Colonel's arrest reopens cold cases in three provinces

[grneyes]

The arrest of a high-profile military superstar has cracked open a Pandora's box of cold-case murders as police in at least three provinces search for potential links to the recent slayings of two women in Ontario.

Hours after Monday's announcement that police had arrested 46-year-old Col. Russell Williams, a decorated career officer, police forces began reopening cases of unsolved homicides involving young women in areas where Williams has been previously stationed.

The colonel, who took over command of 8 Wing/CFB Trenton in July, has enjoyed an illustrious military career that has taken him across the country and even overseas.

Williams faces charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of the two women and the sexual assaults of two others. Ontario Provincial Police say several connecting factors ultimately led them to Williams, but are refusing to divulge any specifics, only citing geography as one of the common elements.

But according to sources, women's underwear, computers and digital photography are all bread crumbs in the probe that culminated in the arrest of Williams.

According to Larry Jones, the man who was initially suspected in Williams' alleged home invasions and sexual assaults, police were looking for very specific items in the early days of their investigation.

Jones, who lives next door to Williams on Cosy Cove Lane in Tweed, said that back when police were investigating him, they searched his home and produced a search warrant for La Senza bras, Jessica brand panties, computers, laptops and digital photography. Other reports say police were also looking for baby blankets and zip ties.

"They took the (computer) with my pictures on it," Jones said, adding that he believed police were looking for photographs that the sexual assault victims said were taken of them. Newspaper reports of the incidents have said that the women were struck, tied to chairs and photographed by their assailant.

Little progress was made on the home invasions but they landed back on investigators' radar screens shortly after Jessica Lloyd disappeared. The 27-year-old was last heard from on Jan. 28, when she sent a text message to a friend.

Belleville police immediately asked for help from the OPP, who began connecting Lloyd's disappearance to the sexual assaults, as well as the murder of 37-year-old Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, found dead in her Brighton home in November.

Lloyd's body was discovered Monday, off Cary Rd., about 13 minutes away from Cosy Cove Lane.

Asked whether Williams is alleged to have stolen underwear, OPP Sgt. Kristine Rae declined to comment.

"Anything evidentiary, I can't comment on," she said.

Rae also wouldn't comment on reports that police traced Lloyd's disappearance to Williams by using distinctive tire tracks left in snow near the woman's home off Highway 37.

Reports have said that investigators linked the tire tracks to a specific vehicle and that Williams was stopped by police on Feb. 4 during canvassing of motorists driving along that highway.

Williams was arrested on Sunday in Ottawa, where he also shares a home with his wife Mary Elizabeth Harriman, an associate executive director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. On Tuesday, police were seen leaving the couple's Ottawa home with bags.

The colonel appeared shackled at the ankles in a Belleville court on Monday, and is scheduled to appear in court again on Feb. 18 via video link.

The OPP say they have also been fielding numerous calls from other police departments. Hours after the announcement of Williams' arrest, police services across the country were reopening cases of unsolved homicides involving young women.

At last count, at least four cold cases in Nova Scotia and Ontario were under scrutiny.

Halifax Regional Police contacted OPP investigators regarding murders of three young women after they were inundated with calls from people wondering if there was a correlation.

Williams had been posted to the Shearwater base near Halifax, N.S., from 1992 to 1994, according to his biography posted on the Department of National Defence website until Tuesday afternoon. During that time frame, Andrea King, 18, Shelley Connors, 17, and Kimber Leanne Lucas, 24, were murdered.

"We've had some preliminary discussions with them (OPP investigators) but so far they haven't been able to provide any information that would impact any of our files here," said Const. Brian Palmeter in Halifax.

Investigators will also look into the unsolved 2001 murder of 19-year-old Kathleen MacVicar in Trenton.

The teen from Nova Scotia was found in Middleton Park, a housing development inside CFB Trenton. MacVicar had been staying with family at the military base when she disappeared June 13, 2001. Her body was found two days later in a corner of the base; she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death.

MacVicar's mother said she first heard about Williams' arrest Monday afternoon, and her first thought was "it could be related to Kathleen." Within hours, OPP had called her.

"I'm glad they are looking at it again," Colleen MacVicar, Kathleen's mother, told the Star on Tuesday afternoon from her home in Glace Bay, N.S.

But MacVicar said she isn't getting her hopes up. She has been disappointed before.

Williams' first posting was at Portage la Prairie, Man., in 1990, about 85 kilometres from Winnipeg; Glenda Morrisseau, 19, went missing on July 17, 1991. Her battered body was found about three weeks later.

Winnipeg police said Tuesday in an email that they were "aware of the arrest of the air force officer. Investigators will continue to review information as it unfolds."

Williams' arrest has shaken the military community to the core and in light of the charges, Williams has been removed from his post in Trenton. Lt.-Col. David Murphy has been currently appointed acting commander, according to the Northumberland News.

The small community of Tweed, where Williams and three of his alleged victims lived, is also reeling from the trauma that has visited their town. On Tuesday, police were visible around the area, guarding each exit along Cary Rd. as well as Williams' residence, which has been cordoned off with yellow tape.

This past fall, the home invasions caused people to point angry fingers, said Lawrence Ramsay, owner of Tweedsmuir Bar and Grill.

Ramsay said he knew Lloyd as a customer at the Tweedsmuir – pretty and pleasant, she was part of a group who came in on weekends. He last saw her around Christmas but has never seen Williams in the bar.

Ramsay also said that the boyfriend of one of the sexual assault victims is also an occasional customer at the bar. He said the young couple, in their 20s, had moved into the area shortly before the assault. He added they had recently had a baby, and have since moved out of the home.

Another woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted lives nearby.

The single mother declined to be interviewed on Tuesday, but previously relayed her terrifying ordeal to the Toronto Sun, stating that her attacker entered her room as she was sleeping. He reportedly blindfolded her and tied her hands behind her back before cutting her clothes off and assaulting her.

She said he took photographs of her before leaving her home just before dawn.

With files from Katie Daubs, Jesse McLean and The Canadian Press

Source http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/...hree-provinces

For more on this case http://www.thestar.com/topic/RussellWilliams

[grneyes]

Police to probe colonel's GTA past

Nicolaas van Rijn Staff Reporter


Toronto police say they're ready to cooperate with Ontario Provincial Police investigators probing the past of Col. Russell Williams, the suspended Trenton base commander charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
In his youth, Williams attended Birchmount Park Collegiate in Scarborough as Russell Sovka – his stepfather's name – and was then an Upper Canada College student for several years. He has also studied at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus

Williams' brother is a Bowmanville doctor and his mother works at Sunnybrook hospital.
Police spokeswoman Const. Wendy Drummond said any investigation will be long and painstaking.
"We will be working with the Ontario Provincial Police, as required, to go through any unsolved cases in our jurisdiction that may be somehow related," she said Thursday.
"It'll take months before anything can be determined as far as previous cases and how they're linked."


On Thursday, OPP investigators continued to scour the Ottawa home where Williams lived with his wife, Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, associate director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
Williams, who was suspended as commander of the sprawling Canadian Forces Base Trenton after he was charged Monday, remains in a Kingston prison, but he is no longer under the suicide watch in place during his first days in custody.
He is charged with the first-degree murder of Jessica Lloyd, a 27-year-old Belleville-area woman who vanished in late January, and of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, a steward on the big military planes flying out of Trenton. He also is charged with two counts of sexual assault in connection with two home invasions last September near Tweed, northeast of Trenton.
Before coming to Trenton, Williams, 46, was stationed in Toronto, the Maritimes and Manitoba; he has also served overseas.
But if the memories of past friends and acquaintances are any indication, he did not make much of an impression.
Permell Ashby, who attended Birchmount Park Collegiate from 1976 to 1981 and played flute in the band with Williams – he played trumpet, she recalls – remembers Williams, but that's about all.
"I remember that I would often say hello," said Ashby. "He was in the band and everyone was friendly with each other."
Innes van Nostrand, who attended UCC with Williams in the early 1980s, said he was pretty good at flying under the radar.
He remembers him as "kind of a diligent, hard-working fellow who was not a high-profile guy here.
"That's how I think most people in the class would probably describe him: a serious student and a really good musician," recalled van Nostrand, who is now a vice-principal at the elite boarding school.
On Thursday, The Globe and Mail reported Williams was born in England and grew up in Chalk River, where his stepfather was a nuclear engineer. Because of his expertise, the family travelled widely, including to South Korea.
For a time, The Globe reported, the family lived near the Scarborough Bluffs. When his stepfather and mother left to spend more time in Asia, Williams was enrolled at UCC.
While there, The Globe reported, he was a house prefect, mentoring young students, and reported to a fellow student who held the post of house steward, Andrew Saxton, now a member of Parliament representing North Vancouver.
"I have not seen him for nearly three decades and did not realize he was the same person with whom I went to school until (Thursday) morning," Saxton said.

With files from Carmen Chai, Patty Winsa and The Canadian Press

Source http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/arti...-gta-past?bn=1

[grneyes]

Williams linked to Bernardo

They were pals.

Accused killer Col. Russell Williams and notorious serial killer Paul Bernardo both attended the University of Toronto Scarborough campus.

They both studied economics at the Military Trail campus during the mid-1980s.

They graduated together in 1987, Williams, 46, with a politics and economics degree, Bernardo, 45, with a commerce and economics degree.

Their families both lived along the Scarborough bluffs.

Now police sources tell the Toronto Sun the two were college “pals” who “partied” together and that their relationship is the subject of intense scrutiny by the joint forces team probing the murders of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd.

While speculative, police are even looking into the possibility Bernardo and Williams may have “competed against each other.” The source would not elaborate on what that meant.

“If they were friends it’s certainly interesting,” the source said. “We don’t know what this relationship means.

“But we do know that they had spent time together at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus.”

When contacted about the revelation of Bernardo and Williams attending U of T Scarborough at the same time, Commissioner Julian Fantino vowed that when “new aspects come to light, the OPP will investigate.”

“We are committed to ensure that every aspect of this is investigated and looked in to,” Fantino told the Sun Thursday night. “I am very confident thanks to the great co-operation of the OPP, Belleville Police, and military investigators.”

The commissioner said cops want as much information as possible about Williams’ early years.

“We welcome any information members of the public may have on this and encourage them to contact us,” he said.

In an exclusive interview, Bernardo’s father, Ken Bernardo, said his son doesn’t recall Williams.

However, the father wasn’t able to reach his son to ask whether he knew Williams by the last name he used in high school and university, or his stepfather’s last name, Sovka.

“Paul said he might have run into him there but he didn’t know him,” Bernardo said, adding he will ask specifically if his son knew a Russ Sovka when he speaks to him again.

Bernardo said they didn’t discuss the unsolved crimes in the Scarborough area around his son’s crimes or whether Williams may now be suspect in them.

“We don’t talk about the past,” Bernardo said.

Williams, 46, was charged Monday with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault. He’ll be back in court Feb. 18.

When Williams attended U of T Scarborough, about 5,000 students attended the commuter campus. There would have been about 250 students attending classes in each year of the economics and commerce program, a school official estimated.

Women were terrified throughout the Scarborough area surrounding the campus in the 1980s following a series of violent sex attacks that culminated with Toronto Police launching a task force to find the Scarborough rapist.

Bernardo, after he was jailed for the murder of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, admitted to several of the attacks.

Following Williams’ arrest on Monday, police have vowed to investigate cold cases that intersect with the former CFB Trenton base commander’s life.

At this point there is no suggestion of any criminal connection between Bernardo and Williams or any link between Williams and any other attack.

On Thursday, police searched Williams’ home in Ottawa, the same day several media outlets reported that he led investigators to the body of Jessica Lloyd following his arrest.

According to a search warrant of another suspect’s home before Williams was named the primary suspect and charged, detectives were looking for lingerie, baby blankets and computer data storage devices.

Source http://www.torontosun.com/news/canad.../12845451.html
~~~~~~~

Paul Bernardo's advice to cops

Locked away inside Kingston Penitentiary, notorious schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo has heard about the arrest of Col. Russell Williams and, in a bizarre turn, even has some advice for cops.

Bernardo, speaking from solitary confinement, shared his thoughts with his father, Ken Bernardo.

“He said he doesn’t understand it and how (Williams allegedly would) have the ability to cover all that up,” Ken Bernardo told the Sun.

Williams, 46, was charged Monday with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau.

Bernardo, 45, was convicted in 1995 for the first-degree murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.

In the wake of Williams’ arrest, police forces across the country have vowed to examine cold cases in their area to see if they might be a match with the alleged crimes the colonel is accused of committing. Williams’ military life straddles at least four provinces including Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Quebec. He was also stationed in the Middle East at Camp Mirage for six months.

Bernardo offered advice for police as they scour Williams’ life.

“(Paul) suggested they go back 20 years and look at everything, because that’s when his testosterone would have been at the highest,” Bernardo’s father said.

Source http://www.torontosun.com/news/canad.../12845141.html

[grneyes]

Town mourns murder victim

Hundreds are expected to attend the funeral Saturday for the “lovely and friendly” woman allegedly slain by the former base commander of CFB Trenton.
Jessica Lloyd, 27, will be laid to rest in Belleville, less than a week after her alleged killer, Col. Russell Williams, is reported to have led investigators to her body.
Many of those same mourners gathering for a final goodbye had spent the 11 days since Lloyd vanished last month trying to find her.
Those concerned friends were shocked on Monday to learn Lloyd was found murdered and stunned again when they learned the man accused of that crime and the murder of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau was the base commander at Trenton.
Police with the Belleville service, the OPP and the Canadian Forces charged Williams, 46, with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of break-and-enter and sexual assault and two counts of forcible confinement. He’ll be back in court via video link next week.
Since Monday’s charges that alleged Williams committed two home invasions and sexual assaults in Tweed, the country has learned and bristled at the alleged other side of the successful airman and former base commander of CFB Trenton.
His wife, Mary Elizabeth Williams, hasn’t been heard from publicly since police taped off the couple’s homes in Tweed and Ottawa.
In a written statement, Williams’ brother, Dr. Harvey Williams, said the family rarely had contact with the colonel after their mother divorced their stepfather.
“We were shocked and appalled to learn of the crimes with which Col. Williams is being charged,” Williams’ brother stated.
As the week wore on, more details of Williams’ alleged confession to cops leaked out, including that he had allegedly admitted to several panty thefts from homes and that he kept the underwear catalogued in his home.
By the end of the week, a more thorough picture of Williams’ emerged including that he had grown-up through his teen years using his stepfather’s last name, Sovka.
Williams’ family had moved to Scarborough in the 1970s. He attended Birchmount Park Collegiate and spent his last two high school years at Upper Canada College.
On Friday, the Sun revealed that police sources were probing the relationship between Williams and another student at U of T’s Scarborough campus, notorious schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo.
Sources said the two were “pals.”
The university confirmed Friday that the two graduated within a year of each other.
OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino told the Sun’s Joe Warmington that the force has received numerous calls from the public on all aspects of the case including possible links between the two at the Scarborough campus at the time.
As the eastern Ontario town touched by tragedy prepared to bury one its own, the chief of the air staff announced another step in both the military and civilian community moving beyond the tragedy.
Lt.-Gen. Andre Deschamps announced that Lt.-Col. Dave Cochrane would take command of 8 Wing Trenton starting next Friday.
“I believe Col. Cochrane has the exceptional leadership qualities necessary to lead 8 Wing Trenton at this challenging and critical time, as the Canadian Forces are experiencing an unprecedented operational tempo,” Deschamps said in a press release. “He is a highly experienced, trustworthy and capable commander who is well known in the local community, as are his wife and children.
“He is a respected member of the air mobility community and has my utmost confidence.”

Source http://www.torontosun.com/news/2010/02/12/12861871.html

[grneyes]

Former officer paints a picture of a serial killer

A sexual deviant who binds and takes photos of female victims as souvenirs is “the worst of the worst,” a private investigator and ex-Toronto Police detective says.

Such men often have a “trophy collection,” former Det.-Sgt. Dave Perry said in an interview.

And the veteran of some of the city’s worst sex and homicide cases, now CEO of ISN Investigative Solutions Network Inc., said such offenders usually start young.

While emotional and sexual gratification are key motives, Perry said, attackers rarely take captive photos.

The danger of them escaping detection is what starts teens fantasizing about assaults that can escalate over many years into physical contact, rape and murder, “because what used to work doesn’t any more,” he said.

Behavioural experts say trophies include peeping toms seeking personal items such as panties belonging to women they secretly observe and taking them from washing lines, laundry dryers or homes during break-ins.

Psychological and behavioural profiling of offences and offenders became a valuable tool years ago in helping predict a low-level offender’s likelihood of becoming a serial stalker and for revisiting unsolved cases, Perry said.

“But it’s not an absolute science,” he cautioned. “When you try to figure out a sexual offender, you could go crazy.”

Since the arrest this week of Col. Russell Williams, until recently commander of 8 Wing at CFB Trenton, families of unsolved sex crime victims have had their hopes raised, urging police to revisit those cases.

Similar demands were made after the arrest of Scarborough rapist Paul Bernardo, who was convicted in 1995 of the murders of teens Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French after he moved to St. Catharines.

The OPP has asked police in Toronto, Manitoba and the Maritimes — where Williams has lived — to wait for its behavioural science analysis service team’s profile, which could take several months.

Asking to reopen cold cases now “is a natural reaction,” Perry said.

But, he said, “people have to calm down and relax.

“There are a lot of sex offenders out there, who haven’t been caught, and you only want to use evidence to rule somebody in or out,” Perry said. “To jump to conclusions and pile it all on one man is negligent.”

He praised the OPP team, which helped him in such high-profile cases as the 2003 rape, murder and dismemberment of Holly Jones, 10.

Michael Briere, the only neighbour to refuse a police DNA request, pleaded guilty to her slaying.

Perry said he earlier rewrote the sex crimes unit manual, requiring the force to consult it on non-intercourse cases with warning signs of a possible sex offender.

DNA comparisons are essential, but since the national databank was only created in 2000, older cases are more difficult to match to a suspect.

Canadian police need a warrant or post-conviction order to get a suspect’s DNA.

But Perry said Toronto Police have obtained “cast-off samples” from public places, where an officer has observed and seized a suspect’s discarded cigarette butt, drinking glass or pop container.

Williams, 46, who used the name Sovka at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute and Upper Canada College while living in Scarborough in the late 1970s and 1980s, is charged with murdering two women.

A funeral service will be held Saturday for Jessica Lloyd, 27, whose body was found Monday near Belleville.

Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, was murdered in November in her Brighton home, west of Trenton.

An avid photographer, Williams is also charged with the forcible confinement of two women in Tweed, a village northeast of Belleville, two break and enters and their sexual assaults.

The OPP said a home invader awakened each survivor, raped and tied them up, then took their photos.

Search warrants police obtained for William’s bungalow in Tweed cited lingerie, baby blankets and computer data storage devices. Ottawa police also searched the trendy Westboro neighbourhood home shared with his wife, Elizabeth Harriman.

In custody at the Quinte Detection Centre in Napanee, east of Belleville, his next court appearance is Thursday in Belleville, via a video link.

Source http://www.torontosun.com/news/canad...62926-qmi.html

[beemer]

Jessica's funeral

http://news.ca.msn.com/canada/cp-art...entid=23451510