The man police accused of murdering Byron Carr in 1988 is now free. Here's what happened

And we begin tonight with a shocking development in one of PEI's highest-profile murder cases. The charges against the man accused of killing Byron Carr have been withdrawn because key pieces of evidence are missing. Todd Joseph Irving, who used to go by Gallant, had been charged with first-degree murder and interfering with human remains in connection with Carr's death. 36-year-old Byron Carr was found dead inside his Charlottetown home in November 1988. He had been strangled and suffered multiple stab wounds. In 2024, Todd Joseph Irving was arrested and charged in connection with the decades-old case. And today, those charges were withdrawn. Wayne Thibodeau spoke with Irving as he left court today. Here's that conversation. I do have to ask you, Adam, it's all over, Mr. Irving. How are you feeling? It's time for a beer, buddy. What do you do now? Do like any good Islander does, get a job, go to work. Put this in the past. Are you at all angry that you spent two and a half years in jail for a crime that you were not found guilty of uh emotions don't play into it excuse me do you uh do you anticipate though that you would take legal action against the city or the province for your time in custody no comment sir i have to ask you this question did you kill Byron Carr All right. Have a good day. Yeah. Thanks, Wayne. Wayne Thibodeau was in court, joins us now live with more details. It is quite a stunning revelation, Wayne, that evidence was missing. What evidence is missing in the case? Well, Louise, Charlottetown police lost the knife and the towel from the crime scene back in 1988. As you mentioned, it was a stunning announcement that was made official by a statement from the Crown Attorney's Office earlier today. Now, we first heard about this missing evidence back in July during a hearing on whether Irving should be released until his trial. Now, he was released. We were in court that day, but we couldn't publish any details about what happened in court that day because of a court-imposed publication ban. Now, as you mentioned, as a result, the Crown has withdrawn all charges against Irving. I spoke with Christopher White. He's the lead lawyer for the Crown earlier today. Certainly, this was a matter of tremendous personal and public significance. And I think that everyone involved viewed that it was important that it be adjudicated in a public venue. So for that not to be able to take place, it's just, it's really disappointing. And I can only imagine what it would be like for Mr. Carr's family. Now, it wasn't until August, so two months ago, that the Crown confirmed to the police, that the police, sorry, confirmed to the Crown that, and I'm using their words now, a substantial portion of physical evidence could not be located. Now, police on the stand during that hearing in July confirmed that the towel used to strangle Byron Carr and the knife later used to stab him were missing. Now, the Crown said not only was key evidence missing, but a review identified significant gaps in the way other pieces of evidence were handled too. So Wayne, what does the Charlottetown police have to say about all of this? Well, police say they knew back in 2007 when the case was reopened that the knife and the towel were missing, but they hope to be able to build their case on DNA found at the crime scene and on the body of Byron Carr. We knew these challenges existed. This was 1988. It was a different time in policing. The standards were far different than they are today, and what we did in 2007 was we endeavored to look at what we had, realize the challenges, and look forward to what was available to us as far as tools were concerned to identify the offender. That, I would say, the work that was done brought us to the point where forensic DNA evidence was sufficient enough to justify the arrest and charge of Todd Lamb. Now, Darren McDougall is the interim police chief here in Charlottetown, but Brad McConnell is the former chief, and he was also the officer who led the Byron Carr investigation for years. He's now the city's CAO. I certainly, you know, hoped that the forensic evidence would be enough to carry the day. It became apparent over the last several months, as we, you know, worked through this, that the challenges are too much to overcome. Do you think you had the right person? Absolutely. Wow. So, Wayne, where does the Byron Carr case go from here? Well, police say they're not ruling out a third-party review of how they handle evidence, But McDougal says procedures have changed since 1988 and he's confident that this wouldn't happen again. As for whether this case could go back before the courts, the Crown answered that with a simple one word, no. All right, Wayne, that's Wayne Thibodeau reporting live for us tonight. So it was an emotional day for the family of Byron Carr, as you can well imagine. Our Laura Meter spoke with his brother, John Carr, about the news. Here's some of that conversation. General reaction is disappointment, mainly. We're very disappointed that this is not going through to the final conclusion, which we expected it would, but it won't be. And also a little bit of uncertainty as to what actually happened and why we're at the stage we're at now. Despite all the years since it happened in 1988, it's still it's still very hurtful to all of us not just me to all our family. I guess when that announcement came in January 2024 that police had made an arrest what was your feeling then? We were so relieved it was like a weight lifted off everyone and we all had the same feeling all our family it was like a weight being lifted off us because until then we had no idea we were you Now we wondered if it was someone we knew, in this case we didn't know the accused, but we always wondered and we certainly racked our brains and spent many sleepless nights thinking about it and wondering who it would have been.