Funeral set for Jessica Lloyd as autopsy underway
By Jorge Barrera, Amy Husser and David Wylie
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
AN OPP investigator leaves Col. Russell Williams's Ottawa home with two bags of potential evidence on Tuesday afternoon. Ontario Provincial Police were searching for evidence that might be related to two homicides and two sexual assaults.
Photograph by: Mike Carroccetto, Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Ontario Provincial Police investigators removed two grocery-sized bags of belongings on Tuesday after searching the Ottawa home of a Canadian Forces base commander charged with the first-degree murder of two women and the sexual assault of two others.
They searched the house Tuesday after the weekend arrest of Col. Russell Williams, a decorated pilot and commander at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in southeastern Ontario.
Police say Col. Russell Williams has not been ruled out as a suspect in the unsolved 2001 death of Kathleen MacVicar, 19, which happened at CFB Trenton, as investigators prepare to sift through cold cases of missing and slain women at military postings where Williams served during his 23-year career.
A family member of the slain woman had suggested in a report she was told Williams was ruled out as a suspect. On Wednesday, OPP told Canwest News Service that they haven’t even explored whether there is a connection yet because they have not examined the cold case files.
Williams, 46, has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Marie-France Comeau, 37, a corporal from the base that Williams commanded.
He has also been charged with the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two other women in cases where the victims were bound naked to chairs and photographed by their attacker.
As commander of 8 Wing, Williams oversaw the lives of more than 3,500 military and civilian staff.
"This is the person that everyone in the Wing looks up to," said Keith McDonald, a retired air force major general who met Williams for the first time during a Senate committee trip to the base in November. "This is a person we saw on television three weeks ago with the minister of national defence. He's the guy who commands the base, who has to make sure they treat with dignity the return of fallen soldiers (from Afghanistan)."
Williams' base is known to Canadians as the site where the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan first arrive home.
His wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, was expected to check into an Ottawa hotel Tuesday night, after being forced out of her upscale home while police searched for clues. Neighbours said she had about 10 minutes to collect her belongings before police escorted her away from the house.
George White, a former air force officer, called Williams and Harriman his "neighbour-in-laws" because they lived a few houses down.
He said the last time he heard from Williams was through an email just before Christmas.
"We can't believe this. It's just not Russ," White said. "I would suspect the Pope before I would suspect Russ."
While a senior military officer being groomed for the highest ranks doesn't seem to fit stereotypes of a vicious criminal, those who study the minds of serial killers say they are experts at creating facades that can fool everyone.
"The killers who are on the loose for long periods of time, even months, are typically the last person you'd suspect," said criminologist and sociologist Jack Levin. "They look more innocent than an innocent man. And that's part of the secret of their success of getting away with murder."
Williams has been described as quiet, and even awkward at times — "a shining bright star," said his boss.
Now police agencies across the country are looking for information about cold cases in their areas and calling Ontario investigators probing the murders and sexual assaults, said Sgt. Kristine Rae of the Ontario Provincial Police.
"We have heard from other police agencies," Rae said Tuesday. "Other services have called for information."
Police interviewed Williams on Sunday, then on Monday announced they had found the body of Lloyd, who had been missing for more than a week.
Officers would not say how they were able to find Lloyd's body after Williams' arrest.
An autopsy was conducted on Lloyd Tuesday in Toronto, Rae said. Results were not immediately available.
Comeau, meanwhile, had been working as a flight attendant based at CFB Trenton for six months when she was killed. Her body was found in her home in Brighton, a small town about 15 kilometres west of Trenton, on Nov. 25.
Police were not revealing the cause of death in either case.
The two counts of sexual assault, as well as forcible confinement and break and enter charges, Williams faces are in connection with two attacks on women in nearby Tweed, Ont., last September.
Police searched Williams' cottage in Tweed before turning their focus Tuesday to his Ottawa home, where he lived with his wife.
"People are still shocked and devastated and trying to come to terms with what we know," Tweed resident Jo-Anne Albert said Tuesday. "It's just knocked everybody on their backs a bit; everyone's still talking about it, obviously."
"Tweed has never been the same since September," she said. "That was something that had never happened in this community."
Albert added that after the two assaults, police "did what they could" and cautioned the community to be "extra vigilant" with their personal safety, especially by locking doors and windows.
"People did different things with the way they lived and were more careful. Yes, it sure did change the way we live."
The community didn't link Lloyd's disappearance to the sexual assaults until Monday, when the news came out.
"My heart goes out to Jessica's family and to the other murdered girl and also to the two girls (who were sexually assaulted). It's brought maybe a little bit of closure to them . . . but at a terrible expense."
During the investigation of the Ontario sex attacks, police also searched the home of Larry Jones, a local man.
Jones, 65, said police told him the women had their hands bound with zip ties and their heads were covered. They were then photographed by their attacker.
Jones was initially a suspect in the attacks and his home was searched on Oct. 29.
According to the search warrant, police were looking for digital storage devices, a black La Senza bra, a purple La Senza bra, thong underwear with a poodle, two baby blankets, pornographic photos and videos, white shoes, and zip ties, among other items.
Jones said that the special type of tire treads on Williams' vehicle tipped off police to his possible involvement in the murders. Police said Monday it was a roadside canvass on a nearby highway that made Williams a person of interest in the case.
However, on Tuesday, Rae said she could not discuss the tire tread information because it was "evidentiary in nature."
Residents in Lloyd's hometown of Belleville were publicly grieving Tuesday over the woman's death, with signs along the road announcing their condolences.
The small city's sense of safety has also been shattered.
"You would think this would happen in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, but no, it's right here in your own backyard," said Ab Wright, who has lived in Belleville for 40 years down the street from Lloyd's home.
In Brighton, where Comeau was killed, residents left flowers at the front door of her vacant brick bungalow.
"Now she's at peace," said Brighton resident Betty Bartlett.
"I just felt in my heart this was the proper thing as a mother to do," she said as she dropped a small bouquet of flowers on the doorstep.
Comeau's death rocked the town of about 10,500 near the shore of Lake Ontario.
"I cried that day," said Joe Zavalski, 80, a neighbour who lives in the retirement community just south of Comeau's house. "It was very emotional. All of us were quite emotional — she was a beautiful girl."
Meanwhile, it appears that Williams still has not retained a lawyer. A clerk at the Belleville courthouse where Williams appeared Monday said the accused had been represented by duty council and that they were notaware of any lawyer putting their name forward to represent the senior air force officer. Belleville lawyer John Wonnacott, who acted as Williams' duty council, said he had not been retained by Williams.
— With files from the Ottawa Citizen, and Sharon Kirkey
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
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