One ruling Waterloo Regional police didn’t know about was a 2018 decision criticizing the force for the tactics it used to ensnare Michael Ball, a Kitchener man who was later convicted of killing his former girlfriend, Erin Howlett, stuffing her body into a duffel bag and dumping it into the Grand River in 2013.
Several months into their investigation, undercover officers taped an envelope to Ball’s front door containing a newspaper article about the murdered woman’s disappearance. An anonymous handwritten note scrawled across it read: “I KNOW YOU KILLED HER YOU A--HOLE!”
Two weeks later, with a judge’s authorization, undercover officers staged a break-in at Ball’s residence. They damaged his front door to make it look like a forced entry, stole guns and drugs from a safe, and left a second handwritten note, scrawled across another article about Howlett’s disappearance that said: “I KNOW YOU DID IT AND NOW I HAVE PROOF!!”
Police knew Ball would call them to report the break-in, and when he did, homicide detective Richard Dorling and another officer who responded to the call used it as a chance to get him to answer questions about the murder. (The undercover officers who staged the break-in and left the notes were not identified in the ruling.)
At Ball’s 2018 trial, the judge found he “was made to believe that he was the target of threats” through “abusive” police conduct that “created an aura of violence” — a violation of Ball’s Charter rights.
While Dorling tried to keep his questioning about the supposed break-in and the homicide separate, the judge found, the “police conduct was designed to coerce Ball into speaking with them about the homicide.”
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The judge threw out the statements Ball made to Dorling and the other officer after the staged break-in.
