The Injustice of Parole

• Author: David M. Paciocco
• Pages: 67-92

CHAPTER

4

The

Injustice

of

Parole

Anyone

knowing

the

whereabouts

of

Nicole Marguerite

Mattison

is

asked

to

contact

the

Metropolitan Toronto Police. Mrs. Mattison

has

been missing since

2

December

1992

when

she was

last seen walking

east

on the

south side

of

King

Street West

at

Spadina Avenue.

She is

fifty-three

years

of

age,

five

foot

10

inches tall,

and

weighs

150

pounds.

She has

blond hair

and was

wearing

a

multi-coloured jacket,

maroon slacks

and

black shoes

at the

time

of her

disappearance.

She

was

also

wearing

two

gold

chains,

one

with

a

pendant with

the

inscription "Live,

Love,

Laugh."

"Live,

Love, Laugh," thought Constable McGreal when

he

received

the

missing

person's report

from

Nicole's husband, David,

a

month before

the

press conference. "There hasn't been much loving

and

laughing

in

that

marriage."

He had

worked with David Mattison

at the

downtown

52

Division, where Mattison

was a

police sergeant.

He

recalled

how

David

would come

to his

place with

his

girlfriend

while Nicole

sat at

home.

McGreal could never understand

it.

David,

an

astute

investor, probably

had

more than

a

million dollars, maybe

a

couple

of

million. "Why don't

you

just split things down

the

middle

and let her go her way and you go

yours?"

he

would say.

But

they stayed together.

It

wasn't because David

loved

her.

In

January

1991

he

told

a

marriage counsellor

that

he

would

rather

do

five

years

for

killing

her

than

fifteen

years living with her.

"Perhaps

they stay together because Nicole

won't

let

go,"

he

thought.

"Why else

was she

always

phoning around looking

for

him?"

Maybe

they felt they

had to

stay together

for the

sake

of

their

two

grandchildren. Nicole

and

David

had

lost

their

eldest

son, Lionel,

in a car

accident

in

northern Ontario three years

before

and

they

had

custody

of

P

ress Release, 22 January 199:

68

CRIME

AND

PUNISHMENT

his

two

children. While

that

tragedy

may

have kept them

together,

it did

not

make them

any

closer.

It

simply increased

the

stress

and

tension.

Things

got so bad

that

David ultimately took

his

girlfriend

to

Florida

and

boasted

to

Nicole about

it.

Indeed,

he had

probably done

so

again

only

a

few

weeks before Nicole went missing;

he had

gone

to

Florida without

her

at the

same time

that

his

girlfriend

had

taken

her

vacation. This

was

not a

happy marriage.

Constable McGreal couldn't help

feeling

nervous about

the

missing

person's

report.

It

made

no

sense.

Why had

David waited nineteen days

before

reporting Nicole missing? When

he did

file

the

report

it

just

felt

wrong.

He had told McGreal that on 2 December he and Nicole had an

argument

while

in the

car.

She got out at the

busy intersection, slammed

the

door,

and

punched

the

passenger window, shattering

it,

before walk-

ing

away.

It was not the

account

of

Nicole punching

the

window

that

caused

McGreal

to

doubt

the

story. Nicole worked

as a

jail guard

and was a

stocky

5

feet

10

inches.

She was

feisty,

too.

On at

least

one

earlier occa-

sion

she had

used

a

knife

to

threaten

David,

who is as

large

as any Tim

Horton's

cop.

But

this report didn't seem right.

As

McGreal

was

later

to

explain:

The

whole thing didn't make sense.

If I

hated

my

wife

and was

reporting

her

missing,

I'd be

sitting down with

a

beer.

I'd say

good rid-

dance.

But he was

very uptight.

Ask a

simple question like "What

colour's

her

eyes?"

and

there'd

be a

long story about

it

before he'd

finally

explain what colour

her

eyes

were.1

Why

would

she

just walk away

from

the

money?

If she

wanted

out she

would

sue

him,

not

disappear.

From

the

start,

foul

play

was

suspected,

and

fifty-eight-year-old

David

Mattison,

who had

brought Nicole back

from

France

in

1961

after

being

posted there with

the

armed

forces,

was the

only suspect. Even

if

the

police

in

Brentwood, California, O.J. Simpson's territory, don't sus-

pect

the

husband when

a

wife dies

or

goes missing,

police

everywhere

else

on the

planet

do.2

The

ironic thing

was

that Nicole

was not

really missing

— at

least

not

entirely.

The

police

in

Hamilton, Ontario,

had her

leg; they just

didn't

know

it was

hers.

The

leg, which

had

clearly been severed intentionally,

had

been found washed

up on the

beach

a few

weeks before. Tissue sam-

ples

from

the leg

were being sent

off

to the

United States

for DNA

analy-

sis,

along

with samples taken

from

Nicole's relatives. Even though

the

police responded

at the

press conference

that

the

disappearance

of

Nicole