- Hi, my name is maple batalia,
And I'm reading the part of geneva.
[faith] nineteen-year-old maple batalia is going places.
- She did her first modeling runway gig at 14.
- She was really excited
About her first role in a big movie.
- At school, everyone was kind of like,
"yeah, she's a star."
[faith] but just when maple's future
Looks the brightest, [gunshots]
Her life is cut short.
- The shooting took place at close range.
[dramatic music]
- This was personal.
It was quite twisted.
[faith] and when a mysterious stranger is caught
On camera shadowing maple.
- Is there a perspective stalker?
Is there somebody that she had difficulty with on set?
- I think gary was really jealous of her light
'cause he didn't have that light in him.
[faith] it reveals
A killer relationship.
- What, what, what happened to her?
[dramatic music]
- Maple batalia's parents journey from india to canada
To give their children a world of opportunities,
Sacrificing everything they had for their kids' success.
In surrey, british columbia,
Their two girls were raised to believe the sky's the limit,
And because of their support and maple's ambition,
Her dreams were coming true.
Not only was she a star,
She was studying to be a doctor.
Beauty, brains, desire,
A triple threat,
And it turns out,
A threat to someone.
Her last hours alive were spent studying with friends
At her school's library,
And then, in an instant,
Everything was taken away.
[intense music]
[gunshots]
[phone dialing]
[siren wailing]
[intense music]
[operator] district 14, shots fired, 13450.
Multiple calls on this.
[siren wailing]
- When we get multiple callers,
Something major has happened.
The adrenaline starts going, and you just start driving
In that direction.
[siren wailing]
At that point, we knew very little.
There was a shooting.
We knew it was at the school campus.
Some information had been provided,
That the suspect had already fled the area.
- When I got out of the car, I could still smell
That acrid tang of gun smoke in the air,
And then dan shouted, "tyner, I found her!"
[intense music]
- She was laying on the ground,
Blood everywhere.
Her body looked like it had been stabbed and shot,
But she had a pulse.
I said, "okay, she's alive."
She's trying to say something,
What she witnessed or what she's feeling,
But there was so much blood that she couldn't get out
What she really wanted to say.
And I remember telling her I was gonna do everything
That I could in my powers, in my training,
To try and save her.
[gentle music]
[faith] nineteen-year-old maple batalia was born
In india just before her family immigrated to the country
That inspired her name.
[gentle music]
- Maple was born in 1992,
And we came to canada for a good future.
- With the maple trees all over in canada,
I had given a name to my little daughter
As maple.
- India doesn't necessarily seem to be
Such a safe place for women, unfortunately,
So there's a lot of those hopes
And dreams of a better life in canada.
[upbeat music]
- On the first day of kindergarten,
She looked like a princess.
I went up to her, and I was like, "I love your dress.
Will you be my best friend?"
She said yes, and that was it.
- Growing up, people were amazed at how beautiful
And charismatic she was.
You know, you would notice when maple walked into a room.
- Our parents are mostly all immigrants from india.
We're all punjabi,
And we all go to the same temples,
And we kind of grew up in the same culture.
[soft music]
- But we grew up in a very non-traditional household.
- She was allowed to go outside and play with the boys
And just kind of be free,
Which is kind of taboo in our culture.
She was like, "I wanna be a doctor,"
"I wanna be an astronaut,"
"I wanna be a model,"
"I wanna be in movies."
She always had big dreams.
[faith] as she grows into a teenager,
Maple's lofty aspirations don't stop her
From more down-to-earth pursuits.
[gentle music]
- When maple was 14, I found out that she had a crush
On a punjabi boy named gary dhaliwal,
Who was also 14.
- She was quite young, but gary's family
Was very well-known.
[gentle music]
- Because maple was so mature
And she was doing so well in school and in life,
That we were like, you know, "she's so responsible,
Why are we gonna interfere too much more than we need to?"
He would go out of his way to, like,
Make sure maple felt special.
There would be, like, chocolates and flowers
Delivered to the house.
- He was quite extravagant in showing his love like that.
- Gary and maple really, like, they were foodies,
And they also liked outdoors.
So, she liked to hike and things like that, so she would go
To, like, vancouver capilano suspension bridge,
And she would go to grouse mountain with him.
In the beginning of the relationship,
Gary would come by the house and have, like, dinner with us,
Say hi to my parents.
Gary's mom became friends with my mom.
They would talk on the phone often,
They would do stuff together with maple,
And their relationship really flourished
Because of maple's and gary's.
[faith] one of maple's dreams,
To become a model and actress,
Started to come true shortly after she began dating gary,
And soon, acting opportunities followed.
- She did her first modeling runway gig at 14,
But she also did vancouver fashion week,
And she started acting school.
- Her parents were very supportive,
And she eventually found herself an agent,
And started auditioning as well.
- Hi, my name is maple batalia,
And I'm reading the part of geneva.
- She, somehow, did it all,
Like she did her modeling, her acting, her studying.
Like, she was so well-rounded.
- And, I'm not finished.
- Over the next few years
As she focuses on school and her grades,
Maple tries to give enough attention to gary,
Her first love,
While pursuing modeling and acting jobs,
Her other loves.
It becomes an incredible balancing act
For such a young person.
With her family rooting her on,
She felt she could reach the sky,
But she had one person dragging her down.
- I always wondered to myself how maple
Even continued modeling or acting
With having gary as her boyfriend
Because he seemed very insecure.
- Gary was jealous.
He wasn't happy for her like a boyfriend
That loves her should be.
I think he was really jealous of her light
'cause he didn't have that light in him.
[faith] after high school graduation in the fall of 2010,
Gary skips college and goes to work
For his family's trucking business
While maple begins her freshman year at the local college,
Simon fraser university.
- She's like, "I would love to succeed in acting
And make it big, but at the same time,
I also want to like, you know, become a doctor."
I think she was having a very hard time choosing
Which one she'd rather do, so instead, she tried doing both.
- Maple had, towards 2011,
Started booking some really big gigs.
- She got a part in the movie "diary of a wimpy kid",
And she was really excited about that
'cause it was her first role in a big movie.
- You should hear my band.
We play so loud, we actually make people's eardrums bleed.
- Ew. - I mean, not really.
- Maple and I and a few friends went to see the premiere,
And we sat with the crowd, and during her parts,
We were cheering, and she had tears in her eyes.
She couldn't believe that she was on the screen.
So, it was surreal.
[faith] the exposure from "diary of a wimpy kid"
Secures maple a coveted role in a hot new series on the cw
And her first on-screen kiss.
[suspenseful music]
- Back to the gym.
- She had a kissing scene,
And she'd talked to my parents about it,
And my dad just joked to her and said,
"make sure you chew gum." [chuckles]
- At school, if you asked anybody,
They would've probably known who she was.
Everyone was kind of like, "yeah, she's a star."
- But as they watch maple's star rise,
Her friends also witnessed the fall of her relationship
In late August of 2011.
- She came across some emails.
Gary was telling this other girl that he loved her
And he wanted to be with her.
That's where everything shattered and she knew, like,
This guy's a liar, he's no good,
And she decided to say, like,
"no, I'm breaking up with him."
- My mom said, you know,
"if you can't trust a person in a relationship,
Then there's nothing left, really."
[dramatic music]
[faith] maple moves on, and one month after the breakup,
On the evening of September 27th,
She's in the library at simon fraser university
With her friends.
[lively music]
- Maple and a group of mixed guys and girls were studying.
She looked so beautiful.
She was just giving off this, like, light,
And she was so happy.
She was giggling, she was laughing.
Oh, my god, it was just, it was just a sight to see.
[lively music]
It was round 11:00, so I packed up,
And I was like, "maple, let's go home, it's getting late,"
And she was like, "no, I still have this one more assignment
To do, I'm gonna stay."
And so, I leave, I go home.
[suspenseful music]
[gunshots]
[phone ringing] [sirens wailing]
- I get a phone call,
And it's one of the guys that was studying with maple,
And he goes, "karen, wake up, wake up,
Someone shot maple.
You need to get the [bleep] up and go call her parents."
- No one witnessed the actual shooting,
But there was tons of cameras.
- We're talking about thousands of hours
Tracing the timeline of the last few hours of maple's life.
- You see the crime vehicle fleeing the scene.
- She could have had any person wanting to harm her.
- Maple's mother screamed in my face,
"bring me vengeance!"
- We get to the hospital,
And we don't really know what's going on. [sniffing]
[siren wailing]
- Nineteen-year-old student, maple batalia,
Has just been shot and stabbed on the campus
Of simon fraser university in british columbia.
She's been transported to the royal columbian hospital
In surrey in grave condition.
[dramatic music]
- Maple's father and mother,
Sister, and a family friend were in the waiting room.
My sergeant said those words that every cop hates saying...
"I'm sorry I have to tell you, but your daughter is dead."
[dramatic music]
- I was expecting him to say
That she just, you know, is hurt or whatever,
But I wasn't expecting
To hear that she's gone.
- What, what, what happened to her?
What did she go through, was she in pain?
[somber music]
- Oh, god,
What has happened to our family?
Our beautiful, little child
Is lost forever.
[somber music]
- [sobbing]
Maple had so many dreams in her life.
[somber music]
- Maple's mother grabbed the back of my head
And pulled me down so that our foreheads were touching,
And she screamed in my face,
"bring me vengeance!"
- As maple's family and closest friends
Struggle to come to terms with her shocking, violent death,
The attack is now classified as a murder,
And the surrey royal canadian mounted police
Call in their homicide investigative team
To go to the crime scene.
[dramatic music]
- When I first got there,
I knew that maple had been shot.
One of my jobs is to try to recreate
Where the shooter would've been at the time of the murder.
I saw where the bullet holes were in the car,
And we were able to determine that she was shot
From the left side, as maple was walking towards her car.
I recovered several nine millimeter bullet casings.
So, we scoured all that area just in case
The gun was thrown in the garbage or thrown in a bush.
Never found the gun, but we found a large knife
Right beside maple's vehicle.
It was a good, like, 12-inch, fixed-blade hunting knife.
As I examined this knife,
I could see little hairs and blood in that knife.
So, what forensic evidence could we get from this knife?
Is there any offender dna on that knife?
[faith] homicide detectives fan out
And begin interviewing witnesses who may have seen something
That could help the investigation.
- Eyewitness testimony described,
Within a minute of the shooting,
A white vehicle fleeing the area at a high rate of speed.
- No one actually even saw the shooting,
But we were fortunate that at simon fraser university,
In this building in the mall,
There was tons of cameras,
And so we tasked someone from the team to go in there
And work with the security departments
To try to get all of the footage.
- We have a victim,
Who is known to the community as an actress,
As a model, young, attractive.
She could have had any person wanting to harm her.
Is there a perspective stalker?
Is there somebody that she had difficulty with on set,
For example,
Or could there have been a jealousy factor
In relation to what it was that she was doing as a model?
We are looking at absolutely every possibility.
[somber music]
In the early morning hours, the team wanted me to go
To maple's house and start looking through her room
For any clues that, you know,
What happened to maple and who could be responsible for it,
And try to learn who maple batalia was,
And what I started learning was that she recently ended
A relationship with gary dhaliwal.
When I'm in maple's room, going through her stuff,
There were cards that maple had sent to gary,
But what I noticed about some of the writing on the cards,
Maple's message was always about the relationship,
How she wanted it to work, but gary's, on the other side,
Was always, "I'm really, really sorry.
Promise I won't do that again,
Give me one more chance."
So, it started giving a bit of an insight
Of what was going on actually in their relationship.
- In the first hours, we're receiving information
That gary dhaliwal and maple batalia had been involved
In an altercation just a few days before the murder.
Maple went to a local coffee shop
With a man who she knew from school.
Gary arrived, confronted the two of them,
And there was an altercation,
And we're receiving information
That the relationship had been tumultuous.
So, gary dhaliwal was identified as a person of interest.
- We had to find dhaliwal and question him,
But he wouldn't return our phone calls,
And he wasn't at home.
- While gary may have been jealous of maple's success
And he and maple recently had a bad breakup,
Does any of this mean he's capable of killing maple?
As detectives attempt to track down gary,
12 hours after the murder,
The first batch of security camera footage from sfu
Is ready to be screened.
[dramatic music]
- The parking lot itself had cameras.
Inside the campus,
There were some 50 cameras.
So, we started primarily with cameras
That would've captured the event itself.
What we see is her walking down from the fifth floor
Just after 1:00 a.M., chatting with three men.
You're watching her smiling and joking.
These were her last happy moments.
And then they walk out the front doors,
And you see them go off in their own directions.
You see her go off to the left,
The other three go off to the right.
- In a matter of seconds, she's gonna be gone.
[gunshots]
In their witness statements,
Her friends heard the shots and just ducked for cover
'cause they had no idea what was happening.
They never really even saw anything
Other than the dodge charger when it was leaving.
There was a dome camera that was right there
In the middle of the parking lot.
It couldn't have been 200 feet
From where the incident actually occurred,
And so I immediately was excited.
Like, "perfect, we're gonna get some footage,
We're gonna see exactly what happened."
And all of a sudden, the camera starts to move,
And away it goes and starts slowly panning away,
And it's just going, going.
- And I watched that camera turn away,
Yelling at the screen,
"no, go back, go back, go back,"
And you know that roughly 10 seconds later,
She's killed.
It was very disappointing.
It would have answered a lot of questions
Very quickly for us.
[suspenseful music]
- Detectives in british columbia
Investigating the murder of 19-year-old maple batalia,
Are scanning every frame of surveillance footage
In the moments before her death.
What they see is the innocence of a young woman,
Unaware she's experiencing the last moments of her life,
But what they don't see is where she is attacked and killed
Because incredibly,
Right when maple is about to arrive to her car,
The camera pans away.
Now investigators have to study all of the camera angles
All over the campus to see if the killer
Appeared anywhere else on camera,
But viewing all this footage will take hours
Upon hours of time.
Meanwhile, the autopsy provides more details.
- The official cause of death for maple
Was multiple gunshot wounds at close range.
There was three gunshot wounds that entered
The left side of her body,
And then exiting from the right side.
Also, the autopsy revealed maple had been sliced
And cut pretty badly in the top of her head.
- I use the term mutilated.
They were not fatal.
When looking at the information,
It was very likely that the shooting occurred
And then the injuries with the knife.
Being cut in that manner suggested that
This was personal.
[faith] very clearly personal,
Indicating maple was targeted,
But by who,
And why?
The detectives go back to the campus security footage
And piece together maple's last hours.
- At 10:13 that night, maple and her friend, karen,
Decided they needed a break.
So, we actually were able to track
When they went down in the elevator,
Across the parking lot, into a 24-hour coffee shop.
At that same time,
The white sports car came out from a parking stall
And went down the parking garage,
Down to the bottom floor where maple was.
- Then we see the white vehicle circle in the background,
But we can't see who's inside.
We continue to advance the video,
And she returns a few minutes later.
And it's very clear as you watch this timeline,
This vehicle is following maple.
[suspenseful music]
And then the vehicle was seen leaving
Immediately after the murder
At a high rate of speed.
[suspenseful music]
- What stood out to everybody
Was the strange racing-type tail lights.
- The driver hit the brake lights,
And they just jump out at you.
That was a very important piece for us.
[suspenseful music]
- We were very fortunate that dodge
Decided to change their model in 2010 to 2011,
And that included these racing-type brake lights.
So, we ended up requesting,
From our licensing bureau,
All of the 2011 white dodge chargers
That were registered in british columbia.
- As a part of the initial seizure of video,
We're looking at events leading right up
To the point of where she was killed.
Maple walked out at just after 1:00 a.M.
With these three males.
A witness said, earlier that night,
Maple happened to come across a man by the name of dhillon.
He was the same person that was at tim hortons
With maple a few days earlier,
When gary came in and there was an altercation.
After her friend left, she went up
And studied with dhillon and his two friends.
- So, now, all of a sudden,
From that point, we're now starting to map dhillon.
At about 10:00, 10:30 roughly or so,
You could really see that someone
Was actually following dhillon
And then going to areas where maple might be.
[dramatic music]
- Could we be staring at the first snapshot
Of maple's murderer?
Who is the shadowy figure tracking both maple
And her friend?
Detectives show dhillon the man from the security footage,
But unfortunately, he doesn't recognize him.
They then play dhillon the security video
From when gary stormed into tim hortons coffee house
Three nights before maple was killed.
- He provided a story of what happened that evening.
Maple was out with dhillon having coffee.
All of a sudden, gary showed up...
Burst through the door,
And he started yelling at her,
"who's this guy that you're with?"
And then, quickly, you see him swing his fist at someone.
It turns out he ended up punching dhillon in the head,
And then he was demanding her to get into his truck.
[dramatic music]
- Maple tells me the next day
She was truly, truly shaken up, and I was like, "maple,
This is so scary, you need to go
And get a restraining order."
And so I was really, like, shaking
And I was really scared.
- Mm-hm.
- Gary dhaliwal is arrested right away
As a part of that investigation,
And released on conditions
Not to have contact with her.
- If gary was angry enough to attack maple
Three nights prior to her death,
Was he angry enough to kill her?
Investigators have been calling gary
For the last 30 hours, with no response.
They try him again.
- And he answered the phone,
And he said he'd get back to us
'cause he wanted to speak to his lawyer.
Less than an hour later, we got a call from his lawyer,
And his lawyer said,
"yeah, he's not gonna come talk to you."
He wasn't being arrested or anything,
And he has a right not to say anything.
So, it is his right, although it is suspicious.
[suspenseful music]
[faith] though gary isn't cooperating,
The detectives get a lead on the white charger,
And it reveals someone connected to him.
[suspenseful music]
- We were getting all of the vehicle registrations back
For the 2011 white dodge chargers
That were registered in british columbia,
And six rental companies were able to give us the name
Of the person who actually rented the vehicles.
- Three days before the murder occurred,
There was a 2011 white dodge charger
Rented to gursimar gary bedi.
It was rented from an avis rental agency
In the city of surrey...
And gary bedi was a high school friend of gary dhaliwal.
[dramatic music]
- Coincidence, or was gary bedi working with gary dhaliwal,
And was it this rental car that was seen
At the school that night?
Investigators immediately called the avis location,
Hoping to locate the charger.
- We learned that vehicle had been returned
And was sitting there,
Waiting to actually go in to get cleaned.
So, of course, we were like, "okay, time out with that.
We're on our way, don't touch that vehicle."
[faith] the police make a beeline to avis,
Arriving just seconds before the car is cleaned.
The dodge charger is loaded onto a flatbed
To be taken to police headquarters,
And detectives ask to review the rental company's
Video surveillance from the day the charger was rented.
- The video footage from avis
Showed that not only do we have bedi renting the vehicle,
But gary bedi
Came in with gary dhaliwal.
[dramatic music]
- Detectives investigating the murder of maple batalia
Have located the 2011 white dodge charger
At an avis car rental in surrey,
Which is possibly associated with her killer or killers.
The surveillance footage reveals gary bedi,
But the investigators are shocked to also see
Maple's ex-boyfriend, gary dhaliwal.
- Obviously, a huge break in the case.
Not only do we have bedi renting the vehicle,
But we now have that association to dhaliwal, and also,
We recognize bedi as the man,
From the video from sfu, following dhillon.
[dramatic music]
When we went through the charger,
In the undercarriage of the hood,
There was a bullet casing...
Where your windshield wiper would be.
So, it was just the smallest spot
Where the casing had fallen through.
Within days, we were able to find
That that nine millimeter casing was the same
As the casings at the scene,
And there was one little fleck of blood at the light switch
And a tiny little bit on the driver's side visor.
[dramatic music continues]
We were able to confirm that the blood
Recovered inside the crime vehicle was that of maple's.
And we found out that gunshot residue
Was on the steering wheel.
- So, we know that, because no other forensic evidence
Was linked to the passenger side
Or other parts of the vehicle,
We were able to establish that the person
Who killed maple was the driver.
Was that bedi, or is that gary dhaliwal?
- Investigators are now certain that gary dhaliwal
And gary bedi were both involved in killing maple,
But it's important to note that,
Similar to the legal system in the united states,
The canadian legal system has a burden of proof standard,
Meaning guilt has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The u.S. Requires that burden of proof
For a prosecutor to make a conviction, but in canada,
Police must meet that burden of proof to make an arrest.
[dramatic music]
- There wasn't enough evidence to determine
Who was the shooter.
Many people assumed it was the estranged boyfriend,
But in canada,
We have this very high standard for charge approval.
- We did make efforts to question bedi
And ask him his side of the story,
But he chose to remain silent,
And here in canada,
That's everyone's right to do.
So, back to the drawing board and try other methods
To try to get the charge approval.
On September 27th,
At 8:13 p.M.,
The dodge charger pulls onto the third floor at sfu.
It did some circles,
Then all of a sudden,
The passenger door opened up and dropped someone off.
You saw a passenger
Coming inside that campus,
And it's bedi.
[suspenseful music]
- While bedi is confirmed as a passenger
Hours before the murder,
The footage isn't clear enough to identify
Who's behind the wheel for the drop-off
Or at the time of the crime,
Which means detectives not only still lack proof
That gary dhaliwal is maple's killer,
But also if he was even at the university that night.
[dramatic music]
- The police applied for search warrants
For banking records, credit card records,
The cell phone records for both dhaliwal and bedi.
That takes time.
They can't just walk into a person's cell phone provider
And say, "give me all the records."
[dramatic music]
[reporter] batalia's 19-year-old ex-boyfriend,
Gurjinder dhaliwal, was charged
With allegedly assaulting batalia at a tim hortons
Just four days before her murder.
The charges were later stayed because of a lack of evidence.
Police won't say if he's a suspect.
[reporter] when's the last time you saw maple?
- Me and my family were devastated,
Knowing what we know, and not even in the news
Were they allowed to call him a suspect.
[sarbjit wailing]
[reporter] overwhelming grief takes over
As 800 family friends and strangers
Packed into riverside funeral home
To honor the short life of 19-year-old maple batalia.
- The funeral was definitely one of the hardest things
I've ever had to do in my life.
[somber music]
- They had dressed her [sniffs]
In this outfit that she had jokingly said to her mom
That she wanted to get married in.
[sniffing]
So, her mom purchased the outfit,
And they had her dressed in that beautiful
Dress.
- Her mom was just screaming.
It was, like, the type of screams
Like I've never heard before.
[faith] the police have not forgotten
Maple's mother's impassioned plea for vengeance.
While retribution may not be possible, justice is.
Just as maple is laid to rest,
There's a break in the case.
The banking information on both potential suspects
Comes back.
- We were able to see that his credit card was used to
Make a purchase at the mall the day before the homicide.
It was the 26th of September.
Gary dhaliwal went into the mall, to the house of knives,
And purchased a brand new sog fixation knife.
- That knife was the exact same make
And model of knife that was found at the scene,
Covered in maple's blood.
[dramatic music]
- I used a private lab to try to examine
The handle of that knife we found at the scene.
All efforts were made,
But there was no forensic link to a suspect from that knife.
[dramatic music]
- With no dna on the knife, other than maple's,
And no fingerprints,
And without visually placing gary
At the crime scene on the video surveillance,
Detectives know it may be a challenge for prosecutors
To get a conviction at trial.
And so, for six grueling months,
There's little movement in maple's case,
Until April 5th,
When the investigators finally receive cell phone records
For both gary dhaliwal and gary bedi.
They compare that phone data
With the university's security cameras
And surrey's cctv footage,
And it tells a story of where gary dhaliwal was
On the night of the murder.
[dramatic music]
- Shortly after 1:00, the shooting takes place at sfu.
It married up with the actual cell tower locations
Of bedi's phone.
Next thing you see is this white dodge charger
Fleeing the upper parking lot at sfu,
And then it went on to university boulevard,
Down 102 avenue, and we tracked it all the way down
30 blocks south of the offense,
And then it was gone.
Dhaliwal's phone provided ping locations
All the way down king george boulevard
And married up with the actual cell tower locations.
- We could put together sufficient evidence
To show the crown that we believed
Not only was gary dhaliwal party to the murder,
He was the actual killer.
- We know what we gotta do.
Gary couldn't handle that.
- Ultimately, we brought in a person
Who I like to call the criminal whisperer.
- Oh, gary,
Her soul cannot be lost,
Though you will die a million times.
- In October of 2012,
13 months after the murder,
Investigators believe they have enough evidence
To meet the burden of proof to arrest gary dhaliwal
And gary gursimar bedi.
They present their case to the crown counsel,
And she agrees to the arrest of the two men
With one stipulation.
- The evidence that the police put together
Was overwhelming,
But it wasn't a slam-dunk case,
Not by a long shot.
The absolute crucial piece of direct evidence
That would be really important to the prosecution
Of this case was if either or both of them confessed.
Ultimately, we brought in a person
Who was absolutely amazing at getting confessions,
Paul dadwal,
Who I like to call the criminal whisperer.
- It's time to arrest gary dhaliwal and gary bedi.
[sirens wailing]
- We begin with news
Family and friends of a 19-year-old surrey woman
Have been waiting for more than a year.
Two men have been arrested in connection
With the murder of maple batalia.
- As part of their strategy,
Detectives intentionally arrest gary dhaliwal
And gary bedi on a Friday,
Giving them the weekend to hold their two suspects
Before trial processing begins on Monday morning.
That's when they'll lose their access to the men.
Now, after both men met with an attorney,
The investigators race against a shrinking 48-hour window
In their effort to get a much-needed confession.
- In the united states, you have miranda,
Which means that once a person asks to speak to a lawyer,
That lawyer is present while they're being interviewed.
In canada, under the charter,
We're required to tell a person why they're arrested,
And they have a right to speak to a lawyer,
But once they've spoken to a lawyer,
We can interview them without a lawyer present.
- We know what we gotta do.
No one's going home for as long as it takes.
The first interviewer was a gentleman named john ferguson.
- John then presented gary with maple's deceased pictures
Of her autopsy.
- It was awfully, extremely clear
That gary couldn't handle that.
[suspenseful music]
- We haven't slept all weekend.
Now it's 2:00 a.M. Monday morning.
We have six hours left before gary's gonna go to court.
The clock's ticking.
[suspenseful music]
- Paul dadwal and his interrogation team are desperate
For gary dhaliwal to confess to the murder of maple batalia
Before court proceedings begin in just a few hours' time.
They have one last hope,
Maple's mother, sarbjit.
Dadwal asked her to speak to the boy
She once trusted with her own precious daughter,
The same boy now accused of being her daughter's murderer.
Gary has so far been obstinate,
But would the love of a mother be what breaks him?
[cell phone ringing]
- Ms. Batalia said, "son, I want no harm on you.
We miss maple.
I want to hug you.
I want to be a mother for you,"
And gary starts crying extensively.
[dramatic music]
- For nearly 48 hours,
The rcmp interview team have been trying
To get gary dhaliwal to admit that he killed
His ex-girlfriend, maple batalia,
And during those tense two days,
Gary has essentially remained silent.
Police need a confession to ensure a conviction,
And time is running out.
Now, their hope rests on maple's mother, sarbjit.
[dramatic music]
- It wasn't actually a confession.
It was more some admissions that were helpful,
But that added to the strength of the crown's case,
So we were off to the prosecution.
- On December 1st, 2012,
Gary dhaliwal is charged with murder in the first degree
And gary gursimar bedi with manslaughter
And being an accessory after the fact.
Because of procedural delays,
It will be another four years before this case goes to trial.
- Maple batalia's father, harry batalia,
Said this wait has been agonizing.
- Every day, we think, "what will happen?
What will happen?
Will we ever get any justice?"
- When the trial finally started,
The crown's theory was that maple had found out
That he'd been cheating on her,
And so she broke up with him.
He was not taking "go away"
For an answer.
She was moving on with her life,
And gary dhaliwal brought that to an end.
- On March 3rd, 2016,
The crown and dhaliwal's defense agree on a plea deal.
Gary will admit to shooting maple
In exchange for a lesser charge,
Second degree murder and life in prison
With the possibility of parole after 21 years.
[suspenseful music]
This devastates the batalia family,
Who were certain gary planned and premeditated killing maple
Days before the murder.
I've seen it before,
When plea deals for lighter sentences are made,
Families looking for justice and closure
Oftentimes are left feeling they have neither,
Increasing their pain and grief.
- Why this is second degree?
Why he has the parole after 21 years?
No.
- Oh, gary,
Why you had to kill our daughter?
You have done what you wished to do,
But her soul cannot be lost,
Though you will die a million times.
[faith] to add insult to injury,
Gary bedi is sentenced to just 18 months behind bars
For accessory after the fact.
[dramatic music]
- I felt like chance of parole after 21 years
Still gives gary a good chance at life,
And the couple of months, the measly couple of months
That his friend got, who was the last potential person
That could've stopped him,
Was a smack in the face,
But nothing will bring her back.
[birds chirping] [gentle music]
- Because you cannot count the maple tree leaves
Of this universe and canada,
Maple's soul will never die.
She is always in our heart.
[gentle music]
- I always think she is with me,
And I think she is here.
- I always wished to god that if I had a kid,
I really wished that they look like her,
And god gave me a beautiful daughter
That looks just like my sister.
I named her harleen,
Which would've been maple's indian name.
I truly feel that that's my sister.
- Her parents brought her to canada for a better life,
But it was maple's overwhelming kindness, charisma,
And talent that led to her success.
Heartbreakingly, these same qualities that drew admirers
To maple's story also inspired jealousy and resentment
In her first love,
Turning him into an obsessive monster,
And ending in a killer relationship.