Cop killer Clinton Suzack got his own figurative death sentence

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Criminal masterminds rarely squeeze the trigger on a cop. It’s bad for business.

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Anecdotally, it’s strictly fried low-renters juiced on booze or drugs. Jittery, panicked, dumb.

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Clinton Suzack fell neatly into this category. The cop killer died on Feb. 18, 2024, of what our sister newspaper The Sudbury Star said were “apparent natural causes,” citing Corrections Canada.

In the last two years of his life, the 58-year-old — who finally won day parole in March 2022 — reportedly made better use of what was given to him than he had in his previous 56 years.

He lived in a community facility and was reintegrating into society, according to parole board reports. Suzack worked as an elder and teacher at an “Indigenous-focused society.”

But the fly in the ointment was that he still didn’t trust those in authority. Read: Cops.

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During a routine traffic stop early on Oct. 7, 1993 in New Sudbury, Suzack and another local low-renter named Peter Pennett ambushed, pistol-whipped and fatally shot Sudbury cop Joe MacDonald.

With his dying breath, MacDonald managed to empty his revolver at his killers, striking Suzack twice in the chest and Pennett in the hand. An utterly pointless encounter.

The 29-year-old officer had five years of service and he was murdered just a few kilometres from where his wife, Nancy, and their two infant daughters slept peacefully at home, knowing the young cop was out protecting them and their city.

In many ways, it was the same tragic scenario played out time and again: Suzack was collecting debts from drug trafficking, was drunk and possessed a gun. And was unlawfully at large on a conditional release.

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Suzack and Pennett were convicted of first-degree murder in 1995. The deal was life in prison, no chance of a shot at parole for 25 years. Pennett, at age 58, was granted day parole as of Oct. 6, 2023, a day shy of the 30th anniversary of the killing, CTV reported.

“Suzack said he was shot himself and lost consciousness: He doesn’t recall how the victim (MacDonald) died, but he considers himself accountable for his death,” stated a 2020 Parole Board of Canada decision denying him day parole.

“You express remorse and acknowledge the suffering and consequences for his wife and children. You have been clear and sober since that day.”

Forty years earlier the cop killers would have been dangling at the end of a rope. But as a former homicide cop I know who’s against capital punishment once told me, “With an execution, it’s one and done. Life in prison is the death penalty dished out daily.”

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Now that a tragic page in northern Ontario history has been turned, the ifs are infinite.

If MacDonald hadn’t pulled the pair over, if Suzack wasn’t packing, if someone in the system hadn’t pegged the triggerman as a good candidate for conditional release.

Nothing worked in the years and days leading up to the murder of a young cop on a cold October night in northeastern Ontario, including the officer’s antiquated .38-calibre revolver.

Suzack — who was from an Ojibway-Ukrainian background — to his credit always owned up to the murder.

In the classic 1974 Steve McQueen prison epic, Papillion, the titular character has a feverish dream. On a French beach, he faces a judge and jury.

The judge yells at Papillion: “You know the charge.”

And then he adds: “Yours is the most terrible crime a human being can commit. I accuse you of a wasted life … The penalty is death.”

A horrified Papillion responds: “Guilty … Guilty … Guilty …”

During one of his many long nights in the slammer, no doubt Clinton Suzack must have thought the same thing.

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@HunterTOSun

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