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“It was an obsession that became a love story.”

It sounds like a tagline for a movie. Maybe it will be, since that was how Marlene Truscott summed up her relationship with Steven Truscott in a conversation with Calgary filmmaker Wendy Hill-Tout a number of years ago.

Chasing Justice, an indie film that wrapped earlier this week in Calgary, revisits the Truscott case from the point-of-view of his devoted wife, who became convinced of her future husband’s innocence long before they were married or had a romantic relationship.

“She was a crusader for him,” says Hill-Tout. “She was the one who said ‘This isn’t right.’ She was the Erin Brockovich of Canada in my mind. She was a woman who was very determined and someone who believed, ultimately, that the wrong would be righted.”

“She always believed it was her destiny to meet him and get involved with his case.”

The film traces the story back to Marlene’s introduction to the case. As with many Canadians, she first read about him in an excerpt from journalist Isabel LeBourdais’ 1966 book The Trial of Steven Truscott that ran in papers across the country. It was a bombshell that questioned the police investigation and subsequent trial that led to the 1959 conviction of the then 14-year-old Truscott for the rape and murder of his classmate Lynne Harper in Clinton, Ont. Truscott was initially sentenced to death, although this was commuted to life imprisonment in 1960.