I would just like to make a note here about this story. Due to the sensitive nature of the incident in the second part of this story I have altered some of the details and gave fictitious names for the locations and persons to respect the privacy of the victim and her family in this matter.

Your birthday is an important day in your life.   It is the day you came into being, the day you began this great journey of life.   Most of us celebrate this day and we receive a gift or two, blow out the candles on a cake and maybe go to a favorite place for a meal.   It is a day that is unique to you.   I know we live in a world of almost 8 billion people and there are only 365 days in a year with exception of a leap year, so you are likely sharing this day with millions of people.  While that is true, it is also true that each person in this world is unique and the fact your birth occurred on a certain day, marks it as yours.

I have believed for years that something wonderful will occur on your birthday.   Sometimes it will be obvious like coming into some money but more times it is something minor.   It does happen and if you don’t see it, just be patient it will show up when the time is right.   This belief originally started in 1982 which I will allude to later, but I didn’t really think of it as special until after I won a large sum of money in 1987.  At the time, we lived in Marystown, Newfoundland and Labrador, a small community of around 5,000 people.   I was in my fourteenth year of working with the RCMP and I was stationed at the detachment which was responsible for policing not only Marystown but all the communities from Frenchman’s Cove to English Harbour East.   My sons were 8 and 10 years of age at the time and they played basketball at school.   As with many school activities there was fundraisers and, in the fall of 1986 both my sons had to sell tickets to raise money for the Newfoundland Basketball association.

First prize was ten thousand dollars, certainly a wonderful prize but as with many fundraisers you are only donating your money because the chances of winning are very unlikely.   Our boys only had a few tickets to sell but like most children they weren’t great salespersons.   Finally, the time came to turn in the tickets, and they had two left so rather than let them go to their coach empty handed we bought the tickets.   The draw date was early in January 1987 and that date came and went so we figured we had made a charitable donation again.

On the morning of my birthday, I was sleeping on the couch.   I had worked the late shift and went to bed when I got home.   A few hours later, I got up with the kids to get them off to school and when they left, I was still tired, so I plopped down on the sofa.    I was awaked by the phone ringing and I answered it.  The man on the other end identified himself a being with the basketball association.   He explained they had made the draw in January but the person who had the winning ticket could not be found.   He further stated the Lottery Licensing Board had advised the association that due to a winner not being found they had to make the draw again and my name had been drawn.   He then asked for my mailing address and after a few pleasantries were exchanged we hung up.   I had mixed feelings about this as I felt it could be someone from the office playing a trick.   I often played tricks on my co-workers so it was not beyond comprehension that they would try to get me back.   Sharon got up a few minutes later and she asked who was on the phone and I told her.   She started to get excited, but I told her of my suspicions and suggested we wait until we got the cheque before we jump for joy.   She told me not to be so foolish, how would your office workers know about those tickets.   She was right but the suspicion wouldn’t let go.   My suspicions were ended a few weeks later when the cheque came in the mail.   The money was a great windfall and it went to pay a lot of bills.   We were a young family and had just bought our first house.   Money was tight and this was a nice little boost to our financial state.   That was probably when I began thinking there was truth to something extraordinary, related only to you, occurred each year on your birthday.   However, as I stated previously, this originated in 1982 when a more somber event happened.

The thing with being a police officer is at some point maybe early, maybe late you realize what it is to be a cop.   Pretty obvious you are probably thinking and while I won’t deny that, it is something more.  Enforcing the law, responding to calls and lots of things come to mind when you talk of policing and the people behind the uniform.   These things are part of it but what ‘being’ a policeman or woman is that feeling you get when you ‘get the bad guy’.   When you drag their sorry ass to court so they can ride the wheels of justice.   Funny thing is, for the most part there are no bad guys just people who made bad mistakes and processing them through the justice system is one way of maybe helping them back to the right side of the law.   Sometimes you get this early in your career, sometimes later, and some get more of it but no mater when or how much you get, it is your reason for going in early, for staying late.   Unfortunately, policing is not a nine to five job.   The criminals don’t quit at five.   I say unfortunately, because it is… to you and to your family.    When I was working It was a constant internal battle to maintain a balance between family and work.   You realize when you are older which one is more important, but I am speaking as a young man now.   When you make an arrest on a case you are working on, it is like all is right with the world for just a few moments.   You’ve done something that counts, that maybe changes something in some small way.   That you have mattered just a little in this big world.   I am not the greatest police officer, far from it but I have had this feeling a few times during my working life.

This brings me to my story.   I received a call on the 26^th of January 1982 regarding an assault in Tudor Harbour however with few details.   I had been posted to Shallow Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador since September of 1981.  The detachment area covered the communities from Woodsmith to Tudor Harbour with a population spread over these communities of about 7,000.   Tudor Harbour is about an eighty-minute drive from the detachment office.  When I got there, I tracked down the complainant who advised she was not the victim of the crime and did not know any details.   She introduced to me to another woman, a few years older than her.   She gave me her name, Marion (not her real name) and I interviewed her.   Marion was about twenty-five and somewhat mentally challenged but she was articulate enough that I could understand her.   She related that her father, Charles (not the real name) had hit her with his hand in the head.   There was no indication of any bruising or marking and she told me that no one was around when this happened.   I was not hopeful for any prosecution, but I continued to press her for details.   Out of the blue, she said, “I’m lucky cause that’s all that happened to me because my sister, Gwen (not her real name) had a baby for him and the baby died”.

Her remarks stunned me for a moment.  A daughter had a baby for her father.  I was not unaware of this type of thing happening, but it was the first time I was close to it.   Incest was something that would stain on the mind of the victim forever.   I gained my composure and I asked for more details, but she could offer little other than she thought the baby had been born in the hospital in Trout Port.    I wanted to speak to Gwen but I didn’t want to go to their house for fear I might alert the potential offender pre-maturely so I asked her if she could get Gwen to meet me.   It was Saturday and so I suggest she have Gwen meet me by the school parking lot in an hour.   There were no cell phones at that time, so I had to roam around the area to kill time until the meeting.

I parked on the school lot about ten minutes before the scheduled meeting and spent the waiting time wondering if this Gwen would show.   The hour completed and no sign of anyone coming.    I decided to wait for a bit, and I was rewarded for this when I noted a solidary figure approaching on the road.   As she neared the police vehicle, I could see she was a petit teenage girl with shoulder length straight hair.   Her face showed stress and nervousness as she quietly spoke.   “I’m Gwen.”  I asked her to sit in and she did obediently.   I told her about my conversation with her sister, Marion and asked what she could tell me about this.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”  Her voice was low and shaky.

“If this happened to you, I can help.”  I spoke in a confident tone but inside I wasn’t sure of what I could do.

“I know but I don’t want to talk.  I am leaving here soon so it will all be behind me.’’  She said.  The tone of her words could not hide that she knew this was untrue.

I asked her if she would come to the office to talk about this, telling her I could get her some place safe to stay.   She looked at me with those puppy dog eyes, and I knew the answer before she answered.

“I can’t.”

Desperately, I tried to convince her that I could help but she just looked at me with those eyes.  Those trapped eyes pleading for rescue but her voice unable to aid in her escape.   I got her full name and her date of birth.   She was 18 years old.   After a few moments of silence, I wrote down my phone numbers including my home number and gave it to her.   She took the piece of paper and stared at me as she opened the car door and left the vehicle.   She walked away turning back and looking at me.   Don’t give up I seemed to hear in my head and unknowingly I spoke aloud ‘I won’t’.

But I did, I am ashamed to say.   Not right away.   I did try to get information from the Trout Port hospital regarding this, but I was reminded quickly by the doctor I spoke to that I didn’t have a consent.   He was shocked that I would even make such an inquiry.   Some investigations don’t give you a lot to work with, so you have to fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best.   Sometimes it works and like in this case, sometimes it doesn’t.   I didn’t let that stop me and I later spoke to a physician friend who unofficially let me know Gwen did have a miscarriage within the past two years.   I had something to corroborate the truth of the incident but that was no where near enough without a victim or witnesses.   I would maybe interview the father at some point giving consideration first to the safety of his family but at this stage, I had little more than nothing.

Shallow Harbour was a busy detachment and the calls did not stop because you had a serious case in your file load.   I got tied up in other investigations for the next few weeks but in the silent times I frequently thought of Gwen and racked my mind for ideas to move forward with this.   The night before my birthday our two small sons were in bed and my wife and I were in the living room.   She was reading and I was watching TV (we only had two channels back then CBC and NTV and NTV was snowy at best if there was no wind and you had the antenna was in the right direction).  I drifted off thinking about this file.   It was three weeks old and I needed something to report as the diary date was due but what.    At twelve midnight, my wife, Sharon came over to me and gave me a kiss.  “Happy birthday.”  I came out of my daze, smiled and thanked her, quietly grateful for her and my sons.

The next morning, I can’t be certain, but I believe it was early, the phone rang.   I answered it quickly, knowing it was work.   A timid voice spoke, “I’m ready, ready to talk.”   It was Gwen and I asked where she was, and she told me she was at a friend’s house.   She had gone there last night for a sleep over she had told her father which was true, but her motive was much different.   I wrote down the address and told her I would be there within the hour.   I dressed immediately and told Sharon I would be gone for most of the day.   I took a quick peep in the boys’ room where they were still sleeping, and I left the house.   At the office, I grabbed the keys to the police vehicle and rushed towards Tudor Harbour.  Butterflies invaded my stomach as I turned onto the highway.

I found the friend’s house and Gwen was waiting outside with a small tattered overnight bag.   She got in the front seat and I asked if she was okay.   She was.   We drove in mostly silence exchanging a few pleasantries along the way.   I explained what would be happening once we got to the detachment, I would interview her and after I would see she had a safe place to stay.   She looked small in the seat beside me, but I could feel the courage she had found.   I wrote page after page of her account of the horrifying events she recounted over three hours or so.   How her father had made her wash and shave him in the kitchen initially but then moved this to the bedroom.   How her father had threatened her, her mother and her sisters with knifes and a shotgun many times over the years.   Lining them up in the kitchen while he raged about the wrong, they had done him while threatening them with the shotgun and or the knife.   The ‘sex’ started after they moved the ‘washing’ to the bedroom with her father forcing her to fondle him.  Sometime later it evolved into intercourse.   She was maybe 13 when this began, and it continued for years.   Then one day sometime after she turned 16, she was pregnant.   She stressed over this, knowing she had to tell her father because soon she would be showing, and others would know.   When she did, he blew up and spewed his anger at her for being so stupid to let this happen.   A day or so later, he came to her and told her he wanted her to go in the basement and jump off the stairs continually to stop the pregnancy.   Fearing reprisal, she obeyed.   She was not certain if this did anything but the spring of 1981, she was having pains in her abdomen.   When her father found out he drove her to the hospital in Trout Port and she went in.    A few hours later she had a miscarriage.   She told the medical staff she did not know the father; he was just some guy that she met.   They believed her, she guessed and shortly after she was released to go home with her father.    It was a silent trip.   Her father never spoke on the trip home and thankfully, after that the sexual encounters stopped.

I called Social Services and once I explained what I was investigating, they quickly got a place to stay for Gwen and I drove her to the house they had arranged.    I stood with her for a few moments while she met the people of her new abode and then I extended my hand to her.   She grasped my hand tightly and looked at me again with those eyes.   They were not pleading now; they were cautiously optimistic.   I spoke breaking the silence and said.

“Now you got my numbers.   Call me if you need anything.”   She nodded and I left her on the steps.   She was closing the door and I drove away.

___

The next day I called the Trout Port GIS (General Investigation Section) and they came down to assist me.   We attended the residence and found the father.   He had gotten wind of Gwen’s actions not long after she left the community and he had faked a suicide attempt in order to garner sympathy from the family and of course, Gwen hoping she would reconsider her actions.   He had rigged some PVC pipe and some rubber hosing to the exhaust of his truck and then into the cab of the truck.   The idea was to gas himself with the exhaust, but it was only an attempt to guilt his family and save himself.   The miserable excuse for a human being admitted to having sex with his daughter but said she consented.   He wasn’t a very intelligent person but smart enough to know what he did was terribly wrong, yet his warped mind justified his cruel deeds.    He would later force this matter to a trial and drag his family through his crap.  Despite that he was eventually convicted and sentenced to over four years in jail.   Hardly seems like enough, does it.

___

Back to the night that I had left Gwen on the steps of her temporary residence and drove home in the darkness.  It had been a long day.   As I drove, I felt the rawest emotions that I had ever felt welling up inside me.  I pulled in my driveway and parked.   I sat with the engine running for a few moments to regain my composure before I went into the house.   Packing everything in a little compartment deep within your brain because that what you do, right.   I breathed deeply and thought as I walked up the stairs, ‘This day was special.’   The door quickly opened, and Sharon and the boys were there singing, “Happy birdday to you…”   Special, more than you could ever know.