Retired cop tells stories of high-profile crime victims

During her 34 years with the Ontario Provincial Police, Kate Lines investigated several high-profile crimes, including the murders of Kristen French and Tori Stafford, and the disappearance of Michael Dunahee.

But when Lines was writing her autobiography, she focused on a side of these stories that isn't often told — that of the victims and their families.

She met with the victims' families, and asked their permission to write about their loved ones.

“There seems to be a great deal of interest and sensationalism with the notoriety of the offenders and their names,” said Lines, a former criminal profiler and chief superintendent with the OPP.

She said victims should be remembered for more than what happened to them, and was privileged to be able to share stories the families told her.

The result is the Peterborough resident's newly released book, “Crime Seen: From Patrol Cop to Profiler, My Stories from Behind the Yellow Tape.”

Lines is the guest speaker at this year's edition of Celebrate Women, taking place starting at 7:30 p.m. April 16 at Laurentian University's Fraser Auditorium.

Every year, three women's organizations — Canadian Federation of University Women, YWCA, and Women's Legal Education and Action Fund — bring in a female Canadian author to speak about her latest book as a fundraiser.

The author said she's thrilled to have been selected as this year's guest speaker, especially given the calibre of past speakers, including Reva Seth, Sally Armstrong, Joyce Milgaard, Jan Wong and Samantha Nutt.

Lines joined the OPP in 1977, just three years after the police service started hiring women. Not everyone at the OPP thought women belonged there, but Lines didn't let that deter her.

After years of investigating fraud, Lines said she got into criminal investigation because of a case where several elderly women were sexually assaulted, and a female officer was needed to interview them.

“It was a horrible experience for them, but they said it made it better to be able to talk to somebody that understood and that they were comfortable with,” Lines said.

In 1990, Lines was given the opportunity to become trained in what was then the emerging field of criminal profiling with the FBI in an elite program in Quantico, Virginia.

She said her most memorable case was likely working on the 1991 disappearance of four-year-old Michael Dunahee in Victoria, British Columbia. His disappearance remains unsolved.

Lines said it was the first Canadian case she worked on as a criminal profiler.

“You never forget that first one, and all the details,” she said.
The police officer worked her way up the OPP chain of command until she retired in 2011 as chief superintendent, in charge of departments such as child pornography investigations and forensic identification.

“That was a kind of a nice way to finish off my career, because I'd worked in many of the areas that I was now in charge of,” Lines said.

In her retirement, she's not only become a consultant to the television shows “Rookie Blue” and “Flashpoint” and a private investigator, she decided to write a book about her career.

“I'm a first-time writer,” she said. “In my acknowledgements, I talk about being a just-the-facts cop who writes the time and the date and exactly what they're told.

“But I took it on as a challenge like I did many of the other things I did in my career — 'Gee, I've never done this before, but hey, there's lots of things you haven't done before and you ended up doing them, so let's give this a try.'”

Tickets to Celebrate Women, which cost $10 each, are available at the Apollo Restaurant, Gloria's, the Laurentian University Bookstore and at the door.

Lines' book, published by Random House, costs $29.95, and is available wherever books are sold, as well as the Celebrate Women event.