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

[Georgia8]

What would be really useful would be some understanding of how that lot where the girls were found was "used" for after hours. Did that business adjacent have 9 to 5 hours or 24 hours? What is it a lover's lane at night"

Did people go there to buy drugs at night? There is time for the girls to actually walk to the scene when you think about it.

 

[Georgia8]

What would be really useful would be some understanding of how that lot where the girls were found was "used" for after hours. Did that business adjacent have 9 to 5 hours or 24 hours? What is it a lover's lane at night"

Did people go there to buy drugs at night? There is time for the girls to actually walk to the scene when you think about it.

I am still thinking of that business. I would like to know their trucking routes. All we need is one of them to have a biker contact. I do realize that the biker angle is a fairly good one. But really NO rival gang has talked over all these years? Not even to crime stoppers? I think police are right in this case when they say quite a few people know the answer to this crime.

 

[Georgia8]

1. Gangs often affiliate. Was there any connection between biker and European mafias in terms of drug sales back then?

2. How important is it that the girls were sexually assaulted according to police? Normally this would be front and centre surely? We re really taking it lightly.

3. We need to know if one girl or both were beaten. That would be a HUGE clue.

 

[Snively]

We don't know if it was a minor drug debt or any debt at all. They could have mouthed off and made someone angry in the car or refused to do something. I also wouldn't call it execution style. Some reports seem to guess one girl was immediately shot and the other tried to run away but was quickly shot.

Bikers were dealing in drugs but it doesn't necessarily mean they were the sellers. Smuggle in and distribute was their main thing. The killer(s) may not have been bikers at all, but connected to them. The gun was assumed by the police to have been passed around. Possibly it came from a dealer originally or was given to one by a biker.

I don't really think there is anything weird at all. Not planned, just something that escalated.

 

[Snively]

What would be really useful would be some understanding of how that lot where the girls were found was "used" for after hours. Did that business adjacent have 9 to 5 hours or 24 hours? What is it a lover's lane at night"

Did people go there to buy drugs at night? There is time for the girls to actually walk to the scene when you think about it.

I am still thinking of that business. I would like to know their trucking routes. All we need is one of them to have a biker contact. I do realize that the biker angle is a fairly good one. But really NO rival gang has talked over all these years? Not even to crime stoppers? I think police are right in this case when they say quite a few people know the answer to this crime.

The concrete plant was running early morning by 7:00 am, meaning people were in getting it started by 6:00 am, and would operate until at least 5:30 pm. Depending on what jobs were being done at the time it is possible they would remain open 24 hours. A lot of highway jobs require night work only so plants stay open 24 hours.

The lane was known to be frequented by people parking, particularly near the rail spur.

The concrete trucking routes would have been all over the city, wherever there was need of concrete and I can tell you in the construction industry there are quite a few biker connections. Rival gangs would never talk, especially in the 70's.

 

[Snively]

1. Gangs often affiliate. Was there any connection between biker and European mafias in terms of drug sales back then?

2. How important is it that the girls were sexually assaulted according to police? Normally this would be front and centre surely? We re really taking it lightly.

3. We need to know if one girl or both were beaten. That would be a HUGE clue.

There definitely was a connection between bikers and the mafia, with the bikers typically running the drug trade. There's a good book about a biker informant from the 70's and 80's explaining precisely this in and around Toronto.

It's possible after the sexual assault the girls said they would go to police and that's what escalated it to a murder. Certainly wouldn't be the biggest stretch.

Some early articles I recall mentioning at least one being beaten, but let me find it before anyone quotes it.

 

[Gruffin]

Tilbury ON - it is interesting that the name of the street one street south of Keelegate towards Wilson and the crime scene is...Tilbury. I realize this is probably meaningless but just to document.

It's also interesting that there is a Sultana Avenue whose western end is about a quarter mile east of Yorkdale Mall. The 1865 Sultana steamboat explosion (~1400 dead) also happened in the early hours (the explosion was about 2 a.m. local time ) of an April 27, the day after Shakespearean actor John Wilkes Booth was shot dead. The French Armored Cruiser Léon Gambetta (684 dead) was torpedoed by Austro-Hungarian sub U-5 about 12:40 am local time, fifty years to the day after the Sultana explosion. In his most famous movie role, Toronto-born Shakespearean actor Christopher Plummer played the former U-5 sub commander who had led the attack on Gambetta.

 

[Georgia8]

It's also interesting that there is a Sultana Avenue whose western end is about a quarter mile east of Yorkdale Mall. The 1865 Sultana steamboat explosion (~1400 dead) also happened in the early hours (the explosion was about 2 a.m. local time ) of an April 27, the day after Shakespearean actor John Wilkes Booth was shot dead. The French Armored Cruiser Léon Gambetta (684 dead) was torpedoed by Austro-Hungarian sub U-5 about 12:40 am local time, fifty years to the day after the Sultana explosion. In his most famous movie role, Toronto-born Shakespearean actor Christopher Plummer played the former U-5 sub commander who had led the attack on Gambetta.

Oh oh I think I am leading the thread seriously astray lol - interesting post though thanks.

 

[dotr]

New article about the other double murder, ''execution style'' in this Ws thread..
CANADA - Canada - Therese Melanson & Florence Harrison, both 32, Toronto, 5 Jan 1997

Two women shot ‘execution style’ in Regent Park. Why police say they’re one call away from solving the murders

 

[Georgia8]

We don't know if it was a minor drug debt or any debt at all. They could have mouthed off and made someone angry in the car or refused to do something. I also wouldn't call it execution style. Some reports seem to guess one girl was immediately shot and the other tried to run away but was quickly shot.

Bikers were dealing in drugs but it doesn't necessarily mean they were the sellers. Smuggle in and distribute was their main thing. The killer(s) may not have been bikers at all, but connected to them. The gun was assumed by the police to have been passed around. Possibly it came from a dealer originally or was given to one by a biker.

I don't really think there is anything weird at all. Not planned, just something that escalated.

Hi Snively how do you fit the sexual assault into the crime?

To me it is the timeline as it is presented to us that is odd. Though if we take away an element for example Sit n Eat then there is plenty of time. I get the feeling the owner, like many small business owners will say anything just to make the problem go away. I think we just have the one acquaintance witness then though the more recent comment by LE suggests there are more not sure if he misspoke or if he knows that.

 

[Snively]

I think they mouthed off when someone in the vehicle tried to push for more than just a drug deal and that led to the sexual assault and murder.

Georgia8 please run down your theory on the timeline. It certainly could be tight but keep in mind the traffic then was no more near as bad as today especially at night. It also seems they weren't long in the restaurant according to the kid who saw them and new them. But a proper timeline discussion is a very good idea!

 

[Georgia8]

To do that would need to go back and read I have known about this case for over twenty years so have just read things at various points over the years. Can't do that at the moment again I mean go back much. But....the crucial time is of course from the time they were seen at Sit'nEat (and of course that would mean we are erring on the maximum time frame there - and when Heather K. heard shots. If either of those are wrong then there is lots of time for this crime to occur. So Dotr, Snively what do you think the maximum time frame is between those two events or bits of eevidence - and how likely is it that this sex crime and murder could occur in that time frame. I think it is less than an hour from drinking cokes, to leaving, to being transported by car (o.k. only 5 minutes there?) having whatever sex acts occur, being beaten raped (in either order) then shot.

 

[Georgia8]

Dotr suggested before perhaps they were not raped per se - but they did word it as both girls were sexually assaulted not that they were say forced to do some other act. I wish we knew exactly it is important.

 

[dotr]

Dotr suggested before perhaps they were not raped per se - but they did word it as both girls were sexually assaulted not that they were say forced to do some other act. I wish we knew exactly it is important.

One possibility regarding the sex assaults, is particularly unpleasant - that the teens were sexually assaulted after they were shot.
speculation imo.

 

[Danaya]

Maybe it started as a robbery. After the girls threatened to go to the police, they were killed.

 

[Snively]

One strange thing I've seen is the report that police found empty shells and had recovered the gun at some point, a .38 revolver. A revolver doesn't eject the shell casings so is it a typo or were there two guns?

 

[Snively]

Various notes:

Wendy’s sister, Linda, says the story of them out looking for marijuana is false.

Linda feels Wendy may have been taking Donna over to check out her new apartment that was close to where they were found.

Gun recovered in Windsor positively identified as the gun that killed Sterne and Tedford was a six-shot .38 calibre Colt revolver with a six-inch long barrel.

The gun had been stolen from a Windsor area home during a break and enter a few months before the murders

Semen was found at the scene.

 

[Snively]

Timeline including conflicting statements though all times have to be considered approximate so up to 15 minutes either side of the quoted time should be considered possible. They definitely were shopping somewhere between 19:30 and 22:35. Believed to have been downtown. A blouse found at the scene confirms this and was apparently concluded to have been purchased from a store downtown. Reports say they were at Yorkdale at a time closer to 22:00 though neither them being at Yorkdale much less the time have ever been confirmed from anything I can find.

Thursday April 26, 1973
19:00 Donna leaves home
19:30 Arrives at Wendy’s home
22:35 Michael Armstrong sees then at Sit ‘n Eat
22:45 Seen at Sit ‘n Eat. Owner originally said he didn't see them, then changed his statement.
22:45 Woman sees them get on Keele St. bus
23:00 Left Sit ‘n Eat
23:59 Neighbour hears dull thuds
23:59 Young woman hears “loud bangs”

 

[Danaya]

I didn't realize that semen was found at the scene. In that case, I think sexual assault was the primary motive.

 

[Richard]

One strange thing I've seen is the report that police found empty shells and had recovered the gun at some point, a .38 revolver. A revolver doesn't eject the shell casings so is it a typo or were there two guns?

Revolvers do not automatically eject spent shell casings, but they can be manually ejected from the cylinder - sometimes at the scene.

Revolvers usually fire different type cartridges than those used in automatic pistols.