Lawrence Diehl, now 73, is accused of knifing Christopher Smith to death on Portage Bridge in 1996.
It took 28 years for advanced DNA testing to catch up with Lawrence Diehl in the 1996 killing of Christopher Smith, but just days for the accused killer to get bail.
Diehl, now 73, was arrested and charged in December with second-degree murder in the April 12, 1996 killing of Christopher Smith, 22.
Ottawa police said at the time it was a random fight on Portage Bridge after a night of hitting the bars in Hull.
Diehl is accused of knifing Smith to death on the Ottawa side of the bridge just after 2 a.m. on a Friday.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The accused killer is now living in West Vancouver under strict bail conditions after his sureties posted a $2-million bond, which included a $500,000 cash deposit delivered to the clerk of the Superior Court in January.
It’s not every day an accused killer gets bail at the Elgin Street courthouse. His Toronto lawyer successfully secured bail for Diehl days after his arrest in the cold case, sparing his client a long wait at the notorious Innes Road jail. (Homicide detectives Sgt. Mahad Hassan and Sgt. Chris O’Brien flew to Vancouver and escorted Diehl back to Ottawa to be formally charged in court.)
As part of the accused killer’s bail, Diehl can’t go beyond 100-m of his West Vancouver home except to see his legal team in Toronto or for court hearings in Ottawa. And when that happens, he has to send a full itinerary — including airfare receipts — to one of the detectives on the case at least 48 hours in advance. Diehl has three sureties — two in Vancouver where he lives, and one in Toronto for trips to see his legal team. When he’s in Ottawa for court hearings, he has to be accompanied by a surety at all times.
Evening Update
The $2,035,000 bond breakdown has one surety posting $2 million, the second $25,000, and the third $10,000.
Diehl is also required to wear a GPS monitoring unit at his own expense ($500 a month). He’s also agreed to random compliance checks by the GPS monitoring centre. He also had to install a landline telephone and had to answer it whenever police checked in until his main surety deposited $500,000 to the Superior Court, which they did.
Diehl is also banned from having any communication with the victim’s family and witnesses.
On the day of the killing, the then unknown suspect — himself wounded and bleeding — made his way uphill for two kilometres and called 911 for an ambulance to help the victim. Police and the victim’s family at the time noted the caller appeared to have a conscience.
The call was made from a payphone just west of the old Friday’s Roast Beef House, which is now Beckta, the Elgin Street dining and wine bar renowned for its legendary Canadian cuisine and top-shelf, gentle hospitality.
The 911 call came in at 2:42 a.m., some 27 minutes after Hull police called Ottawa police about the slaying.
On the 911 call, the prime suspect sounds calm and polite and says only:
“Yes, an ambulance, please. There’s been an attack on Pont du Portage Bridge.”
When the dispatcher asked for more details, the caller hung up.
The police traced the call to the pay phone and when they arrived, the caller was gone but there was blood on the receiver. Police had no motive, no weapon and didn’t know the identity of their prime suspect — the caller.
The police appealed for the public’s help and released the audio of the brief 911 call hoping someone would recognize the suspect’s voice. Police also set up a hotline for tips. (The Citizen set up a Touch-Tone telephone number for people to call and listen to the audio of the man who called 911 for an ambulance.)
The police got a bunch of calls from people who thought they recognized the voice, but nothing solid and the case went cold.
Christopher Smith and his cousin were walking back to the capital after a night out in Hull, where last call was later than Ottawa and the drinking age 18. (Smith’s cousin was 18 at the time.)
Smith and his cousin were walking back to Ottawa across the Portage Bridge when Smith got stabbed in what police at the time called a confrontation. The police theory at the time was that his cousin got into an argument with a random stranger on the bridge, it got violent and Chris Smith intervened only to get stabbed to death.
It was Smith’s cousin who flagged down passing vehicles for help, and after the ambulance rushed Chris Smith to Gatineau Hospital he was pronounced dead.
Shirley Smith, his mother, died in 2002. She spent years doing double takes every time she saw a bicycle courier because her son did it for a living. In 1996, the late Shirley Smith said:
“Nothing will bring Chris back but until they find somebody, there are no answers … At first, we all thought the guy who made the call had a conscience. Five months later, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he feels that if police haven’t come to the door in six months, that he is off the hook.
“But it really bothers me that the person may be walking around the streets.”
Chris Smith had a Big Brother and his name was Gord Morriscey, a volunteer with the organization. He was a mentor to Smith in the 1980s and later a friend. They went skiing together and stayed in touch on the phone.
The late Morriscey, at the time, recalled Smith as “an easy-going, ethical-type of kid.”
After Chris Smith got stabbed, he collapsed. His cousin tried to comfort him as one passerby stopped and took photographs of them and then left. The passerby later turned their photographs over to police.
At a press conference in December to announce the arrest in the cold case, Ottawa police thanked the RCMP and Toronto Police for their help.
Diehl awaits his trip through the criminal justice system while on bail in West Vancouver.
