Very lengthy article.
May
2022 By Peter Edwards
Dennis Melvyn Howe’s flight made him one of the most wanted men in Canadian history. But even DNA, fingerprints and a remarkably detailed description have led to few leads.
www.thestar.com
''There are so many things that police know about Dennis Melvyn Howe, often called the most wanted man in Canadian history.
Howe is the sole suspect in the rape and murder of nine-year-old Sharin Morningstar Keenan, whose body was found in a refrigerator in a boarding house at 482 Brunswick Ave. in Toronto on Feb. 1, 1983.
Police know Howe is left-handed, and has crooked baby-like fingers.
He’s white with brown eyes, with a scar on his cleft chin.
His nose is bulbous and reddish.
He used Orajel frequently to dull the pain of abscesses in his crooked teeth.
He liked to drink Molson beer, chain smoke unfiltered Player’s cigarettes and twist pens nervously through his fingers.
They know he was born in Estevan, Sask., on Sept. 26, 1940, and moved shortly after that to a plain-looking house in Regina.''
Police know that, at the time of Sharin’s murder, Howe had spent more than half his life behind bars and that he was becoming increasingly violent.
Police know Howe is a chameleon. He can rapidly shift his five-foot-nine frame so that he appears lean instead of pudgy.
He sometimes changes the colour and style of his thinning hair, which was dark brown before he went grey.
He has also occasionally sported a moustache.
Howe can alter his personality, too. He can be talkative, opinionated and comical, calling people “turkeys.”
At those times, his laugh is deep and sounds friendly.
He can also be shy and sullen and say almost nothing at all.
He’s a convincing liar who remembers the little details that make a story work.
He has lived under several aliases.
He has a brisk, shuffling walk.
He enjoys reading science fiction and can be well-spoken and even comical
He’s surprisingly polite and even-tempered.
“He was never, ever gross,” said a woman who knew him in his former hometown of Regina. “He was very much a gentleman. I never heard him swear or tell anything off-colour.”
He doesn’t like needles.
Police have samples of his DNA and his fingerprints.
He can blend into a crowd.
“He could walk right by and you wouldn’t pay too much attention to him,” retired homicide detective Wayne Oldham said.
Police know he almost always confines his violence to women, like a 13-year-old girl in Regina whom he raped and a grown woman he tried to abduct at knifepoint.
His anger toward women runs deep. He was married in 1962, but was locked up shortly after his first anniversary for 11 break-and-enters in Regina.
While he was in custody, his wife got a boyfriend and he successfully sued for divorce on the grounds of adultery.
She moved to the west coast and started a new family while he began targeting women who were strangers for violent crimes.
He would often approach them, saying he needed some kind of help.
A woman he abducted in 1977 in Regina recalled his “wolfen eyes” years later.
She said she feared he was “out there” and thinking of her.
“This could happen to me again but I honestly don’t think I could take it,” she told the Regina Leader-Post in 1985. “I think I would fall apart. He’s a cold devil. He really is.”
Police know Howe prefers to prey on trusting people, sometimes approaching them to ask for directions.''
''For all of the wildness of his actions, he is obsessively tidy in day-to-day life.''