Police chief addresses rumours of serial killer in downtown neighbourhood,

Police chief announces force to look into policy following Church-Wellesley reports

There’s palpable fear in the neighbourhood around Church and Wellesley.

At least eight people have gone missing this year from the area around Toronto’s gay village. Two were found dead. Three are still missing.

Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders announced to media Friday morning that he’s called for a review of how the force handles missing persons cases. It was also the first time police confirmed that 22-yearold Tess Richey’s body was found by her own mother.

While Saunders and his detectives dispelled rumours of a serial killer in the village, friends are still cancelling plans to go out. Residents tuck pepper spray into their bags and inform neighbours when they’ll be home. Strangers are contacting the neighbourhood association, volunteering safe walks home.

Some information being shared about the Church and Wellesley disappearances has been misleading. A list of 11 missing people making rounds of the internet this week includes information from years ago.

Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam, Abdulbasir “Basir” Faizi and Majeed “Hamid” Kayhan — all middle aged, of similar ethnicity and “active” in the Church and Wellesley area — went missing between mid-2010 and late 2012. None were found, despite the forming of a task force called Project Houston.

Of the eight that disappeared in 2017, three have already been found safely. Police “have no evidence — let me repeat, no evidence — to indicate any links between any of the missing people,” spokesperson Mark Pugash said.

Chase Kincaid, 30, was last seen in August at Yonge and College. He’s still missing. So are 49-year-old Andrew Kinsman and 44-year-old Selim Esen — the subjects of Project Prism, a 51 Division task force struck in August. Kinsman disappeared in June from Winchester and Parliament; Esen disappeared in April from Yonge and Bloor.

Francis Doyle, Joan Lenahan and Troy Mussington, who each disappeared from the area this year, have all been found. A ninth person, Drew Phelps, was not listed as missing by police but by social media. Police spokesperson Michelle Flannery said there is a report to indicate Phelps was found.

One of the missing persons who met a grimmer end was Alloura Wells — a transgender sex worker who had been homeless for a number of years, reported missing in November. Her body was found in a Rosedale ravine in August, and identified last week. Wells was found beside a tent, with no personal effects on the scene. She just had a single pink purse. There are no indicators yet to suggest foul play. Police are looking for Wells’s transient boyfriend, Augustinus Balesdent — though he isn’t a suspect, he may be the last to have seen her alive.

Her family alleged that police told them the case was “not high priority” when they reported Wells missing, given her homelessness.

During Friday’s press conference, Saunders said multiple times the force may take a look at its “sensitivity” when handling such cases. A man named Joshua Hind took to Twitter this week to point out similarities between the present cases and one from 1994. His uncle, Larry Arnold, had disappeared from around Yonge and Wellesley. Arnold’s body was discovered in Rosedale Valley weeks later.

“There were TV stories at the time that always led with ‘gay man killed,’ and mentioned he had been seen leaving a bar after a hookup, as though it was a hookup gone wrong,” Hind told the Star. A Star headline at the time referenced “gay slayings” such as Arnold’s taking place across the continent.

“Detectives now believe Larry Arnold, 46, was slain after leaving a downtown gay bar on Oct. 14 in the company of a stocky, blond male prostitute with a French accent,” the story reads.

His killer was only caught when he confessed seven years later.

Hind compared Arnold’s case to coverage of Richey’s murder last week. In the days after her mother found the 22-year-old’s body, reports emerged that she worked as an escort — an idea her family says is untrue.

“If six people in the last five months went missing in Forest Hill, obviously it would get a different level of attention,” Hind said of the police response.

University of Toronto professor V.K. Preston pointed to a history of police distrust in the area. “There is background that’s deep to this community. There’s a history of the police not responding well,” she said.

Pugash says a substantial amount of resources have been dedicated to the disappearances. “I can’t remember off the top of my head the last time there was a divisional task force or a divisional task force targeting missing people,” he said. “I think that is a tangible commitment of the intention of the service to devote whatever resources are necessary to resolving these.”

Project Prism has interviewed more than 60 witnesses, requested more than two dozen judicial authorizations and followed up on hundreds of tasks so far.

“There probably isn’t anything that people take more seriously than a loved one or a friend who just disappears. And in some cases, there doesn’t appear to be obvious explanations. So I get that that is concerning,” Pugash said.

Police now have footage of Richey walking with an unknown male — considered a suspect — who approached her while standing by a hotdog cart in the village.

The last surveillance footage of Richey alive shows them walking together closer to where her body would later be found — and when the man is seen on tape next, he walks away from the scene alone.

“If you have any information at all — even if you don’t think it’s that important — please come forward,” Pugash said. “Because it could be the key to the lock.”