Original subtitles

Good evening, I'm Antony Robart. This is Crime Beat.

The stories behind some of Canada's most high profile homicides told by

the reporters who walk the beat every day.

And the families demanding justice. We'll reveal the shocking evidence as

it was uncovered by investigators In their quest for justice.

Tonight, a six-year-old girl whose life was cut short.

This was a girl that I honestly don't think had the capability

to have a bad day.

I just kind of made an imprint in my own mind

that this is not going to end well.

She had bruising throughout her body.

How did it ever get to that?

There is no way to explain it.

I'm sure you have a side to tell.

We have a side to tell, but not right now.

Here's Nancy Hixt with the story of Meika Jordan – the broken princess

Meika Jordan loved to sing and dance.

And she did it like no one was watching.

At six years old, she had a very simple list of things that made her smile.

At the top of that list: Ladybugs.

She was a huge collector of ladybugs.

I think it was honestly because she couldn't catch the butterflies.

I mean, she would try, but they're, you know, just a little bit too quick and stuff, at

least the ladybugs, she could kind of corral them and be able to scoop them up.

She was more of the aspect of, you know, if I can catch it

than I can keep it kind of thing. So we did that for a while.

But she was always under the impression, too, that, you know, I don't want to keep it for

too long because it might have a family.

And, you know, it's mommy misses it. So I have to let it go eventually.

So she would always return them back once she collected them.

Keep them for a couple of days and then she let them go again.

There was something so extraordinary about the way she could find good

in any bad situation, you know.

Oh, it's raining and we were supposed to go to the zoo. That's okay.

I'll jump in a puddle instead. Oh, it's 300 degrees outside.

That means it's sprinkler time.

You couldn't take the smile off her face.

Watch out, Levi

That is so cool. Yeah.

Way to go, Meika. Good job.

Meika loved to try new things.

Like the day she got on a skateboard for the first time.

Are you making a video?

I am.

And even though she took a few falls.

Shake it off.

Shake it off.

She would always get up, shake it off and try again.

Take your time.

Go a little further cause gonna tip on you.

In the middle.

Give a little push.

There you go.

This was a girl that I honestly don't think had the capability...

to have a bad day.

That's why what happened next was so hard to comprehend.

November the 13th, 2011, at about 7:18 p.m.

E.M.S. and C.P.S. responded to residents and on arrival

found six-year-old

Meika Jordan unresponsive and in full cardiac.

Meika Jordan was rushed to hospital.

Police were called to investigate.

Could a six-year-old girl be that badly injured

from a fall down the stairs?

There is crime tape around the house and it was being contained as a crime scene.

The man who lived next door told me he had seen a little girl at the home

a few times and had wondered why she wasn't in school.

He said she looked banged up and she had a look of fear in her eyes.

I saw some scratches on her face, and I asked the

mother what happened to your baby, lot of bleeding on her face.

Then she says she falls a lot, she told me.

Good evening.

A little girl, who'd been rushed to the children's hospital last night, has died of her injuries.

The family that lives at this temple home only moved in three weeks ago.

But now police are treating the home as a potential crime scene.

She had abdominal trauma.

She had head trauma.

She had bruising throughout her body.

Severe burn on her left hand, matted hair.

Obviously not an injury, but, but an interesting note.

And she had a torn frenulum and lip.

And usually that's the result of a blow to the mouth.

Meika was kept on life support until the next day.

And at approximately 1:47 p.m.

on November the 14th. And I'll never forget it.

Meika passed away.

I first met Meika's mother and stepfather, Kyla and Brian Woodhouse,

just days after Meika died.

They were both still coming to terms with the fact she was gone.

The first time we got to see her was when we finally realized how serious

of a situation it actually was.

I was extremely shocked.

The true part of it is I am still in shock.

There's still part of me that wants her to come walking

through that door.

And I'd kind of as soon as we came

into the hospital room and I had seen the machines

and the tubes and just all of that stuff, I just kind

of made an imprint in my own mind that this

is not going to end well.

Kyla and Brian explained this was a split family.

Meika and her little brother Levi spent half their time with them.

Their biological mother and stepfather.

They spent the other half of their time

with Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon,

Meika and Levi's biological dad and stepmother.

In 2011, there was a growing custody dispute between the parents.

On the weekend, Meika was rushed to hospital.

Meika and her little brother were supposed to be at kyla and Brian's.

Instead, their father and stepmother kept them.

A memorial was held for Meika six days after she passed away.

Her tiny white coffin was at the front of the room, covered in flowers

and there was a princess balloon floating above.

I think of Meika and have to wonder

how such a child so full of life.

and possibility could be gone so quickly.

But God knows.

Meika's favorite song was played.

While memories of her short life were shown on a big screen

every night at bedtime when Meika was at Kyla and Brian's

this is the song she would sing.

That was just a song that she really, really loved to sing.

When she was about four months old, we actually had went on a trip to

Hawaii with her other grandparent.

And so it was kind of one of those things that was always

in her mind of knowing that she had been there and that was, you know, kind of

Hawaiian themed song and that kind of thing.

So I think it was just the the upbeatness of it to.

As the pipes droned, people filed out of the funeral home.

Given the extent of Meika's injuries.

It was hard for anyone to believe she had simply fallen down the stairs.

It wasn't long before police announced Mika's death

was no accident.

Police can now reveal that the blunt force trauma injuries sustained by Meika were

to her head and abdomen.

They are not consistent with a fall down

a flight of stairs

Coming up.

Many unanswered questions for police as a major investigation gets underway

A six-year-old girl dies after reports of a fall down the stairs, but

police aren't buying that it was an accident.

Now back to Nancy Hixt with the story of Meika Jordan, the broken princess.

There were still so many unanswered questions, so I

went to Meika's father and stepmother's home to try to get some answers.

Hi there. Hi I'm just from Global News.

We're just hoping we could talk to you about the death of Meikal Jordan.

I have no comment.

No comment? Would you mind if you could talk to you?

No, not right now.

I'm sure you have a side to tell.

We have a side to tell but not right now.

Like, are you supporting your wife?

Yes, we're supporting each other in everything we're doing.

Nobody's done nothing wrong. No comment.

But the story Spencer and Marie gave to police didn't add up.

The commonalities between the two interviews were that Meika fell down the stairs,

number one.

Neither of them saw her fall.

Number two.

Both of the caregivers in their interview lacked emotion.

They were flatline.

No emotion.

Both made negative comments about Meika during the interview.

Each one of those throws up a red flag for me as a investigator.

And there were other red flags in this case.

Just weeks before Meika's death, Brian and Kyla had called Alberta Child and Family Services.

Apparently, Meika had some unusual scrapes and bruises when she returned

home from a court ordered visit with Spencer and Marie.

That matched the story the next door neighbour had already told me.

And then there was the burn.

When Mika was rushed to hospital, doctors discovered a third degree

burn that covered the palm of her hand.

You start to realize in your own head that with the amount of injuries

and the extent of injuries and when you talk about

internal injuries, blunt force injuries, third degree burns,

at some point you're not even discussing abuse.

You're talking about torture.

There's a lot of anger, a lot of hurt.

Just, you know, my my main question would be why?

You know, what happened to make you feel that

angry or upset that you took it out on a 6 year old little girl?

Jordan and Magoon were caught on wire tap brainstorming

stories to tell police to explain away Meika's fatal injuries.

And we thought that, you know, Spencer, being the biological father

of Meika, you know, was going to

maybe take the high road and cut ties with Marie.

But what we found is, you know.

The police pressure in the investigation actually brought them closer together

Is that unusual?

It is a little bit because in these situations where a child

passes away under suspicious circumstances, the biological

parent is usually normally so upset.

And not provided any explanation that usually the stress between

the two results in a separation not a uniting.

There was only one other person who saw what had happened to Meika.

The problem was he was just a little boy.

Meika's younger brother, Levi.

It was very obvious through the interviews that Levi had witnessed

abuse to Meika.

But was too scared to talk about it.

Levi has never opened up about what he saw happen to Meika.

And he was four years old at the time.

We attempted to interview Levi on three separate occasions over the next

weeks in the early got going to the investigation.

Levi was a very scared little fella.

And we, I made the decision to rule

him out as a as a possible witness just to

protect him, I guess, from the investigation.

Brian and Kyla were thankful Levi was spared from the investigation.

He's made it clear he doesn't like talking about anything to do with Spencer or Marie.

He even told them he hates his middle name.

Spencer.

For the next few months, if you were following the case closely, it would seem

police had hit a dead end.

Over the next year, Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon, Mika's father

and stepmother, moved on with their lives and they were living above their means.

Spencer was unemployed and had been for quite some time.

They were relying on a number of social agencies in

order to pay the bills. But there's a lot of bills outstanding

and they were in financial dire straits.

But 2012 was a time of new beginnings, including

new business opportunities.

This employment opportunity for Spencer was

a pretty good one. More money coming in.

Perhaps less stress and life is kind of improving.

During this same time.

The police investigation was being scaled back,

so that was another positive for them.

You know, myself.

I wasn't hassling them on a daily basis.

Detective Cavilla was kind of going away if you will.

There were also new friendships.

Spencer and Murray finally had a social circle.

Who understood them?

They went on double dates and spent time just enjoying life.

Drinks, poker games, concerts.

Doing fun things like

going bungee jumping, going to a hockey games.

And their new friends didn't judge them like other people seemed to.

And they felt they could trust them.

Then, nearly a year after Meika's death, a major break in the case.

Police arrested Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon.

Meika's own father and stepmother

were accused of killing her.

Calgary police homicide detective Dave Sweet interviewed Marie Magoon.

Magoon told the detective Meika frequently lied

and needed to be punished.

The interview ended with Magoon repeatedly denying

her involvement in Meika's death.

Coming up, as Spencer and Marie continue to deny,

do police have enough hard evidence against the company?

Welcome back to Crime Beat. I'm Antony Robart.

Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon are accused of killing Spencer, six-year-old daughter Meika

The couple maintain their innocence, but investigators are about

to finally show their hand.

We return to Nancy hixt with the story of Meika Jordan, the broken princess.

The couple was ordered to stand trial for first degree murder.

On March 23rd, 2015, about three and a half years

after Mika's death.

Details of her murder were revealed and they were really hard to hear.

As suspected, her injuries were far

worse than what could come from a simple fall.

We located a doctor in Ottawa by the name of Dr. Christopher Milroy.

And he is a forensic pathologist with a vast

amount of experience in pediatrics.

He's initially from the UK, but he's performed autopsies on hundreds of kids

over the last 20 years.

So I met with him and requested for him to assist

us on the Meika case, to look at all of the medical evidence and then provide

us an unbiased opinion as to the timeline of injuries.

He was able to narrow that timeframe to 24 hours from

her time of death.

So keep in mind, the time of death was 16 hours after transport

to the Alberta Children's Hospital.

So that means her fatal injuries

to the head and abdomen occurred on the Sunday that she was transported.

The day of that she was transported to the Alberta children's hospital.

So narrowed it to one day.

So it couldn't have been an accident?

Like it eliminated some scenarios?

It did.

It eliminated any, say, historical head trauma

or abdominal trauma that Meika may have experienced as the result

of, say, basketball to the face or a car accident weeks before.

When paramedics found Meika at Spencer and Marie's house.

She was lying a few feet from a set of stairs.

She had no pulse. Her heart wasn't beating.

Meika was dirty. Her hair was matted with chunks missing.

She had been tortured for days leading up to her death.

Remember that Burn police had spoken about?

This is a recording of a phone call

Marie Magoon made to health link Alberta.

The call was made November 12th, 2011, just after midnight.

Nearly two days before Meika was rushed to hospital.

That story was a lie.

Remember when it appeared police had hit a wall with the investigation?

When everything went quiet and the public wasn't hearing much about the case.

That's when detectives were conducting an eight-month undercover operation.

A Mr. Big Sting operation.

It's a tactic used in a lot of major crimes investigations.

Police officers create very realistic scenarios and try to get suspects to confess.

So actually, on the day that Meika died that

we codenamed this operation, Operation SASH.

S-A-S-H, which stood for safe and sound in heaven.

In this particular case, undercover officers befriended Spencer and

Marie and they were invited into a made up criminal organization.

They would have to prove they could be trusted by confessing to a crime

they were known suspects in.

The death of Meika Jordan.

That would include each suspect paying a visit to Mr. Big.

In reality, Mr. Big was an undercover officer who played

the role of a crime boss.

Mr. Big evidence was crucial. Without that evidence, we would not have had a prosecution

that time of fun and new beginnings for Jordan and Magoon

in 2012, the new friends and business opportunities,

It was all a ruse.

Each friend, hangout or business dealing was

a scenario, an elaborate investigative technique used

in these kinds of difficult cases.

It was important to establish what each person did

as it played a role in Meika's death.

And here we had the stepmother and the biological father living together

in a home where Meika was one of several children.

So establishing who committed the acts of violence against Meika was important.

Could have been one. Could have been both.

So when you get to a Mr. Big operation, that's always...

that is that at least in this case, that was the big question is who did what?

How's it going?

Stressed.

Mr. Big told Spencer Jordan things weren't looking good

that he'd heard Spencer would be charged with murder.

The crime boss told Spencer he couldn't help him unless he trusted him.

And in order to trust him, he needed to know exactly what

happened to Meika.

The conversation went on for hours.

And then finally an admission.

When we return, what Marie Magoon revealed to undercover police.

Welcome back. Spencer Jordan reveals damning evidence to undercover

police in a Mr. Big Sting operation.

Now it was his wife's turn.

Immediately following Spencer Jordan's confession to the undercover officer,

he called Marie Magoon.

That sparked some tense moments for homicide detectives.

What Spencer said was that kind of felt like a police interview.

And he was right.

He was right.

Marie, on the other hand, was less

paranoid than Spencer. Spencer was always more careful and

more paranoid out of two.

He was always worried about the police investigation, about

wiretap, about even the, you know, the undercover

operation. So Marie, on the other hand,

not so much. She just kind of accepted her new friends

and didn't worry about stuff like whether their phone being tapped.

Somehow, Magoon managed to calm Jordan's nerves.

And then it was her turn.

We did a second crime boss with Marie.

Marie during that covert confession,

if you will, provided more details as to the injuries that she

had inflicted to Meika. That's when police finally learned the truth

about that horrible burn on Meika's hand.

She admitted that she had

put make it in between her legs, grabbed her one hand

and with a lighter with the other hand, burnt the palm, whole palm of the hand for 30

seconds, which was very shocking

to even the most seasoned cop to hear this.

I've seen the photos of Meika's hand.

They're awful.

To know Marie Magoon purposely held a lighter under her hand

as torture is beyond my comprehension.

But that was only the beginning of days of torture.

You have to listen carefully.

The audio is a bit hard to hear.

We disguised Mr. Big's voice to protect his identity and credibility

as an undercover cop.

At one point, Marie Magoon picked up a pillow from the couch

and used it as a prop to show what she did to Meika.

The Mr. Big clarified very much

what each person did.

Both of them spoke about what they did, how they did

it and when they did it, and they both did that separately, each with Mr.

Big or we'll see the undercover operator.

So that brought everything to light.

And then when you look at the undercover evidence as a as a prosecution,

you're looking at any evidence that is corroborated by other aspects

of the case. So is what they say they did to meika,

consistent with the medical evidence.

And it was.

Despite the overwhelming and damning evidence in the case, the prosecution

had another hurdle to overcome.

The problem was the undercover sting operation.

The Mr. Big evidence wasn't automatically allowed as evidence

in the trial. In fact, the sting was in danger of not

being allowed as evidence at all because of a decision by Canada's top

court. They're not automatically admissible.

They're presumptively inadmissible.

Which is a fancy way of saying that you need to establish

that there are sufficient safeguards in the evidence in order for

that evidence to be admissible.

And that's to make sure that people aren't just talking out

of thin air. There has to be some corroboration to what they're saying.

In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that confessions

extracted through Mr. Big Police sting operations tend

to produce unreliable confessions, are open to abuse

and must be presumed inadmissible in court.

So we were in unchartered waters.

In addition to argueing confinement, we were in this context,

we were also in new territory terms of arguing the admissibility of Mr.

Big. So again, going back to corroboration and

pulling out the aspects of the evidence that established corroboration.

When we see corroboration, we're saying it matches.

So every time they said they committed X Act, we look to

the medical evidence to establish that this, in fact did happen, that it's consistent with.

So we would look at we would look at each injury

and the constellation of injuries on Meika and argue

that it was corroborative evidence.

That's part of it. The other part of it is establishing that the will

of the suspect was not overborne to the extent that felt that

they had to confess to Mr. Big.

So we look at financial inducements.

We look at any kind of vulnerabilities they might have.

And the way that the undercover operation handled those vulnerabilities,

whether they were exploited or not and how those vulnerabilities were handled.

It was near the end of the trial right before final arguments that the justice

presiding over the case ruled the confessions were both reliable

and admissible.

It was such a serious act of violence.

I know that through the case throughout the case.

There was evidence of animus towards Meika by her stepmother.

And the theme that we saw through the evidence was that

she perceived Meika to be someone in need of discipline.

And this may have been a way of disciplining Meika.

But again, there there is no plausible explanation for why anyone

would torture a child in this way.

But that is what the evidence was in this case.

The little girl was repeatedly abused for four days.

She was dragged up some stairs by her hair

thrown into her room, and then she was pushed hard

and hit her head on some ceramic tile in the kitchen.

And then she was punched in the stomach, which then caused some significant

internal injuries and pain.

And then she was told to run the stairs.

And then during that process, her hands were tied.

And she was also pushed and fell during that process as well.

How did it ever get to that?

There is no way to explain it.

Meika's mother collapsed outside of court after hearing these details.

I've literally gone through every worst possible case scenario

over and over again for the last three years.

To actually know firsthand what they did to her.

It's beyond any words or any emotion that I could ever

try to come up with.

After the break, the court verdict and the fate of Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon.

Welcome back. After a lengthy trial for the murder of a six-year-old girl,

the court delivers its verdict.

Now back to Nancy Hixt with the conclusion of Meika Jordan, the broken princess.

After three and a half years.

There is some measure of justice for six year old Meeka Jordan.

Today, a judge found her father and stepmother guilty of second degree murder.

Jordan and Magoon were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole

for 17 years.

It's not what we were hoping for. We we pushed for first degree from the beginning.

We knew it was going to be a really long, hard road to get to.

A second degree isn't what we wanted, but ultimately guilty is guilty.

They lose a few years of their life.

We lost her.

But that wasn't the end of the court process.

There were a flurry of appeals and court rulings.

Jordan and Magoon wanted their convictions overturned.

Sentences reduced.

The prosecution still felt this was first degree murder.

First degree murder is reserved for crimes that are the most heinous in their nature.

In Canada, murder is first degree when

one of three things happen.

One, it's planned and deliberate.

Two, if you kill a police officer.

And third, it's first degree murder.

If you kill someone while committing certain other offenses,

one of those is unlawful confinement.

So we get confinement taking place through the course of a series of events,

starting with the burn and then through the beatings that would have happened over the

course of days, including confinement up at

the at the stairs where there was a binding of the hands and controlling her liberty.

She's not able to get out of that situation.

She's only six years old.

And that's how you get to confinement.

I think we both kind of imagined that on the last day of the trial.

That would be it. You see on TV, the judge bangs the gavel and then the

jail bars close. And that's the end of it.

And unfortunately, reality is that's not the end of it.

Then, more than five years after Mika's death, a rare

ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal, the convictions for Jordan

and Lagoon were upgraded to first degree murder.

Unlawful confinement in a child homicide had never been

tried before. Just haven't been.

This was the first case. And for them to look at this as an unlawful

confinement, which it was because after the burnt hand and they

kept me at that house for three days, even though she's supposed to be back with bio mom,

according to the court order, it was an unlawful confinement.

But Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon still didn't accept their guilt.

So I went to the Supreme Court of Canada in November

of 2017, and I was actually in the courtroom

when the nine Supreme Court justices ruled that this

was indeed a first degree murder case and that both were

convicted of that with no chance of parole for 25 years.

It's finally over.

One of the best things I've ever heard in my life.

We were anticipating, you know, a couple weeks to a couple months and basically

waiting for an e-mail like we have with many of the other decisions.

And for them to walk out of that room and actually say it

right then and there that day is huge, huge for us.

And for Meika, it was the end of the road for Jordan and Magoon.

They were out of appeals.

There was finally justice for Meika.

Brian had always said, you know, they she had the power to change the world one day.

And unfortunately, the loss of her life had to be

the way that she did it. But this story has touched so many people.

And sometimes you need that raw in your face emotion

to be able to look at the world around you and say, hey, this isn't right.

Something needs to change.

It's probably one of the toughest cases

that I've had to deal with.

And when I say that, I say I say that on a personal level, on an emotional level

and on a professional level.

This would have been a grade one.

Kyla and Brian do everything they can to keep Meika's memory alive.

I can't believe it still works.

She was very much into the Barbies and especially the collector's ones.

These are the ones that were in the casket with her.

They tried to focus on the good times,

but all too often the bad,

the loss of their little girl breaks them all over again.

It's one of those things you never really know when it's gonna hit you or how hard it's

gonna hit you. You don't know when, you don't know where.

I mean, there's been times that I've been standing in the middle of Wal-Mart doing

grocery shopping and a song will come on, you know, standing in the middle

of the aisle.

And I have to try not to lose my mind in the middle of grocery shopping.

Meika's little brother, Levi, has his own way of remembering her.

He calls her sissy.

A little while ago, he stood up on a stage in his school at a talent contest.

He sang a special tribute to Meika called Sissy's song.

(Singing)

It's a country song by Alan Jackson.

Levi ends with the chorus.

I know she's smiling, saying, don't worry about me.

(Singing)

At the end, everyone clapped and Levi took a little bow.

He also carries a special memorial keepsake with him every day.

It's a pendant with a glass window.

Inside there are some of Meika's ashes, along with the ladybug charm.

And when they really need some quiet time to remember Meika,

this is where they go. I can show up there when I'm having one of the worst imaginable

days. And I will lay in that grass and I will cry and I will scream and I will swear

and I will shout. And fifteen minutes later I feel better.

And on a day when they feel the lowest, they

see a ladybug. And remember Meika's smile.

And it's like she's there with them dancing like no one is watching.

Meika Jordan's murder trial marked the first

time in Canada that unlawful confinement was used in a child homicide case.

And it continues to be a key tool for prosecutors seeking justice.

I'm Antony Robart. Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.

For more on this story and other high profile Canadian cases,

check out Crime Beat podcast.

You can listen for free on Apple podcast, Spotify, or Uncurious.ca