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Unsolved. Robert J. Hoshowsky
Читать онлайн.Название Unsolved
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781770705340
Автор произведения Robert J. Hoshowsky
Жанр Юриспруденция, право
Издательство Ingram
The initial belief by police at the time the body was discovered was not that this was the body of someone who was murdered, but a young male who wandered into the brush and died, or the unfortunate victim of a car accident. The original coroner’s report is confusing, and allegedly states the man was possibly struck by a car, sailing over the road and into the trees, where his body remained for several years until it was found in 1980. The notion has since been revised, since it doesn’t take the obvious question into consideration: why would the victim of a hit and run be found naked in the woods, with clothing near his body? It is not unusual for the victim of an auto accident to literally be knocked out of their shoes by the tremendous force of the impact, but to suggest that the rest of the clothing — jeans, socks, and blouse — would also be wrenched off is absurd, and makes one question the professionalism of anyone foolish enough to suggest such a ridiculous scenario, or allow the clothing to be buried with an unidentified body. York Regional Police have revised the earlier notion that these are the remains of an accident victim, and now believe the young man met his demise as a result of foul play.
Following the exhumation of the remains, police were able to obtain something not available to them at the time the bones were discovered in 1980: DNA. Even though the technology exists, there was still no guarantee that precious DNA would be recoverable. The body had been in the woods for at least two years by the time it was found, and subjected to insect activity, animals, wind, rain, the blistering heat of summer, and the ice and snow of winter. Conditions following burial at Mount Pleasant Cemetery would have been better, but only slightly, since the skeleton would still face the cold and damp conditions of the grave.
Fortunately it was possible to extract DNA from the disinterred bones and teeth, which was collected and compared with missing persons reports across the province. York Regional Police recently had a close call with the family of a missing gay man from Montreal. The physical description was very close and the man disappeared around 1978, approximately the same time as the male victim died in the Markham woods. Hoping for a break in the cold case, Detective-Constable Clarke drove to Montreal and obtained a blood sample — unfortunately, it wasn't’ a match to the remains. Police are hopeful that the DNA sample they now have on file can be used to compare the Markham victim’s remains to those of a living relative, and that one day a match will be made.
(York Regional Police)
A recent artist impression of the male Markham victim, based on clothing found near the body in 1980. In life, the man was no more than 120 pounds and five and a half feet tall. A red blouse, women’s blue jeans, red and pink high-heeled shoes, frilly, white socks, and a woman’s powder compact led police to believe the body was that of a male cross-dresser.
Like Hovey and Jones, the victim found in 1980 recently had a clay bust recreation made of his face, which was unveiled to the media and posted online at the York Regional Police website in December 2009. Considering the actual skull that the reconstruction was based on had been buried for many years and became damaged and misshapen due to extreme cold, the final result is remarkably lifelike. The three-dimensional clay portrait was sculpted by an artist after the skull was scanned using a brand new technology, and is so accurate that it has already been described as museum quality.
“We hope it looks pretty close to this and that someone comes forward,” said Clarke, who unveiled a drawing to the media of what police believe the victim looked like in life: a slender, effeminate-looking young man with dark hair about four inches long, wearing red and pink, pointy-toed, high-heeled shoes, white frilly socks, form-fitting blue jeans, and an open-collared, red, short-sleeved blouse.
“It’s my belief that he was transgender, possibly in the sex trade down in the Toronto area which … was a bit of a haven, in the 70s, for gays,” said Clarke, who also speculated that the young man may have come to Toronto years ago to live his life as part of the city’s large gay, lesbian, and transgendered community. “In my opinion, I think he was picked up in the city, taken to [Markham], endeavours occurred and then he was killed and left there,” repeated the detective-constable, calling the wooded area “a dumping ground.”6
Considering the viciousness of his earlier crimes and his repeated pattern of picking up young men in downtown Toronto, driving them to remote areas, assaulting and choking them, then leaving their naked bodies to rot in the wilderness, all eyes are looking once again at the seventy-two-year-old James Henry Greenidge. Currently serving his time at a prison in British Columbia for the horrific 1981 murder of young Elizabeth Fells, Greenidge was denied parole in 2007, but has another shot at freedom in 2010. Some may feel Greenidge is an old man who has served his time; others, especially police, victims’ rights groups, and Toronto’s gay community, would rather see the muscular man who preyed upon and brutalized so many smaller and weaker individuals than himself leave prison not in a cab, but a body bag.
“This is just one of at least three cold cases involving victims with ties to Toronto’s gay communities,” stated Xtra! following the unveiling of the clay reconstruction of the face of the Markham victim. “In two other cases, forensic sculptures, like the one of the Markham man, have led police to identify long-nameless victims.”7 As one of Canada’s leading gay and lesbian newspapers, Xtra! has published a number of stories over the years into the investigations of the murders of Hovey and Jones, and any possible connection to James Henry Greenidge, and the attacks on other young gay men in Toronto in the sixties and seventies.8
Back in 1977, Greenidge was transferred to a minimum security institution in Ontario. During that time, he went on numerous, unescorted weekend passes, presumably to visit a friend in Toronto. It is believed Greenidge only visited his friend one time, leaving many other weekends during that year unaccounted for.
Over the years, Greenidge, the model prisoner, has come up for parole a number of times. Although considerably older than he was in the late sixties during the Summer of Love, many police officers consider him as dangerous as ever if he is released back into society. Although police have re-interviewed Greenidge, he is unlikely to admit any involvement in the murders that occurred while he was free and out on the streets. If he killed these young men it will remain a secret, one he will take to his grave.
Back in 1967, Richard Hovey was just one of thousands who made the migration to Yorkville’s music scene. Some old-timers still remember him, the sharp-looking kid full of talent and musical promise. Back east, his former bandmates from Teddy and the Royals kept a reel-to-reel tape of their band practice from the mid-sixties. The reel was tucked away in an attic for decades and has made the technological transference over the years from reel-to-reel to cassette tape, then onto CD. It contains several original songs by members of the group, with titles like “I Love You So” and “You Say That You Love Me.” They were recorded over forty years ago, alongside cover versions of songs like “19th Nervous Breakdown” and “Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones, “Nowhere Man” by the Beatles, and “Heart Full of Soul” by the Yardbirds.
In an old black and white photo, Hovey is pictured standing alongside his bandmates holding his prized guitar in his right hand. The instrument was his pride and joy. Although it was just a plain-looking electric guitar he’d bought at Sears, Hovey painted it white and modified it to look like an expensive Fender. Left hand in his pocket, he is pictured wearing a dark suit and white turtleneck, his hair is combed forward in a mod style. He has the wide-eyed look of a boy trying to be a man, someone whose life was full of promise. Friends suspected that dream would never come true when he failed to pick up his guitar from the Mynah Bird back in 1967. The people who knew him realized he would leave just about anything behind, but not his guitar, not even if his life depended on it.
While reconstructing the faces of these two dead boys, forensic artist Peter Thompson remained clinical and dispassionate.