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Violence in the News
Dead boy's stepmother reticent in chat with police Tracy Huffman, Staff Reporter Ron Bull/TORONTO STAR  INTERVIEWERS: Detective Rudy Pasini, left, and Detective Sergeant Terry Wark, outside court yesterday. "Speak to his father." Twenty-nine times in the last 30 minutes of a police interview about the suspicious death of her stepson Randal, Marcia Dooley told homicide officers just that. "Why was Randy beaten to that extent?" Detective Sergeant Terry Wark asks her. "Speak to his father," she replies. "You had no control over the father?" Wark continues. "Speak to his father," Dooley answers. Wark later asks about the same topic. "Randy had scars on his forehead, his neck, chest, stomach, back ..." "Speak to his father." "Buttock, legs," he continues. "Speak to his father." "He had fresh wounds," the detective tells her. "Where did he get fresh wounds?" Dooley asks. "On his back that still had the blood showing," Wark says. "No. That's not true. That's not true." And later in the interview Wark's partner, Detective Rudy Pasini asks her: "So you have seen all the scars on his body? Ah, they're hard to miss right?" "Like I said, anything pertaining to that, you speak to his father," she says. Yesterday Pasini who with Wark led the investigation into 7-year-old Randal's death was called to the stand. The videotaped two-hour interview was played in court and for the first time the jurors heard Dooley's voice and what she had to say to police the day her stepson was found dead. Marcia Dooley and Randal's father, Edward "Tony" Dooley, have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the Sept. 25, 1998 death. An autopsy concluded Randal died of a brain injury. His battered and emaciated body was covered in bruises, welts and scars; he had 14 broken ribs, a lacerated liver and a tooth in his stomach. At two minutes before 4 p.m. on Sept. 25, 1998 just eight hours after her husband Tony had called 911 to report his son was "stiff as a board" Marcia Dooley sat down with Wark and Pasini in a small office in 41 Division on Eglinton Ave. E. in Scarborough to talk. With her 5-month old baby in her arms, she told the detectives she had a great relationship with Randal, that he was her favourite and that she had never hit the boy. Court has heard from other witnesses that Marcia Dooley had beaten Randal several times for soiling himself or vomiting after a meal. Court has also been told Randal had become incontinent. In a statement made by her husband to police, Tony said the two didn't get along and that Randal didn't like Marcia. "Who does the disciplining of them?" Wark asks her, referring to Randal and his then 8-year-old brother Edward Jr., known as Teego. "I don't. I don't discipline them.... If they do something, I'll probably yell, but I don't discipline them.... He (referring to the baby) is my only one. I wouldn't want someone to be hitting my child, so I'm not going to hit someone else's child," Marcia Dooley says. "How about your husband? How does he discipline the boy?" Wark asks. "I know Randy had got beaten before by his father ... with a belt," she replies. But she insisted Randal had not been beaten in a month. Several times she told the officers Randal was not beaten the night before he was found dead, and that she was not upset that he had vomited twice that day and soiled his pants. Teego who testified earlier at the Superior Court trial told Mr. Justice Eugene Ewaschuk and the jury that Marcia Dooley had beaten Randal with a slipper the night before his death. He also said she put Randal fully clothed in a tub of cold water and left him there. Teego said he was the one to carry his brother out of the tub, change him and put him in bed. Randal was unresponsive. But Marcia Dooley told investigators that Randal fell from the top of his bunk bed and hit his head that night. She put cool water on his head and put him to bed, she said. "You're home with Randy, who is 7, who is vomiting twice, peed his pants, pooped his pants. You've got a baby. You didn't get frustrated?" Wark asks about the day before Randal's death. "Get frustrated for what? ... I'm telling you in your face, looking straight into your face and I'm letting you know. No, I did not hit Randal Dooley. No I did not. I did not hit Randal Dooley," she says. During one line of questioning, Wark asks her to explain the scars on Randal's body. "His father beat him," she says without obvious emotion. "Have you had a chance to see Randal's body?" the detective continues as she turns her head away from him. "Marcia, look at me. Marcia. Have you had a chance to actually see Randal's body? Can you explain to us how he got that many scars on his body?" "Like I said, his father beat him." Only once in the interview is Marcia Dooley clearly emotional. When talking about seeing Randal's body and realizing then that something was wrong, she cries. Randal was face down on the mattress when she went to wake him that morning. His hand was green and his mouth "had some funny look on it." She ran to the boy's father. She says she never entered Randal's room again that day. She tells Wark and Pasini she has never seen a dead body. "Does everybody get beaten like Randal?" Wark asks near the end of the interview. "Like I said the father is the person ... you should ask that. I'm not gonna answer that question 'cause it's not me to answer that question." "He's your son," Wark says. "Ask me about me," she replies. The trial will not sit for one week. It continues Feb. 18. |
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