Investigators believe Gladys Little’s killer walked in through the front door
Police combing through footage from five security cameras at her 187 Park St. S. apartment building hoping to find attacker
Whoever killed 79-year-old Gladys Little walked through the front door of her seventh-floor apartment.
“Either she answered the door, it was unlocked or someone has a key,” said Det. Sgt. Peter Thom, who is leading the probe into the homicide for the Hamilton police major crime unit.
Little’s two-bedroom apartment at 187 Park St. S. has a balcony, but Thom said police are satisfied that was not the point of entry for the killer or killers.
Police still do not know why she was killed, whether it was a random or targeted attack, how many people may have been involved or the time she was killed. While detectives have some investigative theories, nothing as been ruled out, he said.
What is known is that the 79-year-old retired nurse, avid gardener and baker, last spoke to a friend by email around 1:45 p.m. on Friday, May 15.
Thom described Little as a very private person with a small circle of friends, who were mostly homebound. Little still drove and shopped for her own groceries and often dropped baked goods off for family. She had been observing physical distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic and did not have visitors at her apartment.
Instead, she would talk with family every day at 11 a.m. But when she failed to answer her regular check-in call from one of her sons on the Saturday, concerned family went to check on her. It was around 4 p.m. on May 16 when they discovered her body and called 911.
Initially, police believed that perhaps her death was medical, but an autopsy in Toronto on Wednesday showed her death was a homicide.
Thom said he cannot comment on the cause of death, whether police believe a weapon was used or details about the crime scene, including where Little’s body was found inside her spacious twobedroom unit.
“There are a few aspects of the scene that were unexplained,” Thom said, adding that he cannot elaborate to protect the investigation. What makes the case more perplexing is that there was nothing obviously amiss inside the unit — nothing damaged or stolen, including her purse, wallet and electronics. After speaking with family and Little’s best friend, Thom said police do not believe she was expecting any visitors.
Police have been at the scene since the discovery of Little’s body, with forensics unit members processing the scene and officers canvassing the 20-floor building.
No one on her floor heard anything, Thom said.
Police have sent a number of items from the apartment to be tested by the Centre of Forensic Sciences. Detectives also have surveillance footage from the five working cameras in the building. Thom said police believe the killer or killers must have been captured at some point because it appears impossible to move through the building without being captured at least once. Now police are focused on going through footage from the more than 24 hours before she was found trying to determine who everyone is — people living in the building or not.
When asked whether others in the building or community should be concerned, since police do not know if Little’s killing was random, Thom said it’s more a matter of being vigilant about not answering your door to strangers.
“If it is a stranger who committed this act or strangers than obviously that heightens the potential that there is someone out there who is not opposed to doing this to an elderly female and whether they would do that to someone (else),” he said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Andrew Coughlan at 905-5463874.