CANADA Lori Pinkus, 21, Toronto, 8 September 1991, * Fresh initiative, DNA*

[dotr]

May 7 2018
http://torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/40928

Homicide Cold Case investigators are seeking assistance solving the 1991 murder of a 21-year-old woman.

Investigators have a DNA profile of a suspect and need the public to give them a name they can pursue.

Lori Pinkus, 21, was working as a sex trade worker in the Bloor Street West and Lansdowne Avenue area.

She was last seen in the early morning hours of September 8, 1991, when she left a local bar after having a drink with friends.

Later that morning, at about 9:55 a.m., the caretaker of Brockton High School at 90 Croatia Street discovered her partially nude body lying in the school’s parking lot. She had been assaulted, strangled and left for dead.

Homicide Cold Case Detective Sergeant Stacy Gallant said a full forensic exam of the scene and body was conducted.

“Many Persons of Interest were developed and eliminated during the course of the original investigation,” he said. “Now, that we have the killer’s DNA, we just need a name to go with it.”

Watch Cold Case Video Appeal

 

[dotr]

May 7 2018
https://www.cp24.com/news/police-ob...f-woman-found-in-school-parking-lot-1.3918035

Cold case investigators are renewing their call for information in the murder of a 21-year-old woman who was strangled and left for dead in a high school parking lot in Brockton Village 26 years ago.

The body of Lori Pinkus, a 21-year-old sex-trade worker, was found in the parking lot of Brockton High School, located on Croatia Street near Bloor Street and Lansdowne Avenue, shortly before 10 a.m. on Sept. 8, 1991.

Police said a school caretaker located her partially naked body lying on the ground.

According to police, Pinkus, who had recently moved to Toronto from Ottawa, had been assaulted, strangled, and left for dead.

Prior to the discovery of her body, police said she was last seen leaving a local bar after having a drink with friends.

“Recently DNA testing was conducted on this case. As a result, a strong male DNA profile was developed. He is currently not in the national DNA data bank. Now that we have the killer’s DNA, we just need a name to go with it,” Gallant said in a video appeal released Monday.

rbbm

 

[dotr]

The perp left a young woman's half naked and murdered body on display at a school, really makes you wonder what kind of a sick creep is on the loose, he must be identified!
imo, speculation.
rbbm.
https://www.cp24.com/news/police-ob...f-woman-found-in-school-parking-lot-1.3918035

“There is no doubt that there are people who are close with the offender or who were close to him back at the time of this offence and you know he is responsible for this murder.”

Gallant said that those who come forward can choose to remain anonymous.

“It has been 26 years that this murderer has escaped justice. This is a killer who left a young woman’s body on display in a school yard. It is time he is held to account for his despicable actions,” Gallant said.

“All we need is his name, nothing more.”

 

[dotr]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...e-killer-1991-cold-case-lori-pinkus-1.4651266

Hours later, at 9:55 a.m., she was found partially nude, suffering from medical distress, in the parking lot of Brockton High School, north of Dufferin Mall, on 90 Croatia St.

[h=2]Suspect likely over 50 now[/h]

The suspect is likely more than 50-years-old now, given that the murder occurred 27 years ago, Gallant told CBC Toronto in an email on Monday.

Police obtained the DNA profile after evidence collected from the original investigation in 1991 was tested for DNA, he said.
"We now have a profile we believe belongs to the offender," he said.
Canada's National DNA Data Bank contains the blood, saliva and hair of roughly 266,000 people who have been convicted of a crime. The DNA is harvested after conviction, not upon arrest.

Anyone with information is urged to call police at (416) 808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

 

[musicaljoke]

The perp left a young woman's half naked and murdered body on display at a school, really makes you wonder what kind of a sick creep is on the loose, he must be identified!
imo, speculation.
rbbm.
https://www.cp24.com/news/police-ob...f-woman-found-in-school-parking-lot-1.3918035

Sept 8, 1991 was a Sunday. But yes, it's a very sick person to do such a thing. I wonder if the school was familiar territory for the man who murdered Lori Pinkus.

 

[musicaljoke]

Det.-Sgt. Stacy Gallant, of the homicide squad, said DNA testing was not available at the time of the investigation, but was done recently in the cold case of Lori Marilyn Pinkus, 21, who was killed in the city's west end.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...e-killer-1991-cold-case-lori-pinkus-1.4651266

DNA testing was used in Canada by 1987-88. Lori was killed in 1991. Poor Lori, I bet her case was put into a box and shelved for all these years. Let's hope that this renewed initiative results in justice.

 

[Hazel]

Toronto police get new DNA lead in decades-old murder case

He said she was last seen alive a few hours before when she left a local bar after having a drink with friends. Pinkus was working as a sex trade worker in the Bloor and Lansdowne areas, investigators said.

In a 1991 Star article, several residents including members of a Sikh religious group that met every Sunday at the high school saw the body before police arrived.

One of the residents who saw the body described Pinkus as only wearing a halter top, her arms at her side, her blue eyes wide open.

Gallant said many persons of interest were developed and eliminated during the time of the original investigation. They recently conducted a DNA testing on the case since it was unavailable in 1991.

“There is no doubt that there are people who are close with the offender or who were close to him back at the time of this offence and you know he is responsible for this murder,” said Gallant.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/cana...na-lead-in-decades-old-murder-case/ar-AAwTltN

 

[Hazel]

Been searching for more information on her, and could only find this from another site.
No msn link, so feel free to delete.

official Toronto Homicide posting:

Homicide Squad
Unsolved Cold Case

Homicide: #61/1991
Date: September 8, 1991


DOB: September 9, 1969
Date of Discovery: September 8, 1991

Lori was found Sunday morning partially clothed behind Brockton High School. Brockton was located in an area known for drug dealers. Lori's body was only blocks from her basement apartment where she lived with her boyfriend.

Police say Lori was working as a prostitute to support her drug habit.

Lori grew up in Ottawa, the youngest of nine children. She dropped out of school in grade 10. She moved to Toronto 5 months before her murder to get away from her troubled past.

In 1990, she was stabbed in the chest in her Ottawa apartment. Two men were charged with the assault but charges were dropped on one man when Lori twice failed to appear for court dates. She left Ottawa just after a warrant was issued for her arrest in March, 1991 for failing to appear in court.

On the day of her murder, Lori was seen by her boyfriend Saturday morning at 6 am. Later that day Lori phoned her mother. In that conversation Lori said "Mom, if I ever die, would you take care of it? Will you bury me?".

The police believe Lori met her killer on her way to purchase drugs.

http://www.unsolvedcanada.ca/index.php/topic,741.msg3459.html#msg3459

 

[dotr]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/20/what-can-toronto-police-learn-from-the-golden-state-killer-case.html
rbbm.

What can Toronto police learn from the Golden State Killer case?




By Wendy GillisCrime Reporter

May 20, 2018

When the man accused of being the Golden State Killer was arrested in Sacramento, Calif., late last month, worldwide attention was drawn to the enterprising use of DNA technology that helped solve the decades-old case.

Among those watching were detectives in Toronto police’s cold case unit.

“We were on the phone the next week, trying to contact the investigators,” said Det. Sgt. Stacy Gallant. “I wanted to ask them: how did you do it? What did you need? I wanted to find out the exact process that they took.”

For Gallant, who oversees the Toronto police cold case unit, DNA technology is having an increasingly revolutionary effect on crime-solving — “it’s the fingerprint of the 21st century.” Beginning in 2015, Gallant initiated a review of Toronto cold cases explicitly seeking homicides in which the killer’s DNA might now be extractable from evidence through modern-day methods.

To date, police have examined more than 45 cases dating to the 1960s and developed DNA profiles in 13 unsolved crimes.

Among them was what Gallant called a “strong male DNA profile” of the killer in the 1991 murder of Lori Pinkus, who was a sex trade worker in the Bloor and Lansdowne area at the time of her death. Assaulted and strangled, Pinkus’s partially nude body was left in a school parking lot, discovered by the caretaker.

“Now that we have the killer’s DNA, we just need a name to go with it,” Gallant says in a video released by Toronto police this month, appealing for a member of the public to come forward with a name — “nothing more.”

But generating a DNA profile from an unsolved murder is, often, far from closing the case. Indeed, the cold case unit has more than 30 unsolved cases where DNA profiles have been developed, yet no arrests have been made.

In all of these cases, no match was found when investigators checked the profiles against those in Canada’s National DNA Data Bank, which began collecting the DNA of convicted offenders in 2000 and today contains 405,000 such profiles.

“The reality is, every time we get a DNA profile and it doesn’t match anything on the (national) database, we are back to square one again,” Gallant said. “It’s frustrating that we have all these DNA profiles that could lead to the arrest of killers, and yet we don’t know who they are.”

One avenue is to appeal to the public, as Gallant has done in the Pinkus case and others. A tip could help police identify a suspect, then possibly request a DNA sample directly or begin surveillance in an effort to surreptitiously gain DNA through, for example, a disposed coffee cup.

But a new avenue may be through genealogical sites. Gallant says he hasn’t yet heard back from the investigators involved in DeAngelo’s arrest — he anticipates they have been contacted by multiple police agencies — but he’s keen to learn more about their tactics.

In particular, he’d like to understand how they were able to provide DNA from a historic crime scene in a form that’s compatible with the DNA samples typically obtained by genealogy websites. A DNA profile is filed in a criminal database using a specific number of genetic markers, which Gallant believes is likely incompatible with the genealogical sites.

 

[dotr]

VIDEO
Brother of woman murdered 27 years ago hopeful case will soon be solved | Watch News Videos Online
Brother of woman murdered 27 years ago hopeful case will soon be solved
In May, Toronto Police announced they’ve finally obtained Lori Pinkus killer’s DNA and her brother is hoping this will lead to an arrest 27 years after her murder. Catherine McDonald reports.

 

[Snively]

Part of the problem is the data collection of convicted offenders didn't begin until 2000. Anybody that was convicted before that data wasn't required to give a sample. Therefore a person who had been convicted for attempting to strangle a sex trade worker in 1998, wouldn't have their DNA in the database unless they were again convicted after 2000. A person meeting that description does exist

 

[dotr]

Sept 7 2021 rbbm.
HUNTER: Cops determined to solve 1991 Lori Pinkus cold case murder | Toronto Sun

Cops think they can close the 1991 unsolved murder of Lori Pinkus. Photo by HANDOUT /TORONTO POLICE

“The two September cases that jump out at me are Patrick Santos and Lori Pinkus,” said Toronto Police Det.-Sgt. Stephen Smith, the force’s cold case chief.

“We have done some extensive media releases on both these cases. We have offender DNA evidence in both and believe that there are people in the community that know the killers’ identity.”

Smith added: “We are looking for the name of the offender in both these cases and I can be called directly or a tip can be provided through Crime Stoppers.”

''Lori Pinkus was just 21 when she went into the books as homicide 61 in 1991.''

''A nagging crack cocaine addiction led Pinkus into the seedy sex trade, and she worked in the Bloor-Lansdowne area to feed her monkey. Detectives believe she was murdered shortly after leaving a west-end watering hole.

''On Sept. 8, 1991, officers responded to an emergency call at around 10 a.m. at 90 Croatia St., the site of Brockton High School.''

''Detectives noticed that she was lying on her back — as if on display — with her eyes wide open. She wore only a halter top and had been assaulted.

Two days later, she would have celebrated her 22nd birthday.''

''Thirty years later, cops have not been able to match the recovered DNA to Pinkus’ killer.''

ETA cross-posting, other referenced murder victim..
CANADA - Canada- Patrick Santos,21, stabbed,duct taped nose & mouth, body dumped, Scarborough,Ont, 16/9/2006

 

[dotr]

Dec 4 2022 rbbm.

‘We have the killer’s DNA, we just need a name’: Genetic ‘game changer’ offers hope for near-unsolvable Ontario cold cases

Already successful in tracking down the alleged killers of Christine Jessop, Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice, a new DNA technology is offering hope in dozens of other cold case files.

www.thestar.com

''It’s unclear which cases police have already flagged for genetic testing, but a search of the Toronto police’s cold case website turns up the murders of Lori Marilyn Pinkus, teens Donna Stearne and Wendy Tedford and Cassandra Do as examples of cases with potential.

Pinkus, 21, a sex worker at the time, was found outside of a school near Bloor and Dufferin streets in 1991. Hers is the case former Det.-Sgt. Stacy Gallant told the public was just a name away from being solved after a male DNA profile from the scene was developed.''