By Christine Whelan, September 18th, 2025 • Volume 7 • Issue 1

The small town of Queensville, Ontario, was rocked to its core on New Year’s Eve 1984, when nine-year-old Christine Jessop’s body was found, three months after she had gone missing. Now, over 40 years later, on August 8, 2025, her story has finally been told in a documentary.

This month, I sat down with her brother Kenney in his Fort Erie home. For two hours, he told me his story.

The Day Everything Changed

When Christine went missing, Kenney was just 14 years old. Christine had been home alone after school, waiting for her mother, Janet Jessop, and her brother to return from visiting their father, Bob Jessop, who was in jail for misappropriating funds.

Kenney explained that from the very beginning, two investigating officers asked his mother for a list of people close to the family. But after speaking with the next-door neighbour, they quickly became convinced he was responsible.

That neighbour was Guy-Paul Morin.

“Morin was on the list of five or six names,” Kenney recalled. “The police left our house on Valentine’s Day, 1985, went next door, talked to him, and decided Morin did it.”

They began to build a case.

On April 22, 1985, Guy-Paul Morin was arrested.

“But when the case reached the Crown, it was discovered the evidence didn’t fit. So, evidence was ‘lost’. Anything that didn’t fit Guy-Paul was changed,” Kenney said. “For example, when the cigarette butt was found on-site but Morin wasn’t a smoker, the cigarette butt became a milk carton.”

Morin was acquitted in his first trial in 1986. The Crown appealed.

“They went into the second trial knowing Guy-Paul was innocent,” Kenney added.

According to Wikipedia, the second trial ran for nine months in 1992, making it the longest murder trial in Canadian history at the time. Morin was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

By January 1995, advances in DNA testing led to a result that excluded Morin as the murderer. He was acquitted. Public inquiry later uncovered evidence of police andprosecutorial misconduct, and misrepresentation of forensic evidence by the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences.

Losing a Sister and Himself

“I went from 14 years old on October 3 to being 25 on October 4,” Kenney shared. “I lost my teenage years.”

“All they did at the time was put me on pills. I was taken to a police psychologist and put on SSRIs, a type of antidepressant. “Every month, I’d end up in the hospital with an overdose, trying to kill myself.”

Soon after, Kenney began drinking.

His mother coped differently. “She just trudged forward, burying herself in helping others, volunteering with victims of violence.”

A Turning Point

Then, everything changed.

“On the weekend of the 36th anniversary of Christine’s death, we stopped at her gravesite. It just felt different, peaceful, calm. Then, a week and a half later, it was announced that Calvin Hoover was the killer. They found the match.”

Genetic Genealogy

On October 15, 2020, police identified Calvin Hoover as Christine’s murderer through DNA and genetic genealogy.

“Websites like 23andMe that help people find their ancestry were used to find matches,” Kenney explained. “One day, there was a hit in our case, it was Hoover’s son, who had used the site, which linked his father to the case. Christine’s was one of the first real major cases to get solved this way.”

Who Was Calvin Hoover?

Calvin Hoover worked for the Jessops, and his wife Heather was Bob Jessop’s secretary.

Kenney recalled that on the morning of October 3, Christine had been upset. She wanted to go with her mom and brother to visit her dad in jail. She wasn’t allowed to go.

Kenney remembered a phone call between his mother and Heather. During the conversation, Janet mentioned their plans for the day and that Christine would be home alone. With Calvin present during that call, now aware of the family’s schedule, Kenney paused and said:
“That was his day to do it.”

Christine’s body was later found just five minutes from a cabin owned by Hoover.
“He kept her there, then killed her there,” Kenney said.

Hoover died by suicide in 2015.

Bob Jessop has also recently passed away. Before his death, he learned who Christine’s real killer was.

Finding Sobriety

“When I hit my bottom, I woke up in jail, saw my reflection, realized where I was, and I just wanted to die.”

But about an hour later, he heard his mother’s voice. That changed everything.

“She had already lost one child. I knew I had to live.”

Casa Kasey Wood Design

After jail, Kenney stayed with his mother for 28 days. The day before he planned to return home, he ordered a wood laser.

And just like that, Casa Kasey Wood Design was born.

Kenney now designs and creates laser art, primarily using solid, one-piece wood canvases.

Why “Kasey”? It’s named after his beloved dog.

Staying busy has helped him stay sober. “It’s really been good for my brain,” he said. “It’s my therapy.”

“Now I make people cry, for good reasons.”

He creates detailed memorials. “When I do a headshot of somebody, you can feel their facial features, lips and cheekbones. I take great solace in helping someone else through.”

A Mother’s Love

Janet Jessop passed away on March 15, 2024.

“I waited and buried her on October 3, alongside my sister, on the 40th anniversary of her disappearance.” It was another step in Kenney’s healing journey.

“She was still volunteering, taking phone calls from police in the States for missing kids cases, just to talk to the parents. That was her therapy.”

“I’m kind of glad she’s not here for the documentary. But she got her answers. And she got to see that her son was okay.”

Before she passed, Janet spent a week at Kenney’s home. The night before she left, she gave him a big hug and said,
“I’m so proud of the man you’ve become.”

That memory keeps him sober.

A week later, he got the call. Janet had passed. Doctors said it was COPD.

The Stevensville Farmers’ Market

This past June, Kenney took over as market manager of the Stevensville Farmers’ Market after being a vendor at several Niagara-area markets.

His mother had once told him,
“You should run your own market.”

 When he was considering the opportunity and looked up to see a double rainbow, it didn’t surprise him. He took it as a sign.

The Documentary

“By the time we began the documentary, I was ready for anything.”

Kenney said they’d been trying to get the documentary made since 2004.

“Over 10 years ago, a young woman fresh out of high school approached my mother, determined to tell this story. Folklaur Chevrier had studied the case in school and later pitched the documentary idea to Alibi Entertainment in Toronto.”

“A lot of people thought the documentary would be hard on me,” Kenney admitted. “But I got my closure during the making of it.”

Filming the documentary had a cleansing effect. “I didn’t even realize it at first. Going into the interview, I was nervous. And then I started talking, and it was like an intensive therapy session. I was on camera for five days. It had all been buried for so long.”

“It’s an ugly story that will leave you with a sense of hope. It’s how my mother and I, against all odds, survived.”

Almost daily, Kenney receives messages from people across the country who have watched the documentary, sharing how his strength and honesty have given them hope in their own lives.

“And if that’s the legacy of this, I can’t ask for more.”
Becoming an inspiration, he said, is still a new experience for him.

“I put myself through hell. I made it through with the love of my mother and Kasey.”

You can watch the complete three-part Crave Original docu-series,
The Christine Jessop Story, now streaming on Crave.