Diamonds are forever

It was a two line news release that said nothing.

"Cst. Clark Winterton has resigned. The internal investigation is concluded."

What investigation? Why would the up-and-coming son of the former chief of police in Vancouver resign?

Hard-nosed assignment editor Keith Bradbury wanted to know. I was assigned a top cameraman and told to get to the bottom of it.

Day after day, Bill Szczur and I would sit in the press room at Vancouver Police headquarters and make calls, meet people, sniff for any hint of what it was about.

We got nothing. Every day, day after day, Bradbury would send Szczur and me back.

Finally, on Friday, after an extremely frustrating week, we discussed how we would try to convince Bradbury to give us a break and put us onto something else.

Almost at 4 pm, a senior detective stuck his head in the door of the windowless press room. He asked if we were alone. He said this did not come from him.

The Winterton case was all about a million dollar ring, a robbery, and a ransom.

It involved a Police Board member who had initiated the internal on behalf of a golfing buddy. That’s all he’d say.

We started phoning golf clubs and police board members. We quickly discovered the Board member’s friend, who identified the complainant as John Fairburn, a retired timber barron who’s home had been broken into while he and his wife were away down south.

When he learned that his children had used a Vancouver police officer to ransom the ring back from the thieves for $5,000, to save their mother heartache on her return, he smelled a rat.

John Fairburn knew the recovery story was bogus and he knew who to turn to.

It was now nearly 5 pm, and after a number of tries, we reached Fairburn on the mobile [pre-cell] phone in his Rolls Royce as he headed for Yuma, AZ, and more golfing.

Fairburn was polite but very firm. They got the ring and the ransom money back, the cop resigned, the case was closed. He and his wife were on vacation, an interview was out of the question and – – please don’t call back.

Szczur and I headed for my home in Kitsilano where he made calls trying to book a flight to Yuma while I threw clothes in a bag. The closest we could get was a 9 pm to San Diego, where we would pick up a Lincoln Mark VII with moonroof and air conditioning for driving across the desert at night.

The next day we intercepted Mr. & Mrs. Fairburn in Yuma and convinced them to join us for a chat hotel poolside. Szczur, who is a big golfer, kept the conversation going for two hours while I got a spliting headache in the blazing sun.

Eventually I persuaded them to come inside our suite where the air conditioning had been running full-tilt for two and a half hours. The camera and lights were all set up. We pleaded for a brief on-camera clip so we didn’t have to go home to Bradbury embarassed and empty-handed.

John Fairburn did the talking, his wife modelled the giant emerald ring, surrounded by diamonds.

It was a gift to her after he had made his first million. She had had it for decades.

We returned to Vancouver, and went looking for the ex-cop. We found him head-first down a hole in his front yard, apparently fixing a broken water pipe. He wouldn’t come out of the hole for anything.

We put the story to air, BC’s attorney general saw it, ordered an investigation.

The ex-chief’s son was charged and convicted.

The story which revealed the crime and the cover-up, won the first Webster Award.