to go to prison with them.

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Ken thinks Hoover must have overheard it. Now her killer had an opportunity – and the best bait he could imagine: an offer to take her to her father.

“She would go with him in a minute, even a split second,” Janet told me in 2020.

Three months after disappearing from their home in Queensville, Christine's body was found in a wooded area in Sunderland – about 50 kilometers away. She was raped and stabbed to death.

There was a neighbor called Paul Morin improperly convicted of murder and later acquitted with the advent of DNA testing. Janet and Ken never gave up hope of finding the real killer – even as the years turned into decades.

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Four years ago, Smith called and asked if he could come over. She thought it was for a friendly coffee and to keep her updated on his investigation.

He showed up at her door with a wide smile and told her to sit down.

“Are you ready?– he asked. “We know who it is.“

She remembered how the Hoovers would take their children to barbecues and all the children would run to the cemetery behind the house to play while she and Heather talked and the husbands disappeared with their beers. The Hoovers were looking for Chrissie; they went to her funeral.

Żaneta was stunned.

“Unfortunatelyit took me so long,” she told me shortly afterwards. “But we have the answer.”

She was finally free from the crushing weight of ignorance.

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During a private graveside service, her son told how Janet fought to the end – for both of her children.

“I talked about her strength – that was a constant theme that day,” Ken said. “I also talked about how she never gave up on me. “Her mission in life was to make sure I was okay.”

He remembered how she had come to spend a week with him in Fort Erie and what a beautiful visit it had been. The morning she left was his two-year anniversary of sobriety, and he still felt her frail arms gripping him tightly.

“She told me how proud she was of the man I had become,” Ken said. “Those were the last words she said to me.”

The only temptation to return to drinking came a week later when he received the call that his mother had died. But then he quickly dismissed the thought.

“She would kill me,” he laughed. “On a clear, blue day, there was lightning.”

mmandel@postmedia.com

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