Neal Hall,The Vancouver Sun
Tami Morrisroe, a Richmond mother now hiding in the witness protection program, said late Friday she is pleased to hear reports of an arrest made in the multiple-murder investigation in which she says she played a crucial role.
It is believed that police picked up a man in the Lower Mainland and that he is being held for questioning in connection with eight murders.
RCMP Sergeant Peter Montague said Friday night: "We have chosen not to discuss this case . . . due to the nature of the ongoing investigation."
But Morrisroe told a Vancouver Sun reporter: "I'm pleased to hear that an arrest has been made" after hearing reports that a man was being held.
Morrisroe went public with her story this week because she was disappointed with Justice Minister Allan Rock.
She set an April 28 deadline for Rock to review fresh evidence she uncovered after she went undercover and infiltrated a group of Vancouver gangsters to discover the truth about the murder with which her father was charged.
"All I ever asked for was justice and honesty," Morrisroe said in a phone interview from somewhere in North America.
She said she filed an application to Rock -- seeking "mercy of the Crown" -- on April 14 and wanted him to personally review it in the hope that he would order a new trial for her father. Sid Morrisroe, 63, is serving a life sentence for a murder he maintains he did not commit.
"Rock handed the application to the department of justice," said Morrisroe, 26. "He handed it to his bureaucrats."
The same bureaucrats, she said, spent years reviewing her father's first application to Rock, who summarily dismissed her father's request under Section 690 of the Criminal Code.
The section gives the justice minister the power to order a new trial or have an appeal court review the matter if there is merit to the fresh evidence.
"The bureaucrats got us all in this mess," Morrisroe complained. "When people go to the polls, they should think of my situation -- it could happen to anybody."
Morrisroe had planned to hold a news conference Friday to explain why she went public with her story but said she was told she would be out of the witness protection program if she did.
Michael Brown, a senior adviser in Rock's office in Ottawa, said the minister's staff is reviewing Morrisroe's application. "We're doing it as quickly as we can," he said.
During Friday's interview with Tami Morrisroe, her two children, common-law husband Claudio and her brother Keven could be heard in the background.
They all entered the witness protection program late last year.
"All our names have been changed," Morrisroe explained. "I wouldn't say it's hell but it's a huge adjustment. Every time the dog barks, I'm scared."
Morrisroe said she would sleep easier if she knew the members of criminal organization she penetrated were behind bars.
"I do want to see those people charged," she said, adding she plans to testify against them.
The Vancouver gangsters she worked with included Italians and Asians with connections to the Cali cocaine cartel in Colombia, she said.
She said she still thinks highly of the RCMP, with whom she worked closely for months. Mounties fitted her with a hidden microphone and secretly tape- recorded her conversations with gangsters about contract killings and mutimillion-dollar drug deals, she said.
Morrisroe was so trusted by the mob they got her to count out millions in drug money and gave her a gun, which she said she gave to police.
"The faith I still have in the justice system is because of the RCMP," she said.
She said she is upset with some media reports raising questions about her credibility and motives.
She is especially upset with CKNW radio reports suggesting she began cooperating with police when she was caught with $600,000 in drug money. Another report quoted the sister of an alleged gangster, who said her brother was seduced by Morrisroe, who now is telling nothing but lies.
"She can rant and rave all she wants," Morrisroe said of the sister. "The RCMP know the truth and I know the truth. It's all backed up on RCMP tapes."
Morrisroe said she has no reason to lie and does not enjoy being in the witness protection program. "Why would I do this?" she asked.
Most of all, she said, she is concerned for the safety of her father, who was transferred Wednesday out of the minimum-security Ferndale prison in Mission to a maximum-security prison.
She said her father is confined to his cell for all but half an hour a day for his own protection. "But even there, he's in the most dangerous of circumstances."
Mobsters offer money to people inside prison to carry out murder contracts, she noted.
Her father was convicted in 1984 of the first-degree murder of Penthouse nightclub owner Joe Phillipone, who was shot once in the head by Scott Forsyth. Police found about $1,200 missing from the safe in the club office.
After his arrest, Forsyth originally told police he acted alone. After weeks of police pressure, he said Sid Morrisroe gave him the gun.
Morrisroe was convicted of helping plan the first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole for at least 25 years.
Tami Morrisroe said she has on tape a Phillipone relative confiding Forsyth was hired to do the murder and the plan was to pin it on her father, who was a buddy of Joe Phillipone.
She has told reporters she married the mobster who told her this. She was also handcuffed and raped by him last year. She plans to have the marriage annulled.
The man, who she said was a relative of the Phillipone family, told her he killed two dozen people. She said he told her about some of the murders in great detail.
Morrisroe said she has provided police with information about eight murders and huge drug deals, including:
The Sept. 12, 1996 mass murder at an Abbotsford farmhouse of a number of drug dealers -- Sonto Graves, 57, her husband Raymond Graves, 71, Sonto's son David and another couple, Daryl and Theresa Klassen, both 30.
The execution-style murders of Eugene and Michele Uyeyama, who were found strangled in their Burnaby home shortly before Christmas, 1995.
The murder of Joe Phillipone in 1983.
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