Suspect was released minutes after warrant issued
From Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. border officials who detained, then released, an American at the Canadian border with a chainsaw and a knapsack full of weapons "relentlessly" looked for a reason to hold him, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Congress.
They didn't know about the killings of his next-door neighbors -- or that he was, at that moment, missing his sentencing for the assault of the neighbor's grandson.
CNN has learned that during the three hours Gregory Despres was held at the U.S. border station April 25, a Canadian judge issued a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear at his sentencing that morning.
Court records indicate the warrant was issued at 10:16 a.m. ET.
Approximately 15 minutes later, U.S. border officers released him and approved his entry into the United States.
The U.S. resident was being sentenced for his conviction in March of assaulting Frederick Mowat of New Brunswick and of threatening to kill him.
Canadian authorities believe that just hours before his sentencing, Despres snuck into the home of Mowat's grandfather, Fred Fulton, and killed the 72-year-old man and his common-law wife, Verna Decarie.
They allege Despres cut off Fulton's head and left it in a pillowcase in the kitchen beside the body.
The 22-year-old was arrested in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, late the next day and has been charged with the killings, officials said. He is awaiting extradition proceedings, and officials say the chainsaw and other items seized at the border are being preserved as evidence.
Raised suspicions
U.S. officials said border officers were suspicious of the man with a Mohawk who told officials he was a U.S. Marine assassin. They speculated that the red spots on his chainsaw were blood and looked for a reason to detain him. But checks to find any outstanding warrants came up empty, they said.
U.S. officials say border officers learned that Despres was to be sentenced that day. But it is unclear what else they had learned.
"To my knowledge none of our officers were aware that he had missed that court time," said Customs and Border Protection official Steve Farquharson. Nor did they know that a Canadian warrant had been issued, another official said.
U.S. border officers said they were powerless to hold Despres any longer because he was a U.S. citizen.
"Our officers strongly encouraged and tried to convince Mr. Despres to go back to Canada voluntarily to resolve his legal issues," Farquharson said.
Canadian prosecutor Paul Hawkins said that when prosecutors learned Despres was at the border, they told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that Despres had missed his sentencing.
Hawkins expressed certainty that the information was relayed to RCMP officers on the border, but does not know if it was passed along to U.S. border officials who were questioning Despres.
On April 26, Canadian authorities discovered the two mutilated bodies of Fulton and Decarie in the house next door to Despres' Minto, New Brunswick, home.
On the defense
Officials on both sides of the border say that even if U.S. authorities had learned of the Canadian warrant, authorities probably wouldn't have taken legal action to return him to Canada.
"I think it would be highly unlikely that we would go through the resources of extraditing an individual from the United States for a summary conviction assault misdemeanor," Hawkins said.
The border episode has sparked criticism from some members of Congress, a joke by late-night comedian Jay Leno and a strong defense from Homeland Security officials.
"Given the facts we had at the time, I believe our officers acted appropriately," said Jayson Ahern, who heads the New England region of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Chertoff also defended their actions.
"Local border patrol folks questioned the person, seized the weapons, checked relentlessly to see if there was any outstanding warrants, papers or charges," he told Congress Thursday.
"At the end of the day a U.S. citizen is entitled to return to the country and we [can't] hold people without a legal basis. So it was not a failure of investigation or failure of processing. It was kind of an inherent limitation of our system of law."
