LITMIR.BIZ

       Undated photo of convicted killer James Greenidge, who later changed his name to James Gordon Henry. He was first convicted of violent crimes in the fifties, and is presently behind bars in British Columbia for the horrific murder of a young woman in 1981.

      Although just in his twenties, Greenidge had spent years of his life in jail and was rarely out on the streets for long before being sent back behind bars. In 1967 he was sentenced to seventeen years for a number of horrific crimes. He nearly killed one man he’d picked up in Toronto’s gay village. Another victim, seventeen-year-old Robert Wayne Mortimore, wasn’t so lucky. Mortimore’s naked, tattooed body was found in a field northeast of Markham, Ontario. The young insurance clerk was reported missing on July 11 by his brother, and his decomposing remains — missing in the heat of summer for over a week — had to be identified through fingerprints and part of a birth certificate found in Greenidge’s car. One of Mortimore’s tattoos said “Born to raise hell,” while another was a dagger, dripping blood. A number of items were missing from the body, including a silver ring with the initials R.M., a second ring with a black stone, a chain with a gold cross, and a pair of blue and white mod-style trousers.

      At the time of Mortimore’s murder, Greenidge was already serving time for the attempted murder of a twenty-one-year-old man who he left beaten, naked, and bleeding in a field. The pair, said Greenidge, met at a movie theatre known as a gay pickup place and drove out to the country on a gravel stretch of road to a farmer’s field north of Barrie, Ontario. The man then made the mistake of asking Greenidge for twenty bucks, allegedly for sex. This threw him into a rage. Pouncing on his victim, Greenidge began punching, kicking, and stabbing the man repeatedly in the throat and chest with a penknife. He then bound the man and left him naked, alone, and bleeding to death. Police said that if the man had not been found within a few hours, he surely would have died.

      When he was released from prison in 1978, Greenidge changed his name to James Gordon Henry. His name was different, but his sexual rage remained as strong as ever. In Winnipeg he was charged with sodomizing a thirteen-year-old boy, who he then tried to strangle to death with a blanket. The charges against Greenidge were stayed. While out of jail, Greenidge killed his last known victim in 1981. He was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal rape and murder of Elizabeth Fells, a twenty-four-year-old prostitute. Picking up the woman, Greenidge drove her to an isolated spot in the woods north of Vancouver and flew into a rage. Raping the woman, he then stabbed her over and over again, slashing her throat and leaving her barely alive in an isolated area, repeating his unremitting pattern of violence. Somehow, Fells managed to crawl to the side of the Squamish Highway and flagged down a passing car. She died in hospital eight days after her horrifying attack, but lived long enough to give police a detailed description of her attacker: James Henry Greenidge. Her statement helped police capture Greenidge, who was arrested and charged with her murder.

      Over the years, many people fell victim to Greenidge’s rage: women, men, and children. They all have one thing in common: they were white, like Richard Hovey and the young man found at Balsam Lake. The lives of these young men were cut tragically short and no one, save for their killer or killers, knows what the last moments of their lives were like, dying naked in an isolated area with no one there to save their lives.

      Thanks to the skills of forensic artist Master Corporal Peter Thompson, the remains formerly known as the Balsam Lake Victim finally have a name. On March 9, 2009, police revealed his identity. The skeletal remains found near Coboconk, Ontario — with the extra thoracic vertebra and rib — were those of Eric Jones from Noelville, Ontario. The original forensic estimate of his age was accurate: Jones was just eighteen when he died. Once the identification was made, police were able to create a profile of the young man and the circumstances that may have led to his death. If it were not for one of Jones’s sisters watching a television program she rarely viewed, her brother’s body would likely have remained unidentified forever.