The account of the Police visits to the salvage yard (referred to as the 'junk yard' by the prosecution) on 9 February 2013, where Kangas worked, was introduced, in more detail, during the June 2014 trial. Apart from lying about the CSC crimes, this represented another, yet another, lie told to me by Kangas. In the first trial, there was passing reference to the incident, but in the second trial, it occupied a substantial part of the proceedings as the prosecution sought to show that the 20-year old adult Kangas had been pursuing K., one of the two 13-year old children with whom he had been accused of having sex.
The prosecution told the jury that on 9 February 2013, the Police received a 911 call from the yard and on visiting the location, no one was visible. A short time later, the Police received another 911 call and officers returned and searched the property: on this occasion, they found Kangas and K. hiding underneath some blankets. At this point, it was late at night and they were both taken to the Police Post: the girl was later collected by her mother.
From the very outset, Kangas insisted to me that the entire account was an absolute lie and the events described never occurred. While I did not disbelieve him, I remained concerned that there were at least four witnesses who said that it did happen - the girl, the girl's mother and two Police officers but Kangas was insistent, so I believed him. My mistake...
Kangas stated:
"They brought in cops to tell a fabricated story about me and K [the girl] being caught in a closet together after some 911 hang up calls saying they arrested us, brought us to police HQ [and] questioned us."
[Email received from Kangas, 22 December 2016]
"The 911 story is complete fiction, unless of course, they had actually caught J. [the male that the Police claim Kangas pretended to be] with her [K.], but even then, it sounds suspect...and that's not to mention the fact that I didn't even live in SSM [Sault Ste. Marie] in the Winter period [of 2012-2013]. I had left and gone to the Engadine/Newberry area to support myself".
[Email received from Kangas, 28 February 2017]
Unfortunately for Kangas, as I discovered on 12/13 May 2017, there are many messages on his old Facebook account, between him and the girl in which they discuss these events, and what they stated wholly corroborated the testimony of the four prosecution witnesses in the trial. Furthermore,
(a)Kangas not only discussed the incident with the girl, but with other people in his Facebook messaging, including his own attorney, and
(b)On 10 February 2013, Kangas sent a Facebook message to K.'s mother explaining he had offered someone else's name to the Police to hide "my identity." But if he wasn't doing anything wrong (as he assured his attorney), why did he consider it necessary to conceal his identity from the Police? And,
(c)Not only were/are there messages on his Facebook account mentioning the incident, but there are also comments left by Kangas and other people in his Facebook 'Timeline' stats, discussing the matter. In one, he said he was amused ("lol") about the fact that he gave a false name, and at this point in time, he wrongly thought he had deceived the Police about his identity, and
(d)There is the salient point that no objection whatsoever was made by Kangas, or his defence attorney, during the trial in respect of the four witnesses who said Kangas was at the junk yard with the girl. If he wasn't at the junk yard (as he claimed), why wasn't this important point raised and why weren't the prosecution witnesses challenged? I assume it was because the prosecution had access to the Facebook accounts of both Kangas and the girl K., and could therefore easily prove the events did in fact occur, as it asserted.
Consequently, Kangas's post-trial denial of this event appears to be his rewriting of the facts. In sum, with four people corroborating the event (and quite probably other officers at the Police Post, to where Kangas and the girl were taken), and with all the Facebook data, the evidence is surely conclusive.
In his Facebook messages, Kangas relates how, after he and the girl were taken to the Police Post, he attended the hospital because of injuries from handcuffs placed on him and he also had his stomach pumped out as it was feared he had consumed drugs. He had already lied to the Police about his identity, giving the name of some unfortunate person he knew, but he decided to give his real name at the hospital, to avoid being accused of medical insurance fraud. Therefore, in addition to the four witnesses who gave their testimony during the trial, and possibly Police officers who may have seen him at the Post, he was apparently willing to call all the hospital staff who saw him liars too!
While it was not explained in the trial why the girl called 911, as she claimed to be trying to contact her mother, the Facebook account does do this. In the Facebook messaging of 10 February 2013, the girl explained to Kangas that her mother's number began with a '906', but she sometimes dialled '1906'. However, at school, she would add a '9' at the beginning (presumably to obtain an outside line), and she made an error in dialling a number beginning with '911', and this was interpreted as a 911 emergency call by the telephone system.
However, it should be noted that despite what the girl said to Kangas in the messaging, it is possible that she deliberately dialled 911 for the Police (and did this more than once), as she wanted to leave the premises, possibly worried about Kangas's intentions that night. Indeed, the prosecution told the jury: "I would suggest to you that it's a fair conclusion she wanted out of the junk yard that night. And that is in fact what happened. She left with the Police." (Trial II, Vol. II of II, Pages 7-8).
Supplementary The above refers to Kangas repeatedly denying involvement in the crimes for which he was convicted. However, pages appeared in 2021, apparently written by him, or on his behalf, that presented a different stance. Please see Supplementary - 2021 |