Milgaard, Joyce, 1930- : Joyce Milgaard is best known for her relentless twenty-year pursuit of justice that culminated in her son David being released from jail after being imprisoned for twenty-three years for a crime he did not commit. After David was freed in 1992, Milgaard spent another seven years fighting for his complete exoneration and compensation for the time he served.
Born in 1930 and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, Milgaard became a switchboard operator in her teens, and later went on to work at the Toronto Star. She moved to Winnipeg in the early 1950s where she met and married her husband Lloyd Milgaard. She gave birth to David in 1952, followed by three more children, Chris, Susan and Maureen. In 1964 the family moved to the small farming community of Langenburg, Saskatchewan, where Joyce took care of the children and Lorne worked at a potash mine. It was during this time that Joyce began exploring the Christian Science faith that would carry her through the turbulent years ahead.
In January of 1969, nursing student Gail Miller was raped and murdered in Saskatoon. A year later, on January 30, 1970, David Milgaard was convicted of the murder and sent to Saskatchewan Penitentiary to serve a life sentence. The family's life and comfort in Langenburg deteriorated significantly after the guilty verdict. Within months, the family moved to Winnipeg to be closer not only to a Christian Science church, but also to be near potential employment. At one point Joyce worked three jobs at once in order to finance the investigation that would help free David and prove his innocence.
From this point on all of Joyce's activities outside of work and church focussed on getting David out of jail. In 1980, having lost faith in the Canadian justice system, the family offered a $10,000 reward to anyone with information that freed David. With the help of friends, the family began to conduct their own investigation based on the information provided in court. They quickly found many holes in the case and between 1980 and 1986 investigated many leads and attempted to interview the original witnesses. When none of this work seemed to be advancing David's case, the family decided to seek the help of Winnipeg criminal lawyer and former Crown attorney Hersh Wolch. Wolch assigned the case to lawyer David Asper, who saw the case through to April 1992, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Milgaard should get a new trial.
During the intervening years between hiring David Asper and having David Milgaard freed from prison, Joyce not only completed nurse's training at Tenacre, a Christian Science facility in New Jersey, but she spearheaded a sophisticated media campaign to help free her son. Cultivating contacts at papers and radio stations, she made sure that the details of their story were communicated to the public. Their national media breakthrough came with a feature story done by CBC's the fifth estate television program, which marked the beginning of a growth of widespread support across the country. She also garnered the support of a number of national organizations, including the John Howard Society and the Church Council of Canada. In addition, Joyce created the David Milgaard Support Group, which consisted of volunteers who helped promote David's innocence by running a highly successful fundraising and awareness campaign.
After David's release on April 16, 1992, Joyce continued to lobby to clear his name and secure a compensation package. In July of 1997, DNA testing exonerated David of the murder of Gail Miller, and in May of 1999, the Saskatchewan government announced that the Milgaard family would receive $10 million in compensation. In 2004 the Saskatchewan Minister of Justice announced the creation of a Commission of Inquiry into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard. The resulting report in 2008 concluded that the Canadian justice system had failed David Milgaard and that no good explanation could be found as to why he was convicted or why it took so long to reopen the case.
Since her son's release from prison in 1992, Joyce Milgaard has remained involved with the John Howard Society as an Honorary Board Member, and is the Regional Director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted in Manitoba. She has received the Canada 125 Anniversary Medal and in 2007 she was granted an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Winnipeg. Milgaard frequently speaks at schools and universities in Canada and the U.S. in defence of the wrongly convicted. In 1999 she co-authored A Mother's Story with Peter Edwards, a book that went on to be the subject of an award-winning tv movie.
Joyce Milgaard lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.