
"Until You Are Dead"
The Wrongful Conviction of Steven Truscott
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.66
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
David Ferry
-
By:
-
Julian Sher
About this listen
CAA Birks Family Foundation Award for Biography winner, 2002
Shaughnessy Cohen Award for Political Writing nominee, 2002
“Talk to anyone you find, investigate wherever things lead you. I know I'm innocent and I’m not afraid of what you’ll turn up.”—Steven Truscott to Julian Sher
“Until You Are Dead” chronicles the loss of Canada’s innocence. Prior to June 11, 1959, Canadian parents could allow their children to play outdoors, unsupervised, in places children traditionally love: schoolyards, fields and nearby swimming holes. But on that hot summer day, when the body of a twelve-year-old girl turned up in a woody area near Clinton, Ontario, that innocence was shattered.
The girl’s name was Lynne Harper and she had been raped and murdered. The summer was barely over before a popular schoolboy named Steven Truscott, fourteen years old at the time, was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang. Truscott spent ten years in prison after the federal cabinet commuted his death sentence. He has always maintained his innocence.
His trial in 1959 was the most famous and controversial in Canadian history. As a producer at CBC TV’s the fifth estate, Julian Sher spent two years investigating the Steven Truscott story for an explosive documentary. When it aired in the spring of 2000, more than 1.4 million Canadians watched the program that sparked headlines across the country and questions in Parliament. Now, in this gripping and shocking account, Sher gives us the full story of that investigation, including new material not revealed on television. From the news that a young girl had gone missing in 1959 to the efforts four decades later by lawyers—those who assisted Guy Paul Morin and others—preparing an application to the federal justice minister for a verdict of wrongful conviction, this is a thorough and chilling examination of the case that rocked the country, and the man who continues to reside at its centre.
When Steven Truscott decided to come out of hiding and tell his story to the fifth estate, there were no deals, no commitments, no promises. If Sher and the fifth estate were to investigate one of Canada’s most controversial murder cases, they had to have unfettered access. Truscott readily agreed.
"Until You Are Dead” reveals witnesses not called upon to testify; other, more likely suspects, including a known pedophile, never questioned; and important leads that were kept from the defence, the judge and jurors. Boxes of police files and military records hidden or buried in government vaults reveal astonishing and disturbing information about an investigation and trial the authorities always claimed was above reproach. All told, the book uncovers a wealth of information that could have lead to a different verdict and a very different life for the young boy who was nearly executed over forty years ago.
©2023 Julian Sher (P)2023 Vintage CanadaListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Delphi Murders
- The Quest to Find ‘The Man on the Bridge’
- By: Nic Edwards, Brian Whitney
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On February 13, 2017, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monon High Bridge. They never returned home.
-
-
Huge disappointment
- By Aleshia L. Hunley on 04-23-23
By: Nic Edwards, and others
-
The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
-
-
Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
-
American Black Widow
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.
-
-
🤢
- By Brittany on 07-28-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
The Yoga Store Murder
- The Shocking True Account of the Lululemon Athletica Killing
- By: Dan Morse
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a crime that shocked the country. On March 21, 2011, two young saleswomen were found inside a lululemon athletica store in Bethesda, Maryland, one of the nation's wealthiest suburbs. Jayna Murray, thirty, was dead—stabbed, slashed, and struck more than 300 times. Brittany Norwood, twenty-eight, was alive—tied up on a bathroom floor, her clothing ripped, her face bloodied. This is the full true story of what happened.
-
-
Great for True Crime Buffs
- By pittiegirl on 06-14-24
By: Dan Morse
-
The Red Ripper
- Inside the Mind of Russia's Most Brutal Serial Killer
- By: Peter Conradi
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time he was brought to trial in 1992, Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo had killed more than fifty women and children, often sexually abusing them and leaving their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Although he was initially arrested in 1984, the police lacked enough evidence to pin the unsolved murders on him and he was able to torture and kill dozens more before his eventual conviction.
-
-
Encore
- By Lonnie on 10-24-24
By: Peter Conradi
-
The Snake and the Spider
- Abduction and Murder in Daytona Beach
- By: Karen Kingsbury
- Narrated by: Nikki Zakocs
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best friends Daryl Barber and James Boucher were responsible, and their parents trusted them to spend Spring Break at Daytona Beach unchaperoned. When the boys missed their agreed-upon daily check-ins, their parents were disappointed. When they failed to come home on their planned return date, their parents were terrified. They could not have known that their innocent sons would encounter two violent men on the Florida coast. They could not have imagined the torture their children would endure before their bodies turned up four months later in a Florida swamp.
-
-
Fascinating but horrible story we’ll told
- By Gracie on 11-13-23
By: Karen Kingsbury
-
The Delphi Murders
- The Quest to Find ‘The Man on the Bridge’
- By: Nic Edwards, Brian Whitney
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On February 13, 2017, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monon High Bridge. They never returned home.
-
-
Huge disappointment
- By Aleshia L. Hunley on 04-23-23
By: Nic Edwards, and others
-
The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
-
-
Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
-
American Black Widow
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.
-
-
🤢
- By Brittany on 07-28-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
The Yoga Store Murder
- The Shocking True Account of the Lululemon Athletica Killing
- By: Dan Morse
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a crime that shocked the country. On March 21, 2011, two young saleswomen were found inside a lululemon athletica store in Bethesda, Maryland, one of the nation's wealthiest suburbs. Jayna Murray, thirty, was dead—stabbed, slashed, and struck more than 300 times. Brittany Norwood, twenty-eight, was alive—tied up on a bathroom floor, her clothing ripped, her face bloodied. This is the full true story of what happened.
-
-
Great for True Crime Buffs
- By pittiegirl on 06-14-24
By: Dan Morse
-
The Red Ripper
- Inside the Mind of Russia's Most Brutal Serial Killer
- By: Peter Conradi
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time he was brought to trial in 1992, Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo had killed more than fifty women and children, often sexually abusing them and leaving their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Although he was initially arrested in 1984, the police lacked enough evidence to pin the unsolved murders on him and he was able to torture and kill dozens more before his eventual conviction.
-
-
Encore
- By Lonnie on 10-24-24
By: Peter Conradi
-
The Snake and the Spider
- Abduction and Murder in Daytona Beach
- By: Karen Kingsbury
- Narrated by: Nikki Zakocs
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best friends Daryl Barber and James Boucher were responsible, and their parents trusted them to spend Spring Break at Daytona Beach unchaperoned. When the boys missed their agreed-upon daily check-ins, their parents were disappointed. When they failed to come home on their planned return date, their parents were terrified. They could not have known that their innocent sons would encounter two violent men on the Florida coast. They could not have imagined the torture their children would endure before their bodies turned up four months later in a Florida swamp.
-
-
Fascinating but horrible story we’ll told
- By Gracie on 11-13-23
By: Karen Kingsbury
-
Genealogy of a Murder
- Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night
- By: Lisa Belkin
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young cop is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on vacation from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realization. He knows who the shooter is. In fact, the man—a prisoner out on parole—had called him only days before. By helping his former charge and trainee, the doctor, a believer in second chances, may have inadvertently helped set the murder into motion.
-
-
Excellent
- By jane-o on 05-26-24
By: Lisa Belkin
-
Don't Say a Thing
- A Predator, a Pursuit, and the Women Who Persevered
- By: Tamara Leitner
- Narrated by: Tamara Leitner
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1999, reporter Tamara Leitner woke to an active crime scene outside her Arizona apartment. Her neighbor had been sexually assaulted by a man who would later be identified as Claude Dean Hull II, a serial rapist who escaped justice for decades. New identities. New states. New victims—more than one hundred suspected across the country and thousands more victimized in myriad ways. Tamara’s twenty-year compulsion to follow the investigation began.
-
-
Enunciation Errors
- By Susan on 06-14-23
By: Tamara Leitner
-
Little, Crazy Children
- By: James Renner
- Narrated by: James Renner
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents.
-
-
Couldn’t put it down
- By Kathi Cooper on 01-04-25
By: James Renner
-
Wicked Beyond Belief
- The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper
- By: Michael Bilton
- Narrated by: Marston York
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Revelatory investigation into the police handling of the Yorkshire Ripper Case which spanned over 14 years. For the first time, the files have been opened, the detectives are talking and the victims are reliving the nightmare. For almost 20 years the dark secrets of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history have remained a closed book.
-
-
Indeed wicked beyond belief
- By Jandos16 on 12-26-24
By: Michael Bilton
-
Among the Bros
- A Fraternity Crime Story
- By: Max Marshall
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Max Marshall arrived on the campus of the College of Charleston in 2018, he hoped to investigate a small-time fraternity Xanax trafficking ring. Instead, he found a homicide, several student deaths, and millions of dollars circulating around the Deep South. He also opened up an elite world hidden to outsiders. Behind the pop culture cliches of “Greek life” lies one of the major breeding grounds of American power: 80 percent of Fortune 500 executives, 85 percent of Supreme Court justices, and all but four presidents since 1825 have been fraternity members.
-
-
Great Book-Not so great reading
- By Hannah Earp on 11-30-23
By: Max Marshall
-
What the Dead Know
- Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
- By: Barbara Butcher
- Narrated by: Barbara Butcher
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous—and she loved it. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides.
-
-
Didn’t Want The Book To End
- By Becky Sullivan on 06-29-23
By: Barbara Butcher
-
In Light of All Darkness
- Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America's Child
- By: Kim Cross
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 1, 1993, a 12-year-old girl was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom in Petaluma, California, during a sleepover with two friends, while her mother slept soundly in the room next door. This rarest of all kidnappings—a stranger abduction from the home—triggered one of the largest manhunts in FBI history. New York Times bestselling author Kim Cross has written the first comprehensive account of what happened on that fateful night in October, as well as how the case forever transformed the Bureau’s approach to solving crimes.
-
-
Haunting
- By Lil Momma Reader on 11-18-23
By: Kim Cross
-
Love Betrayal Murder
- By: Adam Mitzner
- Narrated by: Brian Hutchison, Bronson Pinchot, Elizabeth Evans
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Matthew Brooks and Vanessa Lyons are a perfect love match, both attorneys at a powerful New York City law firm. But there’s a hitch: Matt just made partner, and Vanessa is coming up for partner next year. And Vanessa’s husband has his suspicions. Vanessa is assigned to the biggest case at the firm, the one that will determine her future. Unfortunately, Matt has been working the case for years, leaving him no choice but to supervise his lover in violation of firm policy.
-
-
Fully engaging Legal Thriller!
- By Barbara S on 06-10-23
By: Adam Mitzner
-
On the Farm
- Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women
- By: Stevie Cameron
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 25 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Verteran investigative journalist Stevie Cameron first began following the story of missing women in 1998, when the odd newspaper piece appeared chronicling the disappearances of drug-addicted sex trade workers from Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. It was not until February 2002 that pig farmer Robert William Pickton would be arrested, and 2008 before he was found guilty, on six counts of second-degree murder. These counts were appealed and in 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its conclusion.
-
-
zzzz
- By Michael on 05-16-22
By: Stevie Cameron
-
Everything She Ever Wanted
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed—without mercy—those who loved her.
-
-
Great book, poor narration
- By Reversoul on 12-01-23
By: Ann Rule
-
Devil’s Knot
- The True Story of the West Memphis Three
- By: Mara Leveritt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Free the West Memphis Three!” - maybe you’ve heard the phrase, but do you know why their story is so alarming? Do you know the facts? The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state - even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence.
-
-
Surprisingly disappointing
- By La Becket on 12-05-12
By: Mara Leveritt
-
Lust Killer
- By: Ann Rule, Andy Stack
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When young women begin mysteriously disappearing in Oregon, Police Lieutenant James Stovall leads a relentless search for a killer. With little evidence available, and the public screaming for answers, he must find a remorseless, brutal killer whose identity will shock them all....
-
-
Great book on Brudos!
- By Ms.Bliss on 01-06-18
By: Ann Rule, and others
Critic reviews
“Read this book. You will be jarred by the reality of our justice system. This excellent, in-depth compilation of Steven Truscott’s very disturbing case keeps you absorbed and in disbelief: Where is the justice?”—Guy Paul Morin
"Sher writes with a finely measured sense of disbelief. How could this happen? he asks through every page. And we share his amazement, notwithstanding David Milgaard, Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin and Thomas Sophonow, all convicted until proven innocent ... Sher has written an important book. One that ought to serve as a warning to those who administer justice against arrogance. Nor should anyone be complacent on the issue, for every time a case is closed with the wrongly accused, a killer is left free to roam among us."—The Montreal Gazette, October 20, 2001
"The CBC television producer who earned Truscott's trust and helped make a national case of his continued claim of innocence, Montreal's Julian Sher, presents another compelling indictment of our justice system."—The Toronto Star, October 21, 2001