‘I CAN’T PROVE IT’
The gunman has been careful, often burning the crime scenes to destroy evidence
A CRIME STORY: PART 4
Jim Gorry is the 35-year police veteran who heads the ongoing OPP investigation into the unsolved killings and arsons clustered around Morewood. He’s convinced the crimes are linked — and that they’re likely the work of the same individual. ‘Is it the same person? Well, I think it is, myself. But I can’t prove it.’ Andrew Duffy reports.
On the wall of the OPP Crime Unit’s office in Cornwall is an extraordinary map.
It plots five unsolved killings in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, an unsolved gas station shooting, and more than 50 unsolved arsons and suspicious fires, including one that killed Morewood’s Fern Patenaude in September 2002.
The crime scenes are concentrated in a heavy patchwork of symbols around the tiny town of Morewood.
It was in Morewood that Randy Rankin was shot dead in his basement on a snowy night, it’s where John King was shot dead before his home was torched, and it’s where the decomposed body of homicide victim Raymond Collison was found in a ditch.
The map offers a graphic argument that the crimes are connected, says OPP Det. Insp. Jim Gorry.
“It’s quite eerie, to say the least,” he says.
A 35-year police veteran with a commanding salt-and-pepper moustache, Gorry heads the ongoing OPP investigation into the unsolved crimes, some of which date back more than three decades.
He’s convinced the unsolved killings and arsons are linked, and that they’re likely the work of the same individual.
“Is it the same person? Well, I think it is, myself,” Gorry says. “But I can’t prove it. I can’t prove it to be one individual.”
Two OPP investigators have been assigned to the cases full-time since April 2014, when Collison’s body was discovered in a drainage ditch. The circumstances of that killing re-ignited police interest in the county’s large archive of cold cases.
Investigators have reviewed all the old case files and combed them for overlooked bits of information. Select pieces of evidence have been submitted to Ontario’s Centre of Forensic Science for retesting with the hope that new technology will discern trace elements of DNA.
Meanwhile, police are appealing for the public’s help.
“I do believe there are people out there who have information, and we’re continuing to look for those people,” Gorry says. “We’ve spoken to numerous people in this phase of the investigation and we are moving forward.”
Police won’t say how many suspects they’ve identified in the cases. But an arrest, Gorry insists, remains a distinct possibility.
The gunman who shot Randy Rankin 10 years ago knew where he lived and understood his habits. It’s likely the killer parked a car nearby and walked through a glade of trees to approach Rankin’s home. There’s every chance the killer knew the victim personally; he must have been confident that Rankin would sit down at his computer before the sun came up.
Addin Katz, the owner of harnessdriver.com, the website that Rankin visited moments before he was shot, says he has often thought about the gunman’s motivation.
“What kind of person makes that kind of effort? To go out in the freezing cold to shoot someone through a window? That’s the really strange part to me,” he says.
The OPP launched a full review of the Rankin homicide in 2014 following the discovery of Collison’s body. Police won’t say how Collison died, but given the state of his body’s decomposition, there must have been evidence of violence for them to conclude that foul play was involved.
The Rankin murder also bore strong similarities to the known fact scenarios in three other homicides. John King, 59, was shot in the head before his Morewood house was torched in July 1987. That same year, in May, Wallace Johnston, 48, was shot dead near Avonmore through his dining room window. Four years earlier, in November 1983, Harold Davidson was sitting at his kitchen table when he was shot three times with a .38-calibre handgun fired through his window.
Rankin, Johnston and Davidson were all shot through a window on rural, isolated properties. In each case, it seemed the killer knew where the men would be sitting at a specific time of day. It suggests the gunman knew the victims — and the layout of their homes — or stalked them. It’s also clear the killer was a skilled and patient hunter.
Three months after Davidson was shot, the same handgun was used in a violent robbery at a gas station on the outskirts of Metcalfe. Gas station attendant Gordon Hill, then 17, was shot in the arm as he climbed into his car just after 9 p.m. with that evening’s bank deposit. Scared and confused, Hill crouched beside his car, trying to find his attacker in the dark. He poked his head around the front fender when a second gunshot struck him in the neck, knocking him to the ground.
He scrambled back into the gas station, locked the door and called his parents for help. The gunman fired several more shots as he took the zippered sack of money from Hill’s car, and fled.
Hill survived his injuries, but did not get a look at his attacker.
“I was under the lights at the station, the big overhead lights, and he was standing in the dark, in the shadows behind the building,” remembers Hill, who now owns an auto-repair shop in Vars.
The police told Hill the gunman had positioned himself behind a woodpile. then fled on foot along a snowmobile trail to a car parked on a side road. The bullet that passed through Hill’s neck narrowly missed his spine; he has suffered no lasting effects.
“I was lucky: It was close,” he says. “And I never did have any nightmares, to be honest with you.”
Hill has heard rumours about who was responsible for the crime, but no one has ever been arrested.
So why has the case been so difficult to solve? How has a killer been able to evade police for so long, in such a small place, while committing so many crimes?
For one thing, potential witnesses are few and far between. Only about 65,000 people live in all of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, a predominantly rural area that’s more than half the size of Prince Edward Island.
The killer has also been careful. The gunman tends to operate late at night or in the early morning when few people are around, and has often destroyed evidence by burning the crime scenes.
It’s one of the reasons the OPP have been unable to connect the killings through ballistics evidence.
Gorry suspects arson was used as a tool to intimidate potential witnesses: Property fires have victimized several people who spoke with OPP investigators in the past.
“I think the fires, especially, put some fear into the community,” he says.
Today, time is of the essence. Some involved in the cases have died of natural causes, while others are getting old, their memories fading. The window of opportunity is narrowing with each year that passes.
Rankin’s aunt, June Mercey, says she doubts his case will ever be solved. The 10th anniversary of Rankin’s killing was marked last month.
“We miss him, we really do,” Mercey says. “He was funny, and he always kept in touch.”
Rankin called his elderly grandmother every week. It was in keeping with his big, warm-hearted side: This was a man who taught his daughter, Amanda, to clown, to fish and to raise rabbits.
His widow, Dorothy Rankin, says she doesn’t discuss his killing anymore.
“You just live with it,” she says. “If you have to stop and think about it every day, it would drive you nuts. So you live with it. Then another year goes by, and another year goes by.”
Gorry says he’s determined to find answers for Rankin and all of those in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry who have lived with fear and angst for so long.
“Why should people have to live in that kind of fear for that many years? That’s one of the reasons I’d love to be able to solve it.”