INNOCENCE CANADA PRESS RELEASE
Shared with Public HE IS FINALLY FREE. Clarence Woodhouse, a 21 year old Indigenous male and member of the Pinaymootang FirstNation, had in 1973 recently moved to Winnipeg from the Fairford Indian Reserve, 240 kilometres north-west of Winnipeg. He had no criminal record and was gainfully employed. On July 22, 1973, he was charged with the brutal murder of a man called Ting Fong Chan, killed by unknown assailants five days earlier on the streets of Winnipeg as he walked home from work. Mr. Woodhouse was not there when Mr. Chan was killed and had no involvement in the homicide. Nevertheless, he was arrested and assaulted and forced to sign a false confession that he had murdered Mr. Chan. Clarence Woodhouse’s co-accused, his brother Russell Woodhouse, Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse were also assaulted by members of the Winnipeg Police Service and forced to sign their own confessions to murdering Mr. Chan. All four men proclaimed their innocence, but no one believed them. The nightm...