A murder suspect interrogated for nearly 13 hours, while falling in and out of sleep, confined to a cold room, not given food until six hours after his arrest, and subjected to aggressive police questioning about his suspected involvement in the brutal stabbing of a businesswoman in a Mississauga parking lot.

That scenario might sound like a scene from a television crime thriller, where fictional detectives confront and accuse a suspect until they break. But in this case, it was real: a Peel police detective interviewing a man, who would later be convicted of first-degree murder. Later, Ontario’s top court ruled that the suspects lack of sleep and the “prolonged, aggressive questioning,” can be oppressive.

Peel police were desperate for a confession. So the officer applied the Reid interrogation technique, a coercive method with the end goal of getting a suspect to make incriminating statements.

When applied appropriately the Reid method can unearth confessions that lead to successful convictions, but experts and the courts agree that when misapplied it can cause a case to crumble, even when incriminating statements are made.

The court concluded that the trial judge deeming Ordonio’s 2015 statement to be voluntary “was tainted by error,” and that she “erred in her analysis,” and it resulted in the admission of the statement, which was central to the Crown’s case. The court has set aside Ordonio’s conviction, setting the stage for a new trial. 

Developed by American police officer John Reid in the mid-1900s, the Reid technique is an accusatory style of interviewing that assumes the subject of the interview is guilty. The chief purpose of the interview is to extract a confession or incriminating evidence.

RCMP Supt. Darren Carr, who has worked as an interview program manager and specialist suspect interviewer in British Columbia, said while there are pros to the Reid technique, a major downside is that it is guilt presumptive “and in situations where there was doubt whether the person committed the crime, you would interrogate them anyway.”

“We operated on the belief that an innocent person wouldn’t confess to a crime that they didn’t commit,” said Carr. “But we know that that’s actually not the case. People, for a variety of reasons, do confess to crimes they didn’t commit.”

With that in mind, Carr said that by 2017 the RCMP had initiated broad reforms of its interviewing practices after “we recognized there was problems. We needed to transform.”

Carr was part of a RCMP training division that spearheaded the shift away from the Reid technique to the less accusatory Phased model in B.C., that was then rolled out in detachments across the country. 

Canadian courts have been aware of the risks posed using the Reid technique since the early 1990s, particularly the risks of psychological inducements and oppressive circumstances, the appeal court noted, adding that several judges have used strong language to describe the oppressive nature of some interrogations where it was applied.

Jeff Kaplan, a forensic psychologist specializing in interrogations and wrongful convictions, said for decades Canadian police used accusatory interrogations because of their effectiveness in getting incriminating statements, while being indifferent to knowing that “innocent people are sometimes confessing too.”

He said there needs to be a broader more comprehensive critique of the system, that takes a look at accusatory and coercive techniques as a whole and how they increase the risk of false confessions and impact voluntariness.

He said by hyper-focusing on Reid, “I worry that other coercive occurrences might not receive their due attention.”

Carr, who was recently appointed as officer-in-charge of the Coquitlam RCMP Detachment said he “always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with,” the Reid method.

“If I’m browbeating someone for 13 hours, lying to them, threatening them, the statement is involuntary; it doesn’t matter what you call it,” Carr said, adding that he could only speak generally on the Reid technique, as he wasn’t fully informed on how it was applied in Ordonio’s case.

In May 2019, Ordonio was convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the April 8, 2015, stabbing death of Mississauga spa operator Ming-Chien (Teresa) Hsin. Two other men: Mark Dookhram and Eric Lu, Hsin’s son, have also been convicted of first-degree murder in what the Crown argued was a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Lu.

Hsin, 59, a well-known local business owner, was reported missing by her son, Lu, two days before her body was found slumped over the wheel of her parked BMW in a lot on Robert Speck Parkway, not far from her home in Mississauga.

In carrying out what the Crown called a contract murder, the prosecutor said that Ordonio was engaged to kill Hsin and he then brought in Dookhram to participate as a driver and to procure the vehicle that was used in the murder plot.

Central to the Crown’s case was a statement Ordonio gave to police on Nov. 10 and 11, 2015. The Crown conceded that absent the statement there was insufficient remaining evidence for successful prosecution, the ruling said.

The court found that parts of Ordonio’s statement to police were inculpatory, though they did not exactly correspond to the Crown theory of the case. He was found guilty in 2019.

Ordonio had complained about how cold it was in the interrogation room and several hours had passed before the police provided warmer clothing. Food was not given to the accused until roughly six hours after his arrest. 

The appeal court found the trial judge failed to factor in evidence of Ordonio falling asleep, even though the rules addressing the voluntariness and admissibility of confessions speak to how depriving a suspect of sleep “can create an atmosphere of oppression that leads to false confessions.”

Carr said Canadian police are now either using variations of the Phased or PEACE (preparation and planning, engage and explain, account, clarify, and challenge, closure, and evaluation) models, which are predominantly non-guilt presumptive and non- accusatory styles; or like in the RCMP’s case, a model, that incorporates large chunks of the PEACE technique and some elements of the Reid technique. Like any other police practice, the PEACE or Phased techniques can also be misapplied Carr said.

The PEACE model applies a cognitive process based on examination of the evidence. It begins with rapport building, and allows the suspect to give their full narrative of events. The investigator then breaks down the narrative into different categories, with the objective of gaining enough detail to lock the suspect into a very specific story. The investigator then examines the information they’ve received for plausibility and contradictions. The suspect is challenged over inconsistencies and asked to explain. If a suspect is lying they may be caught in lies until they’ve hung themselves with their own words and lying any further is no longer tenable.

Hybrid methods like the Phased model begin as an information gathering interview like PEACE. However, if a suspect is repeatedly caught in many contradictions and guilt looks probable an investigator may choose to shift into an accusatory interrogation. The accusatory portion of hybrid methods are typically a bit toned-down compared to Reid, and often don’t allow for interviewers to present false evidence or use harsher maximization techniques, such as tactics that emphasize proof of guilt, the severity of the charges, and/or the severity of the punishment the suspect is facing. 

Toronto police were among the first to start overhauling interrogation practices and spokesperson Stephanie Sayer confirmed that the Toronto Police College (TPC) has not taught the Reid method since 2012.

In 2013, Toronto adopted the PEACE model which Sayer said is “evidence-based and widely regarded internationally as best practice.”

To further mitigate the risk of false confessions and subsequent wrongful convictions, the TPC introduced a component addressing false confessions, voluntariness, reliability and admissibility, Sayer said.

She said TPC continues to evaluate police training “to ensure that it is up-to-date and legally sound.”

Peel Regional Police has not taught the Reid technique in any of their interviewing courses since 2018, when it moved to the PEACE model and Phased model in interview courses.

In 2015, Durham police also moved to the PEACE model. Sgt. Joanne Bortoluss told the Star that earlier this month, the Community Safety and Policing Act (CSPA) implemented a mandatory learning for senior investigators called Investigative Interviewing Techniques (IIT) delivered by Ontario Police College instructors.

“This new course does have Reid’s embedded into the course, however Durham Regional Police Service has told our members they are not Reid’s trained investigators, and the content is provided for information purposes only,” Bortoluss said.

York Regional Police (YRP) shifted to the Phased model in 2019, said Const. James Dickson. YRP has since developed its own course based on the Phased model.

The Ontario Police College teaches a course, which does have a session on the Reid technique, along with other approaches, said Ministry of the Solicitor General spokesperson Brian Gray, adding “it is up to individual police services to decide which investigative interviewing method to support.”

Carr is a proponent of applying a blend of techniques, including parts of Reid, so long as it’s done responsibly.

“We have to be bold sometimes,” Carr said, adding that officers are now trained to have reasonably objective evidence to put to the person before engaging in an accusatorial interview.

Carr said the Reid technique does have its upside, especially in cases where police are interviewing someone they suspect has committed an emotive type of crime, like a husband killing his partner.

“You help people to sort of come up with a face-saving reason as to why they committed the crime.”

Matthew Torigian, a former chief of police for the Waterloo Regional Police Service, said it’s time to have a critical look at the current patchwork of different techniques being used to see if it can be streamlined into a more uniform system of mandatory standards.

“The one piece that’s missing in Ontario right now is a body that could be the eyes and ears for the development of research-based and evidence-based policing practices that inform a standard,” Torigian said, adding that interview technique reforms to date have been done in a piecemeal and ad hoc way.

Many of these courses are taught by the various police colleges, so police services can choose or develop a technique they think works for them, so long as it meets compliance set by the ministry, he said.

Torigian, who also served as Ontario’s Deputy Solicitor General, said policing could benefit from a single institute or body tasked with doing an overall analysis of cases, research data and examining the various interviewing techniques to drive the design of best practices and mandatory standards.

Carr said there are guardrails set out by the Canadian legal system that are aimed at keeping interrogators on track with getting voluntary statements from suspects, when the Reid method or elements of it is being used. 

“If that isn’t being done, then the Reid technique can be a very dangerous technique,” he said.

With files from Wendy Gillis