Alleged killer credited with saving man’s life
Contractor faces 2nd-degree murder charge
Toronto police have charged a man with second- degree murder in t he death of 22-year-old Tess Richey — but ironically, just four months before Richey’s death the accused killer was hailed for saving the life of a man being bludgeoned by an assailant with a hammer.
On Monday police charged Kalen Schlatter, a 21-year-old construction contractor, with murdering Richey, who disappeared from Toronto’s Gay Village in November.
The charge came two months after police released grainy CCTV images and identified him as a suspect in Richey’s murder. Schlatter, who police believe strangled Richey to death, was arrested on Sunday in the city’s westend, Det. Sgt. Graham Gibson said at a press conference.
“Tess was a young innocent girl,” Gibson said. “Obviously, nothing like this should ever have happened to anybody.”
But only four months before he allegedly murdered Richey, Schlatter was being praised for saving a life.
In August 2017, Helga Schlatter celebrated her son on Facebook for having the “courage to stop a murder in progress.”
Police charged 45- yearold Whitley Hunter with attempted murder after a latenight attack in a west- end Toronto park in which a man was allegedly struck repeatedly in the head with a hammer.
Global News interviewed Schlatter — though his face is blurred in the video, two friends confirmed to the National Post it was him — who claimed he intervened in the attack, telling Global he had applied pressure to the victim’s wounds until an ambulance arrived. ( Police would not confirm Schlatter was involved, citing a policy of not revealing the names of witnesses.)
One of Schlatter’s friends, who asked not to be identified out of concern for his privacy, provided the National Post with a series of text messages from August which the friend claimed were exchanged with Schlatter. In the texts, someone using the phone number the friend identified as Schlatter’s said he saw a man in the park across from his home repeatedly striking another person in the head with a hammer. He ran over and chased the attacker away by shouting that he’d called the police, the texts said.
After the attack, Schlatter’s mother posted an account on Facebook.
“When I approached Kalen, he was covered in blood from head to toe,” Helga Schlatter wrote. “I’m still stunned, proud and love him more than I can express.”
Two of Schlatter’s friends confirmed the Facebook account belonged to his mother.
Richey went missing on Nov. 25 after spending a night in the Village. In Monday’s press conference Gibson wouldn’t offer a theory as to how Richey met Schlatter that night, but police had previously contended that Richey met her killer after she and a high school friend left the Crews & Tangos bar at 1: 45 a.m. The friends stopped at a hot dog cart on Church Street and it was there, police said, that they met the man they have identified as Schlatter, who joined the pair as they walked northwest toward Dundonald Street.
The group stopped to s peak with a man and woman. Richey’s high school friend left the group and the couple followed suit, leaving Richey alone with the man she met at the hot dog stand. Together, they walked north and CCTV cameras showed them entering an alley near Church and Wellesley streets. Richey was last seen alive at 3 a.m., Gibson said. The footage, police said, then showed the man they have identified as Schlatter leaving the alleyway alone.
“The opportunity presented itself,” Gibson said.
After Richey’s family reported her missing later that day, police began a search of the Village. Christine Hermeston, Richey’s mother, found her daughter’s body in an exterior stairwell.
At first police did not consider the death suspicious. However, after conducting a post- mortem investigation, they determined the cause of Richey’s death was neck compression.
In a Facebook post, Richey’s sister Varina wrote that police told the family Sunday night about Schlatter’s arrest. The Richey family is happy with the investigation, Varina said, as police kept them up to date on how they were “on to the suspect.”
“This is not a celebration for us but it is a victory of sorts and we would now like to finally focus our energy and attention on honouring and remembering the best and zaniest little sister any of us Richey girls ever could have asked for,” Varina wrote.
Rachel Richey, another of Richey’s sisters, tweeted that the charge against Schlatter left her “confused as ever.”
“My heart is broken but at least we have a few answers to the multitude of questions we have,” she wrote.
Schlatter appeared in court Monday and was remanded in police custody.