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The
Kalichuk File
When Lynne Harper's body turned up nearly naked in the bush
near Clinton, the police made no attempt to check out the
whereabouts or activities of known sexual deviants in the
region.
It
was a shame. Because perhaps the OPP would have uncovered
the case of the pedophile who had tried to pick up little
girls just three weeks before Lynne was murdered.
The
man's name was Alexander Kalichuk. At thirty-five, he was
a sergeant in the air force, stationed at RCAF Station Aylmer
after seven years at the Clinton base. Sgt. Kalichuk was a
troubled man, a heavy drinker with a history of sexual offenses.
He lived in a farmhouse less than a 20 minute drive from the
Clinton base. Alexander Kalichuk drank himself to death in
1975.
Kalichuk's
convictions in 1950
In 1950 he had two convictions for indecent exposure in Trenton,
where he was stationed. Click the images to view the evidence:
Kalichuk's
1959 arrest
Just about three weeks before Lynne Harper's murder, Kalichuk
stopped three young girls on a country road outside St. Thomas,
Ontario. He tried to lure one of them, a 10-year old, into
his car . He was later arrested by the OPP and charged, but
a judge dismissed the charge - just 12 days before Lynne Harper
disappeared. Here is a military document which summarizes
the case - click the image to view it.
The
incident at Seaforth
On the same day Harper disappeared, June 9, 1959, air force
medical officers were discussing Kalichuk's weakness for alcohol
and little girls. They met with a probation officer who was
reporting another incident of indecent exposure involving
Kalichuk - this time in Seaforth - a few miles from the Clinton
base.
The
psychiatric reports
At the Aylmer base, where he worked most of the time, a medical
doctor opened a file on Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk. On July 2
- three weeks after Lynn Harper was murdered - Kalichuk is
said to be suffering from "overwhelming anxiety, tension,
depression and guilt."
Later,
the senior medical officer was blunt in his diagnosis: his
problem was sexual deviation and anxiety reaction:
The
newspaper reports
Kalichuk was released from hospital but apparently far from
cured. A heavily censored confidential military memo about
"Sgt Kalichuk's aberrations" warned cryptically that when
he was later posted at a base near Clinton in the early 1960s,
ongoing incidents were serious enough to get into the local
paper. Here is an excerpt from the military report:
Here
are two stories that appeared in the local newspaper, the
Exeter Times advocate:
Read
more about the Kalichuk file in Chapters 9 and 36 of "Until
you are Dead".
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