CANADA Canada - Donna Stearne & Wendy Tedford, both 17, Toronto, 26 Apr 1973

[dotr]

fwiw, rbbm.
Cocaine and Canada in the Early 1970s
''Dr. Stefano Tijerina, a lecturer in management and Chris Kobrack Research Fellow in Canadian Business History at the University’s of Maine’s Business School.''

''In 1972, for example, Canadian authorities reported that there had been a “sudden jump in cocaine use, with large amounts being imported via Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver directly from South America.”[5] The advancement of this idea paralleled increasing reports of cocaine related arrests at the borderland, but even these reports gave minimum relevance to the U.S.-Canada dynamic, arguing that these petty crimes were “just side roads to the mainstream of drug trafficking.”[6]

Between 1973 and 1974 Canadian media began to highlight the magnitude of cocaine entering the United States, never pointing out that cocaine would then be shipped into the Canadian market via Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami and other American urban centers.''

''Bernardo Arcila, a native of Colombia, was one of those narco-entrepreneurs of the early 1970s that capitalized on the relatively untapped Canadian cocaine market. Considered one of Canada’s biggest drug barons, Arcila arrived in Toronto in 1972 as a poor immigrant dreaming of achieving the Canadian dream.[15] Together with his wife and son, Arcila settled in a small apartment near the University of Toronto’s downtown campus and found a job delivering wieners as a truck driver for the Shopsy’s deli food business.[16]

 

[dotr]

Feb 12 2021 rbbm.
HUNTER: 1976 Valentine's Day double murder still raises questions | Toronto Sun
Brad Hunter

''Coleen Lawrie, 17, and Elizabeth Jean Lewis, 18, were Grade 12 students at Scarlett Heights Collegiate.''
''According to cops, a chance encounter at the disco would lead to murder.''
''His name was Harvey Lloyd Holly, a 29-year-old truck driver and father of five.''

''The next day, an aunt who lived next door delivered a Valentine’s Day card and discovered the horror that lay within.

Lying dead in the kitchen was Elizabeth. A quick search and Coleen was found similarly deceased in a second-floor bedroom.

Both girls had been strangled to death and Coleen had also been sexually assaulted.''

''Detectives were taking a long look at the trucker for any possible connection to two equally gruesome earlier double murders that shared many of the same traits as the Valentine’s Day slayings.''

''On Oct. 1, 1971, Kathy Potter, 13, and Lee Kirk, 15, ate dinner with their foster family on Rochell Cr. and left around 6:30 p.m.''
On Sunday, Oct. 3, 1971, their bodies were found in a Pickering gravel pit. Both had been strangled.''

''Two years later, on April 27, 1973, the bodies of Donna Stearne and Wendy Tedford, both 17, were found around 7:30 a.m. in an industrial site near Wilson Ave. and Keele St.

Both had been shot to death. The pair were last seen at the Sit n’ Eat restaurant around 11 p.m. the previous evening. The diner wasn’t far from where their bodies were discovered.

The handgun used in the murders had been stolen from the Windsor area.

Despite hundreds of hours of police work, both the 1971 and 1973 cases remain unsolved''.

''Did Holly have anything to do with the earlier murders, so similar to the Valentine’s Day killings?

''There is no further record whether he is alive, dead or still rotting in prison.''

 

[dotr]

I wonder if detectives investigating these murders and/or these looked retrospectively at a man named Harvey Lloyd Holly. On Valentine's Day 1976, the 29-year-old truck driver strangled two teenage girls to death. He met them at a disco in a Howard Johnson motel on Dixon Rd. and they invited him over to the Braecrest Ave. house of one of the girls, whose parents were away for the weekend. After his sexual advances were rejected, Holly raped one of the girls and strangled them both. Holly was arrested 11 days after the crime.

What makes him potentially interesting as a suspect in the Tedford-Stearne case is his history as a truck driver (My first instinct is the Tedford-Stearne killer was a truck driver), the mobility involved in the crime (driving the girls from one site to another, where they met their deaths), and the location of the 1976 crime, which is only 6 km southwest of the Tedford-Stearne crime scene (and also near the 401 freeway). At first glance, a connection is unpersuasive, but I would be curious to know if Holly had any ties, professional or personal, to Windsor, where the Tedford-Stearne firearm was stolen before the crime and recovered after the crime. Holly would have been 26 years old at the time of the Tedford-Stearne killings.
As for a link to the Potter-Kirk murders, there's strangulation as a modus operandi, the mobility involved (Kirk-Potter were driven about 15-20 km, more than likely on the 401), and the prospect his truck-driving occupation or hobbies might be related to the automobile paint chips found on the bodies and clothing. Holly would have been 24 years old at the time of the Potter-Kirk murders.

Bumping.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Harris, now 72, vividly recalls the phone call she made to police to report Tedford missing.

“We’ll have a police officer out to see you as quickly as possible,” she recalled being told.

An officer was at her door 10 minutes later. “He said, ‘You’re going to have to come with me,’” Harris said. “I said to him, ‘Why? Is she (Tedford) OK?’ And he said, ‘I can’t tell you that. I can’t talk about it.’”

Harris said she later asked the officer, “She’s not dead, is she?” The officer, said Harris, “grabbed my arm, and I knew right then and I went into a form of shock.”


Another officer at the police station told Harris that Tedford and Stearne were found shot to death in a field. “I was speechless, just speechless. I didn’t know how to react,” said Harris. “You just can’t process it.”

Later in the day Harris broke the news to her mother Kaye at her workplace and then went to the morgue with a family friend, who identified Tedford’s body.

Tedford was born May 12, 1955, and worked with Shirley at the Towers department store office on Orfus Road. The sisters not only worked together, they also lived together, in Downsview.

“Wendy was adventurous," Harris said. "She had thoughts all the time about travelling overseas and things like that. She liked to paint and write stories. She was always good to her younger sister Karen; Karen was 12 years old when Wendy passed away, but they were quite close.”

Tedford left behind her mother and five siblings, three sisters and two brothers; her father had died two years earlier.

Stearne was born Sept. 10, 1955, in Owen Sound and was a Grade 12 student at Downsview Secondary School.

Harris described Tedford and Stearne as "just like sisters."

“Donna had a love for teddy bears. She had a collection on her bed. She was just a really sweet girl and had a beautiful smile ... I do recall that she wanted to be a veterinarian.”

According to police, Tedford and Stearne went to a bazaar in the Yonge and College streets area on the evening of April 26, 1973. They then went shopping at Yorkdale mall. The teens were last seen alive at about 11 p.m. at Sit ‘n Eat, a 1950s-style diner in the Keele Street and Wilson Avenue area. “They were planning on having a sleepover at Wendy’s house that night,” Smith said.
BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder

 

[dotr]

Harris, now 72, vividly recalls the phone call she made to police to report Tedford missing.

“We’ll have a police officer out to see you as quickly as possible,” she recalled being told.

An officer was at her door 10 minutes later. “He said, ‘You’re going to have to come with me,’” Harris said. “I said to him, ‘Why? Is she (Tedford) OK?’ And he said, ‘I can’t tell you that. I can’t talk about it.’”

Harris said she later asked the officer, “She’s not dead, is she?” The officer, said Harris, “grabbed my arm, and I knew right then and I went into a form of shock.”


Another officer at the police station told Harris that Tedford and Stearne were found shot to death in a field. “I was speechless, just speechless. I didn’t know how to react,” said Harris. “You just can’t process it.”

Later in the day Harris broke the news to her mother Kaye at her workplace and then went to the morgue with a family friend, who identified Tedford’s body.

Tedford was born May 12, 1955, and worked with Shirley at the Towers department store office on Orfus Road. The sisters not only worked together, they also lived together, in Downsview.

“Wendy was adventurous," Harris said. "She had thoughts all the time about travelling overseas and things like that. She liked to paint and write stories. She was always good to her younger sister Karen; Karen was 12 years old when Wendy passed away, but they were quite close.”

Tedford left behind her mother and five siblings, three sisters and two brothers; her father had died two years earlier.

Stearne was born Sept. 10, 1955, in Owen Sound and was a Grade 12 student at Downsview Secondary School.

Harris described Tedford and Stearne as "just like sisters."

“Donna had a love for teddy bears. She had a collection on her bed. She was just a really sweet girl and had a beautiful smile ... I do recall that she wanted to be a veterinarian.”

According to police, Tedford and Stearne went to a bazaar in the Yonge and College streets area on the evening of April 26, 1973. They then went shopping at Yorkdale mall. The teens were last seen alive at about 11 p.m. at Sit ‘n Eat, a 1950s-style diner in the Keele Street and Wilson Avenue area. “They were planning on having a sleepover at Wendy’s house that night,” Smith said.
BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder

Thanks for the new article imstilla.grandma!

''Tedford was found face down and was shot twice through the neck. Stearne was lying within a foot of her, face up; she’d been shot once through the back of the head.

Police believe both girls had been sexually assaulted. The case remains unsolved.''

''Police believe Tedford and Stearne, who were known to hitchhike, met their killers either at Sit ‘n Eat or shortly after leaving the burger joint.

“We believe that either these fellows or people close to these fellows had some ties to outlaw motorcycle gangs, and we believe that it ties into Windsor, Ontario as well,” Smith said. “Now we don’t know what was happening that night. Was someone being inducted into the club? Was this a ritual to get into the club?”

''Smith stressed police “aren’t concerned” with who’s calling a tip in.

“We aren’t looking for witnesses. We’re just looking for a name, and we’ll do the investigation.”

People with information are asked to contact the homicide squad at homicide@torontopolice.on.ca or 416-808-7400; to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at 222tips.com or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).''

 

[Snively]

The gun was known to be tied in with the murder in Windsor of the girlfriend of Satan's Choice Windsor Chapter President Wild Bill H.

 

[Richard]

Donna Stearne, left, and Wendy Tedford, right, Both 17 years old. Murdered in North York in April 1973.

 

[Snively]

You aren't wrong about a possible connection, but those paint chips, and metal shavings especially, were connected to a more specialized auto shop. The gun connection was known for a long time, so I'm sure that would have been looked at. The problem is there were a lot of bikers around the area at the time and all also a lot of violent sexual assaults and abductions as shown in the picture. If I can get the map updated, each point will list the crime that occurred there. These all occurred between 1970 and 1980 and is by no means complete.

 

[Georgia8]

Am I to understand they are now saying both girls were sexually assaulted? Before they simply said they recovered DNA from one that did not belong to her boyfriend but I think LE assumed another lover since they were clothed which almost seemed to me simplistic. But man the time is tight for all of this to occur if they were ever really at the Sit'nEat. It is possible of course but it would become an even stranger crime.

 

[Georgia8]

Am I right that we have just one witness from the Sitneat? Just one. That is not a lot. I have to run through the time line again but as I remember there is not a great deal of time for them to go to College Street downtown THEN to Yorkdale Mall then over to the Sitneat - also they had eaten hamburgers I believe according to the coroner? That timeline is very very tight even improbable they look like fairly laid back girls in the photos. The time line from the Sitneat to being sexually assaulted reclothed then taken over to the the field and shot is tight even improbable. Neither are impossible.

And why shoot them by the fence i.e. near the houses? Odd. Now are the police suggesting they were raped AT the crime scene?

 

[Snoop Sister]

The gun was known to be tied in with the murder in Windsor of the girlfriend of Satan's Choice Windsor Chapter President Wild Bill H.

Do you have a link for the gun being tied to the above murder?

 

[Snoop Sister]

Am I right that we have just one witness from the Sitneat? Just one. That is not a lot. I have to run through the time line again but as I remember there is not a great deal of time for them to go to College Street downtown THEN to Yorkdale Mall then over to the Sitneat - also they had eaten hamburgers I believe according to the coroner? That timeline is very very tight even improbable they look like fairly laid back girls in the photos. The time line from the Sitneat to being sexually assaulted reclothed then taken over to the the field and shot is tight even improbable. Neither are impossible.

And why shoot them by the fence i.e. near the houses? Odd. Now are the police suggesting they were raped AT the crime scene?

I had previously read in a few articles that there was seamen found at the site but the LE didn’t think the girls were sexually assaulted. However, in this article BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder it states the girls were sexually assaulted.

 

[Snively]

Do you have a link for the gun being tied to the above murder?

As years went by the investigation went cold. Every now and then, a promising lead would emerge, only to result in another dead end. Several months later, a revolver was found on the side of the highway in southwestern Ontario. Police eventually linked the weapon to the Tedford and Stearne murders by analyzing the bullet riflings. It had been used in a Windsor robbery.

Still, despite the dead ends, Toronto detectives haven't given up hope. In the last few months, Toronto's cold case squad has teamed up with their counterparts in the Ontario Provincial Police.

In 1972, two girls, 15 and 17, were shot and killed west of Tilbury, Ont., which is about a 45-minute drive east of Windsor. Each sustained a bullet wound to the head. "There are other connections, but it's still early. I can't give you any more details than that at this stage," said Det. Insp. Ian Maule, who heads the province's cold case unit.

From this article:

A relentless hunt for elusive clues in 1973 slaying

 

[Georgia8]

Unless I am misunderstanding something this is a major and perplexing relevation in the case. I am not certain if this news that both W and D were sexually assaulted was hold back info previously or 2. is hold back info now released by police. Previously they had just said that there was DNA that did not belong to their boyfriends but I suppose because they were clothed there was ambiguity? I am guessing: a new officer on the case looked at the older evidence and saw that just because they were clothed didn't mean they were not assaulted. But do we really know for sure they were assaulted ? Could they had sex with a man or men and then for a reason we don't know been killed? Which makes me think perhaps there could be just one suspect? Which accentuates the problem that I am going to mention next:

We want to know: one suspect or two? You would have to lean towards the latter but I don't think we know. What is really strange is what this does to the timeline. I cannot remember exactly but IF they were truly at Sit'nEat then I believe we have about 45 minutes for the girls to leave the restaurant before they are killed, they are raped (somewhere) told to reclothe then taken to the field and shot. Odd and unlikely (though not impossible) no.

NOW....the further ambiguities re the time line are 1. we are going by a couple of people who heard noise from their houses at that 45 minute after they left SitnEat time but could they be wrong or could the sounds they heard not be relevant? Then they could have been killed later. I know there was testimony of a car leaving the area at the time but that could be a red herring too. 2. we are putting a lot of weight on that guy who saw them in the SitnEat. Could he be wrong or lying? It seems that other people including the owner did not notice them that seems equally important and he said it was busy at the time.

It is a really tight timeline possible but very tight. There are problems as well as to where they were that evening there is evidence of a receipt from a Yonge and College shop and then this supposed visit to Yorkdale mall. But the sister whose house left gave a timeline that makes all of this, again, a very tight timeline. And what is the evidence they were at Yorkdale.

I asked way back: I wish that sister could tell us if the girls had keys already to the new apartment. Vacancies were greater then. The apartment is as close to the crime scene as SitnEat. Note that with the timeline we are given if it is correct again to emphasize they need to be raped and killed restaurant to field and reclothed in 45 minutes. And if one suspect then all the more incredible.

 

[dotr]

Re post with rbbm points of interest.

BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder

Donna Stearne, left, and Wendy Tedford were murdered in North York in April 1973. - Linda Harris family photo

Detectives investigate at the scene of the April 1973 murders of Donna Stearne and Wendy Tedford. - Boris Spremo/Toronto Star file photo

BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder
'It’s been 48 years. If you know anything, what is there to be afraid of at this point?'
News Feb 18, 2021 by Andrew Palamarchuk

''Tedford was found face down and was shot twice through the neck. Stearne was lying within a foot of her, face up; she’d been shot once through the back of the head.

Police believe both girls had been sexually assaulted. The case remains unsolved.''

''In 2001, police resubmitted evidence to the Centre of Forensic Sciences and obtained the DNA of the two offenders.

“They were able to develop two profiles from the sexual assaults, as well as a profile from blood that was left at the scene,” Smith said. “We’re in the process of doing some biographic ancestry testing on it to see if we can determine a root population of where these males originated.”

The testing is a precursor to genetic genealogy, which was the technique police used last year to identify the man responsible for the 1984 murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop.''

“We believe that either these fellows or people close to these fellows had some ties to outlaw motorcycle gangs, and we believe that it ties into Windsor, Ontario as well,” Smith said. “Now we don’t know what was happening that night. Was someone being inducted into the club? Was this a ritual to get into the club?”

''Investigators have eliminated a large number of persons of interest through DNA testing over the years.


“We’ve tested probably over 70 people in this case,” Smith said. “The two things that help you in cold cases are changes in science, so emerging science and technology, as well as changes in relationships, where we know that someone knows who did this and for that person to have a change in their life; maybe they moved away, maybe they don’t associate with these people anymore.”

 

[dotr]

''In their new podcast Tracking a Killer: The Cold Case files, CityNews reporters Fil Martino and Madison Fitzpatrick speak with detectives and family members as they revisit the disappearances and deaths that have eluded police for decades.''
Oct 22 2021 By Fil Martino
CityNews
“About midnight, gunshots are heard in the area of 943 Wilson Avenue, just east of Keele,” he says. “We believe at that time, both girls were shot dead. We believe that it was more of an execution-style. We had some persons of interest. We believe that this led to biker gangs out of the Windsor area.”

“I’m sure there’s a number of people that know who committed this crime,” Smith continued. “So we’re just looking for somebody to come forward whether they’re getting elderly and they want to admit to what happened, whether they know that someone else did this, and they want to provide us with that information, whether there’s been a lifestyle change, they’ve got up in the gang culture that they were in their twenties. Whatever it is, we’re looking for that information that they can provide to us.”

Even though it has been over 50 years since their sisters were killed, Harris and Stearne aren’t giving up on finding out what happened.

“Science and technology have caught up,” says Harris.” These guys better be watching their back because one day they may turn around and I’ll be standing there. I will never give up. Never.”

 

[Danaya]

Sounds like there were atleast two suspects. Really hope they find a DNA match soon.

 

[Georgia8]

Listened to the podcast. Better than nothing but disappointing - naturally the goal seems to be to tug at someone's heart who knows. Steve Smith says 'we know something about the timeline' but he remains vague - at sister's at 7 then he mentions the downtown shopping trip and that they had planned to go to Yorkdale - he doesn't seem to know the time line of this. I am not sure what evidence there is they went to Yorkdale is there any? What is new is that they talked to several people at 1200 at Sit n' Eat that has never been said and remember the owner said he didn't remember them. Spotted at a bus stop en route to the restaurant.

He calls the crime scene a construction site is that true? It isn't much different than it was as far as I can tell.

I will just reiterate my point it is a very tight timeline. Backs away from saying for sure they were raped at one point. What we would need to know is whether if at least two men both of their DNA was found in a single one of the girls.

The timeline is very tight almost impossible. Why are they clothed. We need to think of some other time scenarios I think something is not right.

I am not sure how certain the biker connection is. There is the similar crime out near Windsor and the finding of the gun. But of course the perp would want to get rid of that gun. It is odd it was found by the side of the road I believe.

 

[dotr]

rbbm.
BEHIND THE CRIMES: Offenders' ancestry under investigation using DNA in 1973 double murder
''Just 90 minutes earlier, a teen taking a short cut to school for an early morning basketball practice discovered the bodies of Tedford and her best friend Donna Stearne, both 17, in an empty industrial lot on Wilson Avenue just east of Keele Street in North York.

“He noticed that there was a lot of blood and that the girls were obviously deceased, so he ran to a construction site in the area, and he had them call the police,” said Acting Det. Sgt. Stephen Smith, the head of the cold case section of the Toronto police homicide squad.

Tedford was found face down and was shot twice through the neck. Stearne was lying within a foot of her, face up; she’d been shot once through the back of the head.

Police believe both girls had been sexually assaulted.''

''According to police, Tedford and Stearne went to a bazaar in the Yonge and College streets area on the evening of April 26, 1973. They then went shopping at Yorkdale mall. The teens were last seen alive at about 11 p.m. at Sit ‘n Eat, a 1950s-style diner in the Keele Street and Wilson Avenue area. “They were planning on having a sleepover at Wendy’s house that night,” Smith said.

Police have no eyewitnesses to the double murder but area residents reported hearing gunshots at about midnight''

“They were able to develop two profiles from the sexual assaults, as well as a profile from blood that was left at the scene,” Smith said. “We’re in the process of doing some biographic ancestry testing on it to see if we can determine a root population of where these males originated.”

“We believe that either these fellows or people close to these fellows had some ties to outlaw motorcycle gangs, and we believe that it ties into Windsor, Ontario as well,” Smith said. “Now we don’t know what was happening that night. Was someone being inducted into the club? Was this a ritual to get into the club?”

''Smith stressed police “aren’t concerned” with who’s calling a tip in.

“We aren’t looking for witnesses. We’re just looking for a name, and we’ll do the investigation.”

People with information are asked to contact the homicide squad at homicide@torontopolice.on.ca or 416-808-7400; to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at 222tips.com or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).''