Murder verdict for Douglas Hales in death of Daleen Bosse

Watch above: Queen’s Bench judge finds Douglas Hales guilty of the 2004 murder of student, wife, mother, Daleen Bosse. Joel Senick has details on the second-degree murder conviction.

SASKATOON – Douglas Hales, the prime suspect in the murder of Daleen Bosse, has been found guilty. Hales was convicted of second-degree murder Wednesday morning in front of a packed Saskatoon courtroom.

Bosse, 25, was married with a young child and nearing completion of her teaching degree at the University of Saskatchewan when she was last seen at a downtown Saskatoon nightclub in the early morning hours of May 18, 2004.

“She was a beautiful niece,” said Edna Bignail outside of court. “You really want to meet somebody who has life, happiness, joy, that’s her, that’s exactly who she was.

“We don’t have that from her, she’s gone, he took her life because he figured she was just another Indian woman, somebody that didn’t count.”

Hales, 36, was also found guilty of offering an indignity to a body after Bosse’s burned remains were found in a wooded area north of Saskatoon in August 2008, over four years after she was last seen.

Hales was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 15 years, five more than the minimum amount for a second-degree murder conviction.

“I think it’s was important that he increased the period from the minimum 10 to reflect some of the factors that I talked about in court, the circumstances surrounding her death, her vulnerable position,” said Senior Crown Prosecutor Matthew Miazga.

“It was almost inevitable that the parole in-eligibility period would be raised, so that wasn’t unexpected,” said Hales’ lawyer Bob Hrycan.

“He deserves what he gets, he really does,” said Bignail. “He hurt everyone, the whole family. He hurt us, he ripped us apart.”

“I hope someday that he’s going to feel all the pain that we all feel.”

In handing down his verdict, Judge Gerald Allbright found Hales’ admission during a “Mr. Big” undercover police sting operation met the test set out by the Supreme Court of Canada. Police testified Hales confessed to the murder as part of the sting.

A recent Supreme Court decision has placed restrictions on confessions obtained through those means; however, Albright found the confession admissible in this case.

“I think it’s important because it’s now a practical example of how that Supreme Court case should be applied to real life situations,” said Miazga.

Hales’ defence attorney said he plans to appeal the conviction of second degree murder.

Allbright also rejected Hales testimony that Bosse died of alcohol poisoning.

Bosse’s car was discovered a month after her disappearance in Saskatoon’s Sutherland area by a friend of her husband. It was the same neighbourhood Hales was living in at the time of the murder.

The case went cold until 2008 when Hales became the target of a “Mr. Big” sting operation. Undercover officers recruited Hales into a phony criminal organization offering him cash and beginning to build a trusting relationship with him.

MORE: Timeline of tragedy

While Hales was a suspect from the outset, there was no evidence to justify charging him with the death of Bosse. That prompted a sting operation known as “Operation Frendo” that would commence on May 6, 2008 as undercover RCMP officers made 35 points of contact with Hales.

Over a three-month period, Hales was integrated into the fictitious criminal organization and eventually it led to a meeting with “The Boss.” During a 47 minute discussion, Hales told “The Boss” he went with Bosse in her car to a remote area and when “the evening didn’t go as he was hoping it would,” he killed her and burned her body.

Hales would then take undercover officers to her remains, a wooded area north of Saskatoon. He admitted to the officers that he had gone there months after the murder to see if he could see any trace of what happened.

Court heard an audio recording of the trip. When Hales was asked what he was thinking when he killed her, he responded with “All the anger, all the ways people screwed around with me.”

Hales was sent to Vancouver so police and forensic experts could process the scene.

On Aug. 10, 2008 he was arrested upon his return to Saskatoon at the Home Depot parking lot in the 700-block of Circle Drive East and charged with first-degree murder as well as offering an indignity to human remains.

Four-and-half-hours of audio was recorded following Hales arrest. During the interrogation, police revealed the sting operation to him.

During the trial, the defence called the sting a “protracted interrogation” involving interrogation tactics. As a result, the defence argued that when Hales learned of the operation it was crushing psychologically.

“Hales’ life for the past three months was shattered in front of him.”

During the interrogation, some three-and-a-half hours on video, Hales told police that he and Bosse partied the night she disappeared but at some point she stopped talking, stopped moving and he thought he had killed her with alcohol. When he couldn’t find a pulse on Bosse, he panicked and lit her on fire.

When police asked why they should believe this version of the story and not the one he told undercover agents, Hales said he was trying to impress them.

As the trial entered its fourth week, the defence called its first witness, who told a different version of the story of how Bosse may have died.

According to a toxicology expert, Bosse’s blood alcohol level, based on calculations from the night in question, was within a lethal range that could have resulted in alcohol poisoning as a cause of death. The expert did admit the most accurate way to determine a person’s blood alcohol level is through a blood sample.

After several weeks, Douglas Hales took the stand and admitted to partying with Bosse.

According to Hales testimony, they went to a bush party location and he noticed she appeared to have fallen asleep while the two were talking. He left the vehicle to finish his drink and upon returning he couldn’t wake her, asking her over and over if she was alright.

When he couldn’t find a pulse, Hales testified he panicked and was in no condition to drive her to the hospital.

“I decided I didn’t want to be charged with murder,” Hales said and laid Bosse down in a fire pit and lit her on fire.

Hales testified to telling police during that interview that Bosse died accidentally of alcohol poisoning and when they didn’t believe him, he “lied his way out of the room”.

Under cross-examination, Crown prosecutor Matthew Miazga listed a series of lies the murder suspect had told including several he told an officer on April 6, 2005 during a voluntary interview.

During testimony, Hales said he believed audio recordings and the crime scene video were tampered with and parts of audio recordings were not completely and accurately transcribed.

In late June, closing arguments in the trial were made with a verdict set for Aug. 29.

Judge Allbright had to sift through five weeks of evidence and testimony to decide if Bosse died of alcohol poisoning as alleged by the defence or if her death was the result of Hales strangling her or did he place her in a fire pit without him knowing she was dead or alive.

All that changed on July 31, 2014. The Supreme Court of Canada tightened the rules regarding “Mr. Big” stings, stating confessions obtained in those scenarios were no longer admissible unless the Crown could prove otherwise.

The trial verdict process ground to a halt as the defence called on the judge to declare a mistrial. On Sept. 22, the judge rejected the application and later an application by defence to reopen the case.

With the guilty verdict, Douglas Hales receives an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.

With files from Joel Senick and David Giles