By Nancy Hixt
Global News
Published March 2, 2020
3 min read
Meika Jordan was a bright, cheery and playful six-year-old. A perfect day in her world involved catching ladybugs and enjoying a Slurpee with her little brother. Out of the blue, on Nov. 13, 2011, there was a panicked call to 911 and the little girl was rushed to hospital.
Her father and stepmother told police Meika had fallen down the stairs.
But her injuries didn’t match that explanation.
Meika’s hair was matted and there were clumps missing.
Her tiny body was covered with bruises and a third-degree burn covered the palm of her hand.
She’d suffered severe abdominal injuries — there was a laceration to her pancreas and her liver was torn, but the worst injuries were to her head.
The following day, Meika died hospital.
Could a simple fall down the stairs cause such devastating injuries?
A lengthy investigation into her death immediately got underway, led by the Calgary Police Homicide Unit.
Meika was from a split family. She spent half of her time with her biological mother Kyla Woodhouse and stepfather Brian Woodhouse. The other half was spent with her biological father Spencer Jordan and stepmother Marie Magoon.
Early on, it became clear that only two people would have had the opportunity to kill Meika: Jordan and Magoon. What wasn’t clear was a motive: why would anyone kill a beautiful and innocent little girl?
The primary investigator assigned to Meika’s case, Calgary Police Homicide Det. Mike Cavilla, said his team worked around the clock trying to get the evidence needed to lay charges in the case. In the meantime, Jordan and Magoon moved on with their lives.
The couple didn’t spend time grieving the loss. Instead, the year that followed Meika’s death was a time of new beginnings and new business opportunities.
They finally had a social circle who understood them. They went on double dates, went out for drinks and enjoyed life.
One month shy of the first anniversary of Meika’s death, there was a major break in the case.
Police arrested Jordan and Magoon. The child’s own father and stepmother were accused of killing her.
That was the first step on the long road to justice for the little girl.
It was during the first-degree murder trial that details of the exhaustive police investigation were revealed.
Detectives used several undercover investigative strategies, including a “Mr. Big” sting operation — a technique which typically involve creating realistic scenarios with the goal of getting suspects to confess.
There are strict rules that officers have to abide by when conducting a “Mr. Big” sting operation, and following a 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, those confessions are presumed inadmissible in court.
In this case, undercover officers befriended Jordan and Magoon and invited the couple to join a made-up criminal organization.
They had to prove they could be trusted by confessing to a crime they were known suspects in: the death of Meika Jordan.
That included each suspect paying a visit to “Mr. Big” — an undercover officer playing the role of a crime boss.
That’s when investigators finally learned the extent of abuse Meika had suffered, starting with the horrible burn on her hand: Magoon had put Meika between her legs, grabbed her hand and burned it with a lighter.
Evidence showed the little girl had been tortured for days leading up to her death.
She was ordered to repeatedly run up and down the stairs and was beaten over and over.
Jordan admitted he hit his daughter in the stomach so hard that she fell over.
She also suffered several serious blows to her head.
At the end of the trial, Jordan and Magoon were convicted of the lesser charge of second-degree murder.
They were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years.
That’s when a flurry of appeals and court rulings began.
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The case would drag on before the courts for years, sending Meika’s mother and stepfather on an emotional rollercoaster.
Jordan and Magoon weren’t satisfied with being found guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder — they wanted their convictions overturned and their sentences reduced.
Meanwhile, prosecutors continued to fight to have the convictions upgraded to first-degree murder.
It was more than five years after Meika’s death that the Alberta Court of Appeal handed down a rare ruling: the convictions for Jordan and Magoon were both upgraded to first-degree murder. On Nov. 27, 2017 — just past the sixth anniversary of Meika’s death — that decision was upheld by Canada’s top court. It took nine Supreme Court Justices less than 10 minutes to rule on the case. Jordan and Magoon stand convicted of the first-degree murder of Meika Jordan.
You can watch Meika Jordan: The Broken Princess on Saturday, March 7, 2020, on Global Television.
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Development by Max Hartshorn