CANADA Canada - Therese Melanson & Florence Harrison, both 32, Toronto, 5 Jan 1997

[dotr]

Sept. 11 2017
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/melanson-harrison-double-murder-1.4283613

Police are looking for new evidence in the killing of Florence Harrison, left, and Therese Melanson, right

. (Toronto Police Service)

Toronto police are hoping that an emotional appeal from the families of two women killed in 1997 might turn up new leads in the case.

Therese Melanson and Florence Harrison were found dead in the stairwell of a Toronto Community Housing (TCH) building on Sackville Street near Parliament and Gerrard Streets in January, 1997. The women, both 32, had been shot.

"Both the victims were sex trade workers known in the area," Det. Sgt. Stacy Gallant said in a video released by police on Monday.
Gallant said DNA was found at the scene, but that it did "not link to any known offenders in the national DNA databank."

rbbm.

 

[dotr]

[video=youtube;y2ioA_g3Qmc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2ioA_g3Qmc[/video]

“Even though she had her issues, she was always there with us as part of the family… I know there is someone out there who could come forward and let us have some peace and closure.” Kelly Melanson is also looking for closure for her late mom. “Hopefully, someone can put their past aside and maybe bring some closure,” she said. Homicide Cold Case Detective Sergeant Stacy Gallant said the women were last seen alive 12 hours earlier in the Parliament St. and Dundas St. E. area. “Numerous people were interviewed with the aim of establishing each victim’s timeline, during the course of the day, before they were killed,” he said. “Forensic testing was done and DNA was established, but it does not link to any known offenders in the national DNA database. The motive of the killing is still unknown.” Anyone with information is asked to contact Homicide at 416-808-7400, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at 222tips.com text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637). Download the free Crime Stoppers Mobile App on iTunes, Google Play or Blackberry App World.

 

[dotr]

https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/...997-plead-for-information-to-find-killer.html
Sept 12 2017

No one called police when they heard the gunshots that killed Florence Harrison and Therese Melanson before sunrise on Jan. 5, 1997.

No one said anything until a security guard found their bodies in a blood-soaked, sixth-floor stairwell in Regent Park later that Sunday afternoon

.

“Twenty years is too long to have this case go on,” Melanson’s daughter Kelly said through tears in a video posted online by Toronto police Monday.

“Hopefully somebody can put your past aside and finally bring our family some closure.”
Harrison and Melanson were among four prostitutes killed in Toronto that year.

After their killings, the pair’s faces were plastered on a billboard as Crime Stoppers offered $100,000 reward, to no avail.

Melanson reportedly died where she was felled by a bullet while Harrison was shot as she cowered away from her killer, a source told the Star in 1997.

Rumours in the community indicated the killings had to do with a car and drugs stolen from a neighbourhood dealer, the Star reported in 1997.

Gallant and the families of the women said it isn’t too late to solve the cold case, urging anyone with information about the slayings to say something.

rbbm.

 

[dotr]

Oct 8 2017
https://www.insidetoronto.com/news-story/7582877-cold-case-toronto-police-seek-new-leads-in-regent-park-double-murder/

Cimarron MacDonald looks over family photos that include her younger sister Florence Harrison, who was murdered in 1997. Toronto police have recently reopened the unsolved cold case. - Staff/Metroland

“What we’re looking for is anybody that may know something, anybody that may have heard something over the years, anybody that could come forward today and provide us with the name of someone.” Harrison grew up on Logan Avenue in Leslieville and went to Riverdale Collegiate.

“We were always very close,” MacDonald said. “We’d ride bikes together, we’d roller skate together, we did everything together.”

After high school, Harrison worked with seniors though her dream was to become a veterinarian. “She loved animals. She always had a dog,” said MacDonald.

Harrison struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcoholism and drugs, and police say both she and Melanson were “sex trade workers.”

“I don’t want to portray (her as) the perfect person. Nobody is perfect,” MacDonald said of her sister. “But she did have a good heart; she had a really good heart.”

Harrison and Melanson were last seen alive at the Golden Ring bar near Parliament and Dundas streets at about 2 a.m. on Jan. 5, 1997. Police believe both were gunned down shortly after 3 a.m. in the stairwell of a nearby building at 274 Sackville St. (No one called police at the time.)

Melanson, nicknamed Twig because she was so skinny, lived near Coxwell Avenue and Gerrard Street and was active in the local Legion hall.

“She was a bartender there, and she did the events that they held,” Kelly said. “She even had a Legion coat with the name (Twig) on the back.”

Kelly had her last visit with her mother in the summer of 1996.

“She was always taking me places and always having heartfelt conversations with me,” Kelly said. “She was a really good mom.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide squad at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

 

[dotr]

Sept 27 2021
Toronto Police Service :: News Release #51035
''The Toronto Police Service has launched a unique, six-episode series of its 24 Shades of Blue podcast with Obie & Ax
Featuring A/Detective Sergeant Stephen Smith of Homicide - Cold Case, this break-out series highlights unsolved, historic homicides or missing persons cases during each episode.''

''The fourth episode of 24 Shades of Blue - Cold Case Edition features the case of Florence Harrison and Therese Melanson, Homicides 2/1997 and 3/1997. Florence and Therese, both 32 at the time, were located deceased at around 3 p.m., on January 5, 1997, in the sixth floor stairwell of 274 Sackville Street.''

 

[dotr]

Dec 19 2021
Two women shot ‘execution style’ in Regent Park. Why police say they’re one call away from solving the murders

'Two women shot ‘execution style’ in Regent Park. Why police say they’re one call away from solving the murders
Despite the fact Florence Harrison and Therese Melanson, both 32, were shot in a busy apartment building, their bodies were not reported for nearly 12 hours.

By Peter Edwards
The lowrise apartment building in Regent Park where two women were forced to their knees and executed is still standing, but the neighbourhood around it has undergone a cheerful transformation.

Back in 1997, the six-storey public housing building at 274 Sackville St. near Dundas Street was known for urban decay and crime.''

 

[Georgia8]

thanks dotr never heard about it

 

[dotr]

March 4, 2020
By Stephen Metelsky
Introducing Blue Line’s NEW Cold Case Series
Out of the Cold — File No. 1: Double homicide in 1997 - Blue Line

The exterior building where the double homicide occurred in the Regent Park area. Photo: Toronto Police Service
We are now proactively profiling a cold case in each issue for our readers to share in order to spark renewed interest and hopefully generate tips and information.
Two women who were born 29 days apart tragically died together in a double homicide in 1997. A security officer from the metro housing authority stumbled across the grisly murder scene in the sixth-floor stairwell at 274 Sackville St. — in the Regent Park area of Toronto — on the afternoon of Jan. 5.

Toronto police suspect the bodies of the two women were discovered 12 hours after the crime had occurred. The women were sex trade workers and had last been seen alive hours earlier in the area of Parliament and Dundas Street in downtown Toronto.

Police and forensic examiners scoured the area seeking witnesses and potential evidence discarded by the perpetrator(s). Forensic post-mortem examinations conducted the next day revealed both women had been shot to death between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Jan. 4, 1997. The victims, Florence Harrison and Therese Melanson, both 32 years-old at the time of the murders, were from Toronto and known in the area.

Forensic testing identified DNA from the crime scene that was linked to the offender responsible for these heinous crimes. However, the forensic profile could not be linked to any known offenders in the national DNA databank. The motive for the 22-year old homicide remains unknown and the offender has never been identified. Police and families of Harrison and Melanson are still seeking answers and closure.''

“The murders of Florence Henderson and Therese Melanson were extremely violent,” said Stephen Smith, a detective with Toronto’s Cold case unit. “These deplorable acts were committed against two vulnerable members of our community. We know that there are people that have information [about] these murders, including the identity of the person responsible for their deaths. The Toronto Police are asking anyone with any information to do the right thing and contact police,”

Have a tip or information? Call the Toronto Cold Case Unit 416-808-7400 ext. 77967. You can also report information anonymously at Crime Stoppers: 416-222-TIPS (8477).''

 

[dotr]

Jan 4 2022
HUNTER: Cops have DNA in trio of vicious cold case murders | Toronto Sun
'Florence Harrison and Therese Melanson, both 32, went into the books as homicides 0021997 and 0031997.

The two women knew each other and both had been sex workers who used drugs. With help from each other, they were trying to turn their lives around.

On Jan.4, 1997 the two women had spent much of the evening the Maple Leaf Tavern at Gerrard St. and Pape Ave. until 1 a.m. After that, the trail goes cold until around 3 p.m. on Jan. 5 when cops received a 911 call to 274 Sackville St. in Regent Park.

For hours, the bodies of the two women had been ignored by the building’s tenants. Cops found them in a stairwell shot to death execution-style.

“Harrison and Melanson is one that sticks out to me,” Smith said. “Two females out for a night of fun in the Regent Park area. They were last seen at the Golden Ring restaurant in the early hours.”
''The veteran detective added: “We have the offender’s DNA and believe people that frequented Regent Park in those days know the killer’s identity.”

 

[dotr]

2022

TERROR ON THE STROLL: Scores of Toronto sex worker slayings unsolved

By the mid-1980s, the Inglewood Arms at 295 Jarvis St. in downtown Toronto had seen better days.

torontosun.com

''In 1997, Smith was a young uniformed officer. He had no idea that 25 years later he would still be investigating a horrific double homicide in Regent Park that shocked the city.

Sex workers Therese Melanson and Florence Harrison, both 32, and both struggling with addictions were last seen around 2 a.m. at the Golden Ring watering hole near Parliament and Dundas.
It was Jan. 5, 1997.

lorence Harrison and Therese Melanson (seen here) lay dead in the stairwell for 12 hours. HANDOUT/ TORONTO POLICE
Cops later theorized they were gunned down around an hour later in the stairwell of a Toronto Community Housing building at 274 Sackville St. For 12 hours, people came and went, stepping over the bodies and not calling police.

At the scene, Smith sat in his cruiser watching.

“It was really overwhelming,” Smith said, adding police are hunting a lone killer.''

 

[dotr]

COLD CASE: Toronto police seek new leads in Regent Park double murder

Florence Harrison and her friend Therese Melanson were shot dead in the stairwell of a Regent Park building on a Sunday morning in January 1997. Police have not made an

www.toronto.com

• MAR 3, 2023 BY ANDREW PALAMARCHUK
• “She (Harrison) loved lemon pie,” said MacDonald, noting “my mom used to bake a lot and … would make her the lemon pie.”
  Harrison and her friend Therese Melanson, both 32, were shot dead in the stairwell of a Regent Park building on a Sunday morning in January 1997.
  
  Police have not made an arrest but remain hopeful the case can be solved.
  
  “We do have some DNA that has been identified, and it doesn’t link currently to anybody in the national DNA databank,” said Det. Sgt. Stacy Gallant, head of the cold case section of the Toronto police homicide squad. “What we’re looking for is anybody that may know something, anybody that may have heard something over the years, anybody that could come forward today and provide us with the name of someone.”
  ''Harrison grew up on Logan Avenue in Leslieville and went to Riverdale Collegiate.''
  .............

''Harrison and Melanson were last seen alive at the Golden Ring bar near Parliament and Dundas streets at about 2 a.m. on Jan. 5, 1997. Police believe both were gunned down shortly after 3 a.m. in the stairwell of a nearby building at 274 Sackville St. (No one called police at the time.)''

“There were other factors that were looked at: whether or not they were working in the prostitution field that night or not. Whether or not they were involved in drug transactions or not,” he said. “Those were things that surfaced back at the time of the investigation. That building and that area at that time had somewhat of a history for drugs and prostitution.”

Police believe only one person was responsible for the double murder; one firearm was used to kill both women.''
“When they were located, they were both fully clothed,” Gallant said.''

''Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide squad at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).''