Steven Truscott

Steven Murray Truscott is a Canadian man who, at fourteen years old, was convicted and sentenced to death in September 1959 for the rape and murder of classmate Lynne Harper. Truscott had been the last known person to see her alive. He was scheduled to be hanged; however, the federal cabinet reprieved him and he was sentenced to life in prison and released on parole in 1969. Five decades later, in 2007, his conviction was overturned on the basis that key forensic evidence was weaker than had been portrayed at trial, and key evidence in favour of Truscott was concealed from his defence team. Truscott has been described as the youngest person in Canada to be sentenced to death, although Anthony Wayne Yensen was 14 years and seven months old when he was sentenced to death on January 21, 1961, two months younger than Truscott was when he was sentenced. Yensen won a new trial in May 1961 and freed at a retrial the following month after judge said the case should not have been handled in adult court.