Doug Martin
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Quote from Vancouver Sun
- Chief among the witnesses against Murrin was one Dougie Martin. Martin testified that Murrin confessed to him after he was placed in the next cell in the segregation unit at Mission Institution. Martin's record, as a witness and a criminal convicted of more than 100 offences, was revealed on the stand, though, and the fact that the police and the Crown felt they needed to rely on him undermined their already tenuous case.

Quote from Vancouver Sun
on Sophonow's informants. -A third, Douglas Martin, has testified in so many criminal cases -- three before Sophonow's and five since -- that he is known as "father confessor."

"As a group," Cory said of the three in his report, "they have an unsurpassed record for deception and lying." He said jailhouse informants are capable of deceiving even skeptical, experienced observers, that juries are especially vulnerable and that their evidence should be excluded in all but the rarest of circumstances.

 Murrin is attempting to portray himself as one of the wrongly accused aligning himself with Sophonow and utilizing the same attorney as Sophonow. Murrin has convinced Sophonow of his innocence due to the similarities in the way they were both investigated and prosecuted.

Quote from Vancouver Sun- Sophonow, who has become friends with Murrin, is firmly in the last camp. He says the police and prosecutors made the same kinds of mistakes in Murrin's case that they made in his own. And although Murrin was never found guilty, Sophonow encourages him in his continuing fight for true exoneration. "You always have to be in their face."

 Murrin the informant/ agent, has fooled Sophonow much in the same way as RCMP informant Doug Martin had fooled Sophonow’s jury. Martin and Murrin knew each other and have spent time together in a cell. Both are informants working for the RCMP.   

Martin later claimed that he was being fed information and that he was paid to testify by the RCMP.
 quote:
Life-long criminal Daniel Martin claimed cellmate Shannon Murrin confessed to the 1996 killing of Mindy Tran. But Murrin was acquitted and Martin's testimony raised more questions than it answered. CBC Radio's Yvette Brend tried to answer some of those questions by tracking down Martin. The career criminal, whose past convictions include perjury, claimed jail mates confessed to him in several murder trials, earning him the nickname "Father Confession." Brend also revealed that Martin was now alleging the RCMP fed him evidence in the Murrin case and gave him cash to testify. After the stories aired on CBC Radio, the RCMP seized Brend's tapes and began investigating Martin's claims.
see- news release

 Quote from Vancouver Sun- Murrin’s own lawyer Wilson goes out of his way, though, to acknowledge that the behaviour of the RCMP in the Murrin case was unusual, and that they are usually scrupulous in their efforts to get "pristine and objective views and recollections of witnesses."