Considering an ex-officer’s order to close the rape file, contested at the NS hearing

A retired Halifax police officer denied on Monday that he had ordered a former subordinate to stop investigating an alleged sexual assault, but he admitted police made mistakes in the case.

Don Stienburg, who retired earlier this year, was the staff sergeant in charge of special investigations when Carrie Low reported driving to a Halifax-area home on May 18, 2018, and raped by at least two men.

Low filed a complaint with the Police Commission a year later, alleging officers mishandled the investigation.

During his testimony Monday before the Judgment Committee panel, Stienburg rejected an allegation made last week by Jerell Smith, a former RCMP member of the Halifax Joint Police-RCMP Sexual Assault Unit.

Smith had testified that Stienburg did not believe Low’s story and told him to close the case four days after the alleged rape.

The retired officer says he has not ordered the investigation stopped

Stienburg said he could not recall any such conversation with Smith, adding, “I believe Carrie Low.”

He replied “absolutely not” when asked by Ted Murphy, the attorney for the Halifax Regional Municipality, if he had ordered the investigation closed.

Stienburg said that in order to close that file, a more direct supervisor of Smith should have made that decision.

Low’s 2019 complaint is against the Halifax Police Department and Const. Bojan Novakovic – the first officer to interview her after she went to a hospital in Dartmouth for a sexual assault investigation.

Novakovic was paid eight hours’ pay for handling her case, and Low is appealing the decision to the review committee.

She is also seeking broader recommendations to improve police handling of sexual assault cases.

Smith stands by previous testimony

Earlier on Monday, Murphy cross-examined Smith and told him that Stienburg had not ordered him to stop the investigation.

“I’m going to suggest, as you’ve told us on many occasions, your memory isn’t what it used to be,” said the city’s attorney.

However, Smith replied that it was clear to him that the sergeant had made the remarks.

Smith has not returned to the police force since an internal RCMP investigation charged him with misconduct for failing to retrieve the clothes Low had been wearing the night of her alleged rape, and for making mistakes on forms, delaying lab tests to detect if Low’s blood was positive for date rape drugs.

The investigation concluded that Smith should receive training to avoid similar mistakes, but he never returned to work with the RCMP.

During cross-examination, Smith reiterated his opinion that Stienburg did not believe Low’s story.

He linked his opinion to an incident two nights after the alleged rape, when an intoxicated girlfriend of Low’s – who had been out with her that night – took over Low’s story.

The friend allegedly told the police that it was she who had been kidnapped and raped. However, that friend later came back and apologized for muddying the waters of the investigation.

But Stienburg testified Monday that that “weird” incident had no impact on his perception of Low and had no bearing on the
research.

“We believed her from the start,” he said, answering questions from Low’s attorney, Jason Cooke.

Carrie Low reported [the rape and abduction]. It was taken seriously,” said Stienburg.

Admit mistakes

However, Stienburg told the board there were mistakes in the case, such as the 10-day delay in picking up Low’s clothes and the delay in testing Low’s blood.

But those two elements were not critical to the case, he said.

The investigation learned that Novakovic placed Low’s clothing in a plastic bag and told her to take it to her residence, where it would be collected.

But the review committee heard evidence that leaving clothes at room temperature for more than a week – and making them accessible to tampering – was not proper procedure and could affect their use in a criminal trial.

Novakovic did not pick up the clothes until May 29, 2018, after Low complained to an executive.

In her complaint, Low said the toxicology report on her blood and urine, which was needed to indicate whether she had been given a date rape drug, had not been processed more than a year after she provided the samples.

“Mistakes were made and the people who made the mistakes [owned] to them and corrected them as best they could,” Stienburg said.

He noted that Alexander Thomas was charged in 2020 after DNA from the clothing identified him.

However, Thomas died before a trial could proceed, in what police said was murder not related to the low case.

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