Police to probe colonel's GTA past

As youth, charged commander of CFB Trenton attended Upper Canada College and U of T
Published On Fri Feb 12 2010

Toronto police say they're ready to cooperate with Ontario Provincial Police investigators probing the past of Col. Russell Williams, the suspended Trenton base commander charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

In his youth, Williams attended Birchmount Park Collegiate in Scarborough as Russell Sovka – his stepfather's name – and was then an Upper Canada College student for several years. He has also studied at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus.

Williams' brother is a Bowmanville doctor and his mother works at Sunnybrook hospital.

Police spokeswoman Const. Wendy Drummond said any investigation will be long and painstaking.

"We will be working with the Ontario Provincial Police, as required, to go through any unsolved cases in our jurisdiction that may be somehow related," she said Thursday.

"It'll take months before anything can be determined as far as previous cases and how they're linked."

On Thursday, OPP investigators continued to scour the Ottawa home where Williams lived with his wife, Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, associate director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Williams, who was suspended as commander of the sprawling Canadian Forces Base Trenton after he was charged Monday, remains in a Kingston prison, but he is no longer under the suicide watch in place during his first days in custody.

He is charged with the first-degree murder of Jessica Lloyd, a 27-year-old Belleville-area woman who vanished in late January, and of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, a steward on the big military planes flying out of Trenton. He also is charged with two counts of sexual assault in connection with two home invasions last September near Tweed, northeast of Trenton.

Before coming to Trenton, Williams, 46, was stationed in Toronto, the Maritimes and Manitoba; he has also served overseas.

But if the memories of past friends and acquaintances are any indication, he did not make much of an impression.

Permell Ashby, who attended Birchmount Park Collegiate from 1976 to 1981 and played flute in the band with Williams – he played trumpet, she recalls – remembers Williams, but that's about all.

"I remember that I would often say hello," said Ashby. "He was in the band and everyone was friendly with each other."

Innes van Nostrand, who attended UCC with Williams in the early 1980s, said he was pretty good at flying under the radar.

He remembers him as "kind of a diligent, hard-working fellow who was not a high-profile guy here.

"That's how I think most people in the class would probably describe him: a serious student and a really good musician," recalled van Nostrand, who is now a vice-principal at the elite boarding school.

On Thursday, The Globe and Mail reported Williams was born in England and grew up in Chalk River, where his stepfather was a nuclear engineer. Because of his expertise, the family travelled widely, including to South Korea.

For a time, The Globe reported, the family lived near the Scarborough Bluffs. When his stepfather and mother left to spend more time in Asia, Williams was enrolled at UCC.

While there, The Globe reported, he was a house prefect, mentoring young students, and reported to a fellow student who held the post of house steward, Andrew Saxton, now a member of Parliament representing North Vancouver.

"I have not seen him for nearly three decades and did not realize he was the same person with whom I went to school until (Thursday) morning," Saxton said.



With files from Carmen Chai, Patty Winsa and The Canadian Press