GUILTY Canada - Melissa Richmond, 28, stabbed to death, Winchester, Ont, 24 July 2013

[matou]

Thank you otto, toom, matou and joe for the maps and map links.

I am not very good at maps, so ignore the blue lines, I just wanted to mark all the locations that we know about so far.

I wish we knew where that party took place.

MAP ( link ) or http://goo.gl/maps/9lQN3

A & F = South Keys Shopping Center (Bank Street, Ottawa) (Google street view of both Denny's and Kelsey's )

B = Morewood Tire Service ( street view ) ( image )

C = Loucks Rd. & Main Sr., Chesterville ( street view ) ( image )

D = new home ( Castle Greyskull ) 2598 Summers Rd, Winchester

E = old home 478 Queen Street, Winchester. ( link )

Great work Hazel. I made the same map and sometimes I can't get the url function to work at all! xo

 

[otto]

Otto, can you extend the red county road 7 line to Moreville Main Road in Moreville, ON as per this link: http://cornwallfreenews.com/2013/07...ed-connection-to-richmond-homicide-in-ottawa/

K9 units were used at this point in the investigation too and "Locals are saying that it’s a manhunt in the Chesterville area for the husband of the deceased, or something connected, but there have been no confirmations."

 

[otto]

Has it been reported that Melissa was seen at the gas station or was it only her vehicle (along with her husband's truck)?

"Investigators later determined that Richmond and his wife were in separate vehicles when they stopped for gas the night Melissa went missing.

Police said at the time that Richmond was driving a 2004 beige Chrysler Sebring with Ontario licence plate RPGGIRL.

What happened after the couple left the gas station is not known."

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Melissa+Richmond+husband+arrested+death/8742127/story.html

 

[LurkingSpectator]

I followed the FB page very closely and I did see some of the comments prior to the page being shut down. One comment that started it all was when someone hinted that it might be the husband. Then came a barrage of replies defending the husband. Then someone wrote in and said their sister lived nearby and had seen HR's truck hauling what appeared to be a rolled up carpet that night. Someone retorted that should be reported to the police and not on a FB page. It went down hill from there.Members began getting all defensive and saying the page was to be a memorial for Melissa and not to bash HR. A few minutes later, the person's story about the truck and carpet was removed from the page (i assume by admin) Shortly thereafter, people started posting about the husband being arrested, and then it became pretty chaotic. People close to the couple demanded the site be shut down. Soon afterwards, the page was closed.

Ahhhhh, now it is starting to make sense. Okay, so take a look at it this way. The admins on the FB site were all very close friends of both HR and MR. From the moment they heard MR was missing they did everything they could to find her, and be there for HR. They probably never thought for a moment that HR had anything to do with MR's disappearance. From the time they found poor Melissa's body they turned their focus to being there to support HR. I think the moment anyone started even suggesting HR could be involved in it, their denial set in. They probably really didn't want to hear it, especially something like someone saying they saw HR's truck with something like a carpet in the back. I don't agree with what happened on the FB page, but I guess it is human nature.

I also think the very idea that HR may have been dumping a carpet anywhere in the area the police were searching changes a lot of scenarios. That means that the possibility is now higher that HR and MR did get home that night, they got in a fight, HR stabbed her (which just makes my mind cringe), and then somehow he transported her body to South Keyes, and her car, and got home and cleaned up, getting rid of a carpet because it had blood on it.

All just supposition, but it really gives more credence to the idea HR was far more aware of what he was doing and deceptive than even a PTSD defense would allow. JMO.

 

[Wondergirl]

I followed the FB page very closely and I did see some of the comments prior to the page being shut down. One comment that started it all was when someone hinted that it might be the husband. Then came a barrage of replies defending the husband. Then someone wrote in and said their sister lived nearby and had seen HR's truck hauling what appeared to be a rolled up carpet that night. Someone retorted that should be reported to the police and not on a FB page. It went down hill from there.Members began getting all defensive and saying the page was to be a memorial for Melissa and not to bash HR. A few minutes later, the person's story about the truck and carpet was removed from the page (i assume by admin) Shortly thereafter, people started posting about the husband being arrested, and then it became pretty chaotic. People close to the couple demanded the site be shut down. Soon afterwards, the page was closed.

That's great.

What is possibly an extremely significant tip in the case, gets wiped by sympathetic admins.

Let's hope savvy FBers have been reporting things that could be important to LE.

Let's also hope that the admins FB and the FB group history is being looked at.

When you delete a post on WS, it is still stored, the mods can see it.

Fortunately, WSers are pro-LE, in addition to being victim friendly, so, our suspicion is always up. There are always trolls around, but, sometimes, 2 + 2 = 4

 

[otto]

Ahhhhh, now it is starting to make sense. Okay, so take a look at it this way. The admins on the FB site were all very close friends of both HR and MR. From the moment they heard MR was missing they did everything they could to find her, and be there for HR. They probably never thought for a moment that HR had anything to do with MR's disappearance. From the time they found poor Melissa's body they turned their focus to being there to support HR. I think the moment anyone started even suggesting HR could be involved in it, their denial set in. They probably really didn't want to hear it, especially something like someone saying they saw HR's truck with something like a carpet in the back. I don't agree with what happened on the FB page, but I guess it is human nature.

I also think the very idea that HR may have been dumping a carpet anywhere in the area the police were searching changes a lot of scenarios. That means that the possibility is now higher that HR and MR did get home that night, they got in a fight, HR stabbed her (which just makes my mind cringe), and then somehow he transported her body to South Keyes, and her car, and got home and cleaned up, getting rid of a carpet because it had blood on it.

All just supposition, but it really gives more credence to the idea HR was far more aware of what he was doing and deceptive than even a PTSD defense would allow. JMO.

That's funny ... I came around to your line of thinking, that they may have met up that evening after work in Ottawa without going home and you've come around to my line of thinking which is that they did go home and something happened ... either Melissa left in her car or she was murdered and the car at the mall was staging.

 

[LurkingSpectator]

That's funny ... I came around to your line of thinking, that they may have met up that evening after work in Ottawa without going home and you've come around to my line of thinking which is that they did go home and something happened ... either Melissa left in her car or she was murdered and the car at the mall was staging.

Yeah funny Strange how one piece of information can change an entire scenario. What I am wondering though is each scenario has an issue.

If HR killed her at home, then transported her to the mall, how did he get her and her car there and then home, since he may be in the military, but I think running or walking 32 miles home is a bit much for a 50 year old man. Plus, a source stated that LE believed she was killed close to where she was found.

If they never made it home that night, and HR killed her at the mall, why would he have been getting rid of a carpet near his home later that night or early the next morning with his wife missing?

Always questions!

 

[toom]

If HR killed her at home, then transported her to the mall, how did he get her and her car there and then home, since he may be in the military, but I think running or walking 32 miles home is a bit much for a 50 year old man.

Just IMO when covering something up, doing something normal people would find hard to believe in the process would be a good way to go about it.

I believe someone had said he waited a full day to report her missing. Plenty of time to walk 32 miles and do several other things IMO (if that's true).

 

[otto]

Yeah funny Strange how one piece of information can change an entire scenario. What I am wondering though is each scenario has an issue.

If HR killed her at home, then transported her to the mall, how did he get her and her car there and then home, since he may be in the military, but I think running or walking 32 miles home is a bit much for a 50 year old man. Plus, a source stated that LE believed she was killed close to where she was found.

If they never made it home that night, and HR killed her at the mall, why would he have been getting rid of a carpet near his home later that night or early the next morning with his wife missing?

Always questions!

I wouldn't take reports of a carpet on a deleted social media board too seriously.

 

[Joe Friday]

The other property is 478 Queen Street, Winchester.

Oddly this street view photo of their old house shows the red truck parked in the drive (with stuff in the back) and the Sebring parked in the street.

 

[LurkingSpectator]

I wouldn't take reports of a carpet on a deleted social media board too seriously.

Maybe not, but it would answer why LE was searching in the area they were searching in, and what they were looking for, possibly a carpet with the weapon rolled up inside?

All supposition, true, but it does give a possibility. But then, it also opens up more questions.

The guy that found the car posted it on the FB page, and it got deleted almost immediately, then there was a post by one of the Admins saying 'don't post anything until confirmed by police'. Ends up, as I read in a news story, while the Admins were chastising the person publicly, they were also communicating privately and ran off to see for themselves. So they sat and watched police going through the car in the parking lot Friday night. I'm assuming HR was with them, so I wonder what he was thinking sitting only yards from where his wife's body was, if he was the one who dumped her.

 

[otto]

Oddly this street view photo of their old house shows the red truck parked in the drive (with stuff in the back) and the Sebring parked in the street.

He owned the Queen Street house since 2000 and they bought the new house in February this year, so the google street view would be from when they owned and lived in the Queen Street house.

 

[matou]

Maybe not, but it would answer why LE was searching in the area they were searching in, and what they were looking for, possibly a carpet with the weapon rolled up inside?

All supposition, true, but it does give a possibility. But then, it also opens up more questions.

The guy that found the car posted it on the FB page, and it got deleted almost immediately, then there was a post by one of the Admins saying 'don't post anything until confirmed by police'. Ends up, as I read in a news story, while the Admins were chastising the person publicly, they were also communicating privately and ran off to see for themselves. So they sat and watched police going through the car in the parking lot Friday night. I'm assuming HR was with them, so I wonder what he was thinking sitting only yards from where his wife's body was, if he was the one who dumped her.

Found the link for you for this info.

It was a Denny’s employee who recognized the vehicle with personalized plates and reported the car parked in the lot to police. That man immediately contacted Rabinovitch to let her know he’d spotted the car.

Those at the Winchester home then drove to South Keys. Police were on scene, processing the car, while Richmond’s friends sat on the concrete barriers outside the Kelsey’s restaurant. On Sunday, police found the body just beyond those barriers, in a ravine between the restaurant and Bank Street. They removed the body on a stretcher covered with a maroon tarp over those same barriers Sunday afternoon.

Rabinovitch said those friends, who sat metres away from their friend’s body, “are all consumed with guilt,” wondering if maybe they had probed the wooded area, they might have found Richmond alive. But at the time, there was no reason to suspect Richmond was in that ravine, Rabinovitch said.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Body+found+ravine+that+Melissa+Richmond/8720823/story.html

I also read that Howard told his friend (not sure which friend) who was on scene when a body was found in the ravine not to make any statements about what was going on. This was before she was identified as being Melissa. I can't find the link now.

 

[bakergurl]

Found the link for you for this info.

It was a Denny’s employee who recognized the vehicle with personalized plates and reported the car parked in the lot to police. That man immediately contacted Rabinovitch to let her know he’d spotted the car.



http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Body+found+ravine+that+Melissa+Richmond/8720823/story.html

I also read that Howard told his friend (not sure which friend) who was on scene when a body was found in the ravine not to make any statements about what was going on. This was before she was identified as being Melissa. I can't find the link now.

Now that strikes me as really strange that
The Denny's employee contacted Rabinovitch
and not the police.
I wonder if it was her that Howard said not to
speak to the media as she had been on the
news quite a bit but not after Melissa was found

 

[LurkingSpectator]

Now that strikes me as really strange that
The Denny's employee contacted Rabinovitch
and not the police.
I wonder if it was her that Howard said not to
speak to the media as she had been on the
news quite a bit but not after Melissa was found

I'm pretty sure he contacted the police first, Ottawa police actually, who told him they weren't looking for the car, then he contacted OPP, who were looking for it, then he contacted the FB page. So he did the right thing.

 

[echodale]

Now that strikes me as really strange that
The Denny's employee contacted Rabinovitch
and not the police.
I wonder if it was her that Howard said not to
speak to the media as she had been on the
news quite a bit but not after Melissa was found

I'm just going to jump in here, hope no one minds. I've been wondering about that character in this story, str, the only news clip that really struck me after they found the body was the one when she was interviewed and it just seemed to me like she knew it was the body. It was obvious to her that the body found next to the car belonged to Melissa. She said something along the lines of ''it doesn't look good'' (totally paraphrasing, but along those lines) But, the weird thing is that it wasn't believable to her that Howard was then charged with the murder. Every comment I read from her from that point on (on the fb group that has since been removed) was all about IF it is him. Either her denial runs strong, or she knows something.

Also, she spent an awful lot of energy painting a picture of a happy couple and even more so in defending Howard. Particularly in honoring his wish to hold a candle light vigil at a location of his choice, where the friends gathered to support Melissa but also to support justice for Howard (not against). Until he was charged, and now she has dissapeared from the limelight. But I also wonder if the LE etc have warned her to remain quiet.

As for the car and it's location, apparently many of their friends live near there. I don't know the location of either of their workplaces, or of where they were going to hang out with friends- or which ones. But, I suppose it is possible that they met up in their two seperate cars, filled up on gas, and then parked her car at the dennys to carpool. Maybe the idea was that she would come back to it and drive home from there after wherever they were going. But then, something happened, she was murdered and then her body ended up in the ravine. It's possible it all happened there and then Howard left. Or maybe it happened elsewhere and he then put her body there making it look like it happened there by someone else.

Total speculations, of course.

 

[LurkingSpectator]

I also read that Howard told his friend (not sure which friend) who was on scene when a body was found in the ravine not to make any statements about what was going on. This was before she was identified as being Melissa. I can't find the link now.

I remember seeing on the FB page a post from one of the friends who had been searching saying he had been on the scene, but he didn't talk to media, and one of the Admins responded that that was the right thing to do, don't talk to media until the police confirm.

 

[Lise-Anne]

Speaking of Shelley Rabinovitch, she knows the South Keys area very well as she lives there. Very vocal before charges were laid against HR, she has been very silent since.

Article from July 30th.

"Less than a week earlier, Richmond spent the evening with her husband, Howard, and friends before heading out for a drive to unwind, said long-time friend Shelley Rabinovitch.

On Friday, her gold Sebring was discovered in the parking lot of South Keys Shopping Centre near Kelsey’s restaurant. Richmond’s body was discovered nearby two days later on the morning of Sunday, July 28.

Although friends and family expected an autopsy to identify the body as Richmond’s, Rabinovitch said “a certain excruciating finality” came with the news.

Richmond’s husband, Howard – a close friend of Rabinovitch’s – was “completely shattered,” she said. The husband didn’t get an update until late Monday afternoon after Rabinovitch contacted police upon learning from a friend that a police press release was about to be issued.

“I was very upset because another member of the media had informed me that a press release was about to go out and they were just waiting for the French translation, and I knew damn well they hadn’t told Howard because I had been in (his) house for four days,” she said.

How her friend ended up dead in Ottawa is a mystery, said Rabinovitch, who couldn’t think of anyone who didn’t love Richmond. “There was no one who ever met her who didn’t love her immediately,” Rabinovitch said.

“We really thought she had just bugged out to be with a friend or something, or, that she had run off into a ditch and been injured,” Rabinovitch said. “Absolutely nobody assumed that a loved one goes away for an hour and is the victim of random violence.”

“I’m just hoping and praying they get DNA out from under her fingernails or something,” Rabinovitch said.

It wasn’t uncommon for Richmond, a dental hygienist, to go for a drive to unwind, Rabinovitch said. South Keys was a regular destination for Richmond and her husband to catch a movie or meet up with friends from an historical re-enactment group they are members of called the Society for Creative Anachronism.

“She’s like me. It’s like, ‘I’m just rolling out for a drive and I’ll be back in a little while,’” Rabinovitch said. “She just found it very relaxing and she was just out having a night drive.”

Rabinovitch, who lives in South Keys, speculated that the Denny’s restaurant at the plaza might have been her friend’s destination, since it is open 24/7.

Richmond had been in good spirits when she left her home south of Winchester, she said goodbye to her husband before leaving without her cellphone, Rabinovitch said.

Rabinovitch has known Richmond for a decade and described her as bright, vivacious and bubbly. “She was just loving and charismatic and silly and beautiful,” Rabinovitch said. “I don’t know anyone personally who didn’t like her.”

Rabinovitch acted as Richmond’s mentor for historic re-enactment and role-playing. They are both members of the Canton of Harrowgate Heath, a local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism whose members meet regularly to celebrate and recreate the heritage of the European Middle Ages.
“It’s been almost a mother-daughter relationship,” Rabinovitch said. “We were very close.”

Alarm bells went off about 12 hours later, when family members realized she hadn’t made her way to Petawawa, where her military family resides, and she wasn’t with friends. That launched an organized search that saw approximately 40 of Richmond’s friends and even strangers – many of them members of the Canadian Forces – combing back roads searching for her car.

http://www.insideottawavalley.com/n...rth-dundas-woman-as-south-keys-murder-victim/

 

[matou]

From your link above:

Richmond had been in good spirits when she left her home south of Winchester, she said goodbye to her husband before leaving without her cellphone, Rabinovitch said.

Is she speaking for HW? Really??? How can she make this statement without witnessing it?

And she didn't come home that night and he didn't call anyone to find out where she went even though she "had been in good spirits?" Wow.

 

[echodale]

From your link above:



Is she speaking for HW? Really??? How can she make this statement without witnessing it?

That is odd, right? She seems to me to be covering up something with the way she is portraying Howard and the entire situation. Either that, or Howard has a presiding effect on her, and she takes his word as fact in a cult-like way. Seems something odd is going on there.