Updated: Fri Feb. 12 2010 17:03:03
CTV.ca News Staff
A retired military official says that troops at CFB Trenton aren't demoralized, despite reports that spirits at the base have plunged after Col. Russell Williams was charged in two deaths and two sex assaults.
Retired major general Lewis MacKenzie said Friday that the base is still operating around the clock.
"There are reports that morale in Trenton has hit rock bottom? Baloney," MacKenzie told CTV News Channel.
Williams is charged with the first-degree murder of Jessica Lloyd, a 27-year-old Belleville, Ont., woman who was found dead on Monday, and the first-degree murder of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old air force flight attendant who was found dead at her Brighton, Ont., home last November.
Still, MacKenzie said the military community across the country has been affected by the charges, adding: "You can really be pissed off and still have good morale."
Williams is also charged with two counts each of forcible confinement, as well as break-and-enter and sexual assault relating to alleged attacks on two women from Tweed, Ont., a town about 60 kilometres north of CFB Trenton.
"We feel that we have been let down," MacKenzie said.
On Friday afternoon, it was announced that Lt.-Col. Dave Cochrane would take over command of the base.
According to interviews with Williams' friends and family, the former colonel exhibited few signs that suggested he would ever be on police radar.
MacKenzie agreed, adding that military officials would have had very little indication that Williams could one day face criminal charges.
Since police announced charges against Williams earlier this week, it has emerged that the accused was born in England, but moved to Canada in his youth.
His parents divorced after arriving in Canada and his mother eventually remarried. For a time, Williams changed his name to Russell Sovka, taking the last name of his then-stepfather, Jerry Sovka.
Stan Sovka, the brother of Williams' former stepfather, said he and his wife, Madeline, were shocked by the charges facing the man they knew long before he became a rising star in the Canadian Forces.
"That's not the guy we know," Madeline Sovka said from Calgary. "We knew a very nice man, a nice boy growing up, no problem, very gentle."
Before studying at the University of Toronto, Williams attended Upper Canada College, an elite private school that counts Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and actor Brendan Fraser among its alumni.
Back then, Williams was a quiet student who earned good grades. A yearbook photo shows him wearing a striped tie and sport coat, sporting a bushy hairstyle that was typical of the time period.
He liked music, was considered a skilled trumpet player and was one of the top-five prefects in his dorm, demonstrating the leadership qualities that got him noticed in the military.
Innes van Nostrand, now a vice-principal at Upper Canada College, graduated from the school at the same time as Williams and remembers him as 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."
He graduated in 1982, moving on to earn a degree in political science and economics at the University of Toronto campus in Scarborough, in east-end Toronto.
Members of Williams' family still hold ties to the Toronto area.
His mother, Nonie Sovka, still lives in Toronto, where she works as a physiotherapist at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre.
She wrote a letter to Madeline and Stan Sovka at Christmas telling them about the "beautiful ceremony" that saw her son promoted to colonel last summer.
Since the charges were announced against her son, Nonie Sovka's voicemail has indicated she will be "off campus on an emergency basis."
His brother, Harvey Williams, is a doctor in Bowmanville, Ont., a small town about an hour east of Toronto.
After graduating from university, Williams joined the military and began his ascent to the position of the commander of CFB Trenton.
Williams married Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, who works as an associate executive director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
Madeline Sovka said she has not spoken with Harriman but said she believes the couple was close.
"He had a good relationship and a wonderful wife," she said. "We just don't know if it's possible that he could be the one."
Police investigation
Beyond looking at Williams' roots, police are probing if the accused colonel has ties to other unsolved crimes in regions where he has previously been posted.
His official Department of National Defence biography indicates he earned his wings within three years of joining the military and was assigned to 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School in Portage la Prairie, Man. He worked there for two years as an instructor.
In 1992, he was posted to CFB Shearwater in Nova Scotia, where he piloted a CC144 Challenger.
After that, Williams was transferred to Ottawa, eventually earning a promotion to the rank of major in November 1999. He then returned to school, earning a Master of Defence Studies degree from the Royal Military College in 2004.
From December 2005 to June 2006, he led Camp Mirage, a logistics base that is reportedly near Dubai, but which is not officially acknowledged by the government or military. In January 2009, he was promoted to colonel and spent six months attending French language training in Gatineau, Que.
He took over the leadership reins at CFB Trenton in July of last year.
In Ottawa, Insp. Al Tario is heading up a team that will determine if Williams can be tied to 30 unsolved crimes dating back more than three decades ago.
"We'll be looking at our unsolved break-ins, unsolved sexual assaults. We'll be looking at unsolved homicides, unsolved missing person cases, etc.," Tario told CTV News on Thursday.
On Thursday, police continued to search the Ottawa home Williams shares with his wife.
Police also searched the lakeside cottage the couple owns in Tweed, a small town near Trenton where Williams is accused of sexually assaulting two of his neighbours.
At present, Williams is being held in the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, Ont., about 60 kilometres east of CFB Trenton. The Kingston Whig-Standard newspaper reports that Williams was initially placed on suicide watch at the jail, but has since been allowed to exchange his suicide gown for a standard issue, orange jumpsuit.
He is scheduled to make a video appearance in court on Feb. 18.
With files from The Canadian Press
Showing posts with label Canwest News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canwest News. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
Our Forces suffer a big blow to morale
Charges against colonel couldn't come at a worse time for military
By Don Martin
Canwest News Service
February 12, 2010
It shouldn't be happening because the uniform isn't on trial, but morale is free-falling inside Canadian Forces Base Trenton after the base commander was charged with double murders and a pair of sexual assaults.
The stain on the one is, wrongly, spreading to the many.
"Everyone in the Canadian Forces will tell you officially that it won't harm morale, but how couldn't it?" confided a senior officer in the reserves. "People are going to feel shocked, and I expect that many folks, particularly in the Trenton area, are going to be looking at people in military uniforms a little differently as this plays out. This can't be good for morale."
He is, sadly, correct.
Col. Russell Williams is entitled to the judicial presumption of innocence, but he can only be cleared after a prolonged media frenzy of a trial fixated on someone whose heinous crimes are worsened, if that's possible, by his lofty standing in the Canadian Forces.
Questions will swirl about how a man accused of such crimes could have been promoted to a rank where he mingled with the defence minister and piloted prime ministers or governors general on Challenger jets.
Assault victims are already coming forward to document the horror they allegedly experienced in cringing detail. Websites are filling with tributes for the murder victims and venomous outrage aimed at the accused.
And all this is erupting before a single shred of what will undoubtedly be horrific evidence in an expanding investigation is put before the courts of law and public opinion.
One retired senior officer with numerous contacts inside the chain of command was spitting fury at the situation confronting soldiers on Tuesday.
"The commander they entrusted with their lives stands accused of taking them. There is no greater breach of trust," he fumed.
Ironically, this blow strikes a military firing on all cylinders and arguably at the peak of its deployment power.
Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, commander of land forces, was practically bursting his brass buttons late last week when we chatted over coffee in an Ottawa restaurant.
He's a general with a no-nonsense edginess who relishes in telling stories about his most aggressive officers and thinks a busy military is a happy fighting force.
By that measure, his army is a very, very happy place.
"I have never seen the army more active than it is right now," he told me.
His regular 2,500-soldier deployment in Kandahar is preparing to assist the British and Americans in a major Taliban clear out this week. He's got 3,000 soldiers in the California desert training in mock Afghanistan conditions for a battlefield they'll be fighting on later this year. There are 4,000 soldiers in the Vancouver area backstopping RCMP for 2010 Winter Olympics security. There are 1,500 army soldiers in Haiti helping earthquake survivors. And the northern Rangers are more active than ever patrolling the Arctic.
Without an infusion of 2,500 regular soldiers in the last few years, the army would be stretched beyond its deployment capacity, he said.
"Morale is really high even though everyone is literally working their butts off," Leslie said. "The respect and support they enjoy from Canadians is unprecedented in my 30 years wearing army green."
The proof of an energized army comes every time he addresses troops poised to head overseas for the dangers of Afghanistan. Leslie offers them a last-minute chance to refuse the assignment without losing face.
"I've probably asked that question to 25,000 soldiers and only had one bow out. His excuse was that his wife just found out his girlfriend was pregnant," he said with a grin. Gosh, I couldn't dream up a better excuse to flee for the relative safety of Kandahar battlefields if confronted by that scenario.
Contacted for a followup on Tuesday to discuss the impact of Williams' arrest on soldier morale, Leslie not surprisingly backs his soldiers.
"I am personally shocked and appalled, but morale is and will remain high in the army."
Here's hoping he's right. If the charges against Williams stick, it's only evidence of a single deranged individual and not a uniform stain on Canadian soldiers who deserve only our respect.
dmartincanwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
By Don Martin
Canwest News Service
February 12, 2010
It shouldn't be happening because the uniform isn't on trial, but morale is free-falling inside Canadian Forces Base Trenton after the base commander was charged with double murders and a pair of sexual assaults.
The stain on the one is, wrongly, spreading to the many.
"Everyone in the Canadian Forces will tell you officially that it won't harm morale, but how couldn't it?" confided a senior officer in the reserves. "People are going to feel shocked, and I expect that many folks, particularly in the Trenton area, are going to be looking at people in military uniforms a little differently as this plays out. This can't be good for morale."
He is, sadly, correct.
Col. Russell Williams is entitled to the judicial presumption of innocence, but he can only be cleared after a prolonged media frenzy of a trial fixated on someone whose heinous crimes are worsened, if that's possible, by his lofty standing in the Canadian Forces.
Questions will swirl about how a man accused of such crimes could have been promoted to a rank where he mingled with the defence minister and piloted prime ministers or governors general on Challenger jets.
Assault victims are already coming forward to document the horror they allegedly experienced in cringing detail. Websites are filling with tributes for the murder victims and venomous outrage aimed at the accused.
And all this is erupting before a single shred of what will undoubtedly be horrific evidence in an expanding investigation is put before the courts of law and public opinion.
One retired senior officer with numerous contacts inside the chain of command was spitting fury at the situation confronting soldiers on Tuesday.
"The commander they entrusted with their lives stands accused of taking them. There is no greater breach of trust," he fumed.
Ironically, this blow strikes a military firing on all cylinders and arguably at the peak of its deployment power.
Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, commander of land forces, was practically bursting his brass buttons late last week when we chatted over coffee in an Ottawa restaurant.
He's a general with a no-nonsense edginess who relishes in telling stories about his most aggressive officers and thinks a busy military is a happy fighting force.
By that measure, his army is a very, very happy place.
"I have never seen the army more active than it is right now," he told me.
His regular 2,500-soldier deployment in Kandahar is preparing to assist the British and Americans in a major Taliban clear out this week. He's got 3,000 soldiers in the California desert training in mock Afghanistan conditions for a battlefield they'll be fighting on later this year. There are 4,000 soldiers in the Vancouver area backstopping RCMP for 2010 Winter Olympics security. There are 1,500 army soldiers in Haiti helping earthquake survivors. And the northern Rangers are more active than ever patrolling the Arctic.
Without an infusion of 2,500 regular soldiers in the last few years, the army would be stretched beyond its deployment capacity, he said.
"Morale is really high even though everyone is literally working their butts off," Leslie said. "The respect and support they enjoy from Canadians is unprecedented in my 30 years wearing army green."
The proof of an energized army comes every time he addresses troops poised to head overseas for the dangers of Afghanistan. Leslie offers them a last-minute chance to refuse the assignment without losing face.
"I've probably asked that question to 25,000 soldiers and only had one bow out. His excuse was that his wife just found out his girlfriend was pregnant," he said with a grin. Gosh, I couldn't dream up a better excuse to flee for the relative safety of Kandahar battlefields if confronted by that scenario.
Contacted for a followup on Tuesday to discuss the impact of Williams' arrest on soldier morale, Leslie not surprisingly backs his soldiers.
"I am personally shocked and appalled, but morale is and will remain high in the army."
Here's hoping he's right. If the charges against Williams stick, it's only evidence of a single deranged individual and not a uniform stain on Canadian soldiers who deserve only our respect.
dmartincanwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Ont. killings not linked to Halifax cold cases
Police yet to share evidence
By Glenn Johnson
Canwest News Service
February 12, 2010
There is no evidence to suggest any connection with cold cases in Halifax and recent homicides in Ontario, Halifax police said Thursday.
"That is exactly correct," said Halifax Regional Police Const. Brian Palmeter.
Palmeter said his force received a number of calls asking whether there was any connection with any cold cases there because Col. Russell Williams had served at CFB Shearwater, near Halifax. Other media inquiries about unsolved homicides have been made in other cities where Williams was also stationed with the Canadian Forces, including Manitoba.
Palmeter said the Halifax and Ontario officers have not discussed any evidence in the specific cases.
Palmeter said the three cold cases in Halifax involved the deaths of young women, including one in January of 1992 and another in late November, 1994. But Palmeter said there is no evidence Williams was in the area during those times.
"We were getting a lot of calls trying to connect him to these files and I said we had no information. We don't even know that this guy was here when these happened."
Palmeter said any speculation is premature because the police forces are not at the point where any specific evidence has been shared about cases. "We're not saying there is not a conceivable possibility -- but we haven't been given any evidence that suggests there is any connection with our files at this time."
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
By Glenn Johnson
Canwest News Service
February 12, 2010
There is no evidence to suggest any connection with cold cases in Halifax and recent homicides in Ontario, Halifax police said Thursday.
"That is exactly correct," said Halifax Regional Police Const. Brian Palmeter.
Palmeter said his force received a number of calls asking whether there was any connection with any cold cases there because Col. Russell Williams had served at CFB Shearwater, near Halifax. Other media inquiries about unsolved homicides have been made in other cities where Williams was also stationed with the Canadian Forces, including Manitoba.
Palmeter said the Halifax and Ontario officers have not discussed any evidence in the specific cases.
Palmeter said the three cold cases in Halifax involved the deaths of young women, including one in January of 1992 and another in late November, 1994. But Palmeter said there is no evidence Williams was in the area during those times.
"We were getting a lot of calls trying to connect him to these files and I said we had no information. We don't even know that this guy was here when these happened."
Palmeter said any speculation is premature because the police forces are not at the point where any specific evidence has been shared about cases. "We're not saying there is not a conceivable possibility -- but we haven't been given any evidence that suggests there is any connection with our files at this time."
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Serial killers live double lives, expert says
Sociopaths able to keep criminal activities secret by assuming respected roles in community
By Sharon Kirkey
Canwest News Service
February 12, 2010
Elliott Leyton says it surprises him how many people think it would be difficult for a killer to conceal his crimes from those closest to him.
Duplicity and compartmentalization are easy for a lot of people, he says, especially when they're doing something so horrific.
Serial killers are sociopaths, and have no feelings of guilt or remorse for those they harm. "So they're not being torn apart," says Leyton, a Canadian anthropologist and expert on the psychology of multiple killers.
"If you strangled somebody in a fit of rage, you wouldn't be able to cope with it. You'd either kill yourself or turn yourself in. The thought of it would be just utterly overwhelming to you," Leyton says. "You would at some point be able to see what you've done -- you've killed a human being."
But serial killers don't see others as human beings, he says, only tools or toys to be used.
"So they have no guilt, no remorse, no feelings of having done something wrong," Leyton says. "There's just more triumph."
If police and a Crown prosecutor can prove the startling allegations of murder and rape facing Col. Russell Williams, the air force commander charged with killing two women and sexually assaulting two others, the question many will be asking is: How could he have hidden his dark secret from his wife?
For serial murderers such as Robert Pickton, one of Canada's most prolific killers, secrets can be easy to hide. Convicted in 2007 of the murder of six women who disappeared from Vancouver's downtown eastside, Pickton was a loner, living on a Port Coquitlam, B.C., pig farm "in the middle of nowhere," says Mike Arntfield, professor of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario in London, and a 10-year police veteran. "It's not difficult for him to keep his activities a secret."
But there are cases of killers living duplicitous, dichotomous double lives, he says, who "feign normality as this soccer dad and loving husband, and then they have this deep dark secret."
Dennis Rader, the so-called BTK ( "bind, torture and kill") strangler, murdered 10 people around Wichita, Kan., between 1974 and 1991 before he was caught. Rader was a bylaw officer and father of two, a Cub Scout leader and an elder in his Lutheran Church.
Leyton says serial killers all live double lives "and do so with ease."
Williams was an elite pilot, a "shining bright star" of the military, who rose through the ranks during his 23-year career to fly the prime minister and Governor General across Canada and overseas in one of four Canadian Forces Challenger jets.
He and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, have a cottage in Tweed, Ont., as well as a newly built home in Ottawa, where Harriman works for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The two have no children.
They have been a couple since at least 1991, the year a search of old city directories shows they were sharing the same apartment in Portage la Prairie, Man., where Williams was then working as a flying instructor at the Canadian Forces Flying Training School.
"We often wrestle with how they do it, the double life. Why they stay with someone to whom they do not reveal," says Dr. Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia and past president of the American Psychological Association.
The relationship can provide a legitimacy, a cover, says Farley, a native of Edmonton. But it can also provide crucial emotional stability in an otherwise unstable, violent and risky life, a psychological space the killer can step into. "That has survival value for him, surviving in his head when he's doing these heinous other things to women.
"He can red-line that relationship with her, keep it intact, compartmentalize it."
Farley stressed he can only speculate on the Williams case. But as many as 20 per cent of men state in anonymous surveys that they have had affairs. "If we can maintain this kind of dual lives, if many people can do it in ordinary life, we shouldn't be surprised that some people are able to maintain it at a more extreme level."
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
By Sharon Kirkey
Canwest News Service
February 12, 2010
Elliott Leyton says it surprises him how many people think it would be difficult for a killer to conceal his crimes from those closest to him.
Duplicity and compartmentalization are easy for a lot of people, he says, especially when they're doing something so horrific.
Serial killers are sociopaths, and have no feelings of guilt or remorse for those they harm. "So they're not being torn apart," says Leyton, a Canadian anthropologist and expert on the psychology of multiple killers.
"If you strangled somebody in a fit of rage, you wouldn't be able to cope with it. You'd either kill yourself or turn yourself in. The thought of it would be just utterly overwhelming to you," Leyton says. "You would at some point be able to see what you've done -- you've killed a human being."
But serial killers don't see others as human beings, he says, only tools or toys to be used.
"So they have no guilt, no remorse, no feelings of having done something wrong," Leyton says. "There's just more triumph."
If police and a Crown prosecutor can prove the startling allegations of murder and rape facing Col. Russell Williams, the air force commander charged with killing two women and sexually assaulting two others, the question many will be asking is: How could he have hidden his dark secret from his wife?
For serial murderers such as Robert Pickton, one of Canada's most prolific killers, secrets can be easy to hide. Convicted in 2007 of the murder of six women who disappeared from Vancouver's downtown eastside, Pickton was a loner, living on a Port Coquitlam, B.C., pig farm "in the middle of nowhere," says Mike Arntfield, professor of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario in London, and a 10-year police veteran. "It's not difficult for him to keep his activities a secret."
But there are cases of killers living duplicitous, dichotomous double lives, he says, who "feign normality as this soccer dad and loving husband, and then they have this deep dark secret."
Dennis Rader, the so-called BTK ( "bind, torture and kill") strangler, murdered 10 people around Wichita, Kan., between 1974 and 1991 before he was caught. Rader was a bylaw officer and father of two, a Cub Scout leader and an elder in his Lutheran Church.
Leyton says serial killers all live double lives "and do so with ease."
Williams was an elite pilot, a "shining bright star" of the military, who rose through the ranks during his 23-year career to fly the prime minister and Governor General across Canada and overseas in one of four Canadian Forces Challenger jets.
He and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, have a cottage in Tweed, Ont., as well as a newly built home in Ottawa, where Harriman works for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The two have no children.
They have been a couple since at least 1991, the year a search of old city directories shows they were sharing the same apartment in Portage la Prairie, Man., where Williams was then working as a flying instructor at the Canadian Forces Flying Training School.
"We often wrestle with how they do it, the double life. Why they stay with someone to whom they do not reveal," says Dr. Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia and past president of the American Psychological Association.
The relationship can provide a legitimacy, a cover, says Farley, a native of Edmonton. But it can also provide crucial emotional stability in an otherwise unstable, violent and risky life, a psychological space the killer can step into. "That has survival value for him, surviving in his head when he's doing these heinous other things to women.
"He can red-line that relationship with her, keep it intact, compartmentalize it."
Farley stressed he can only speculate on the Williams case. But as many as 20 per cent of men state in anonymous surveys that they have had affairs. "If we can maintain this kind of dual lives, if many people can do it in ordinary life, we shouldn't be surprised that some people are able to maintain it at a more extreme level."
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Statement by Chief of the Air Staff
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
OTTAWA — The Chief of the Air Staff, Lieutenant-General Andre Deschamps, issued the following statement today:
I am aware of the charges brought today against Colonel Russell Williams, 8 Wing Commander, Trenton. As Chief of the Air Staff, I take very seriously all allegations of service or criminal offences against one of our members.
Although one is considered innocent until proven guilty, in light of the seriousness of the charges, and in consideration of the high level of responsibilities attached to the position of Wing Commander, an interim Wing Commander for 8 Wing Trenton will soon be appointed.
Also, in the coming days, a review will be initiated by 1 Canadian Air Division, in Winnipeg, to determine the most appropriate action to take regarding Colonel Williams pending the outcome of the trial.
The Canadian Forces hold their members to a very high standard of conduct and performance, in Canada or abroad, on or off military duty. I confirm that the Air Force is fully supporting civilian authorities in the conduct of the current matter.
I am certain that Air Force personnel at 8 Wing will carry on with their duties, displaying the usual level of professionalism and sense of duty that they have always shown in the past. We will ensure that the Wing leadership and personnel are supported throughout this difficult period.
This situation affects us all and I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the families of those affected by these tragic events.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
OTTAWA — The Chief of the Air Staff, Lieutenant-General Andre Deschamps, issued the following statement today:
I am aware of the charges brought today against Colonel Russell Williams, 8 Wing Commander, Trenton. As Chief of the Air Staff, I take very seriously all allegations of service or criminal offences against one of our members.
Although one is considered innocent until proven guilty, in light of the seriousness of the charges, and in consideration of the high level of responsibilities attached to the position of Wing Commander, an interim Wing Commander for 8 Wing Trenton will soon be appointed.
Also, in the coming days, a review will be initiated by 1 Canadian Air Division, in Winnipeg, to determine the most appropriate action to take regarding Colonel Williams pending the outcome of the trial.
The Canadian Forces hold their members to a very high standard of conduct and performance, in Canada or abroad, on or off military duty. I confirm that the Air Force is fully supporting civilian authorities in the conduct of the current matter.
I am certain that Air Force personnel at 8 Wing will carry on with their duties, displaying the usual level of professionalism and sense of duty that they have always shown in the past. We will ensure that the Wing leadership and personnel are supported throughout this difficult period.
This situation affects us all and I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the families of those affected by these tragic events.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Police conscious of Bernardo mistakes during Williams probe
By Janice Tibbetts
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
OTTAWA — As police forces across Canada team up to investigate accused killer Col. Russell Williams, they are likely paying heed to the critical mistakes, turf wars and lack of communication that frustrated the Paul Bernardo murder probe in the early 1990s.
"Lessons learned," said Tom Kaye, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. "That investigation set the benchmark for what can be missed."
The failings of the Bernardo investigation have made police more careful, co-operative, and smarter than they were almost two decades ago about multiple murder probes and alleged crimes that span several jurisdictions, said Kaye, police chief in Owen Sound, Ont.
"Up until that time, we had really never seen anything like Bernardo before," Kaye said. "The changes that have been made since then have been profound in the way that we do business."
In a stinging 2006 report on the botched Bernardo investigation, Justice Archie Campbell concluded that slain teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy might still be alive, but for the "systemic failure" of police forces and other organizations involved.
Campbell, who conducted a public inquiry into the Bernardo probe, went on to conclude that there was an "astounding and dangerous lack of co-operation between police forces" and a litany of errors, miscalculations and disputes.
The failure to share information prevented police from identifying Bernardo as the terrorizing "Scarborough rapist," whose victims were spread across several police jurisdictions.
Also, videotapes that showed Bernardo torturing and raping his victims were not discovered during a massive search of his home, because a police officer did not reach far enough into the cavity above a bathroom light, where they were hidden.
"Based on the omission that happened, I think you would see people search areas that they wouldn't have 20 years ago," said Kaye, who suggested that "tearing down walls" now would be in order for major murder probes.
Before arresting Williams on Sunday at his Ottawa home, three police services pooled information that led to two charges of first-degree murder and two unrelated sexual assaults.
Kaye speculated the failures in the Bernardo probe are on the minds of officers as they meticulously prepare "with a fine-tooth comb" for the potentially pivotal search in the Williams case.
Bob Runciman, who was Ontario solicitor general when the Campbell report was released, said the province made several technological improvements in police information-sharing following the inquiry that likely helped track down Williams.
One was the creation of a "violent crime linkage analysis system," which is managed by the Ontario Provincial Police and requires forces to submit information about sexual assaults, enabling them to see patterns, said Runciman, who was appointed to the Senate two weeks ago.
There have been other initiatives that enable better information sharing among police forces, among them a major case management system, which requires all significant investigations to be entered into a searchable database shared among police services.
Also, the RCMP oversees a police information portal that can be accessed nationwide.
"I suspect those linkages have helped in this current situation in linking those (alleged) crimes," said Runciman.
But Runciman said improvements can still be made in the protective nature of police forces, which he suspects still suffer from a culture of pride and are reluctant to admit when they need outside assistance in calling in more-experienced help.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
OTTAWA — As police forces across Canada team up to investigate accused killer Col. Russell Williams, they are likely paying heed to the critical mistakes, turf wars and lack of communication that frustrated the Paul Bernardo murder probe in the early 1990s.
"Lessons learned," said Tom Kaye, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. "That investigation set the benchmark for what can be missed."
The failings of the Bernardo investigation have made police more careful, co-operative, and smarter than they were almost two decades ago about multiple murder probes and alleged crimes that span several jurisdictions, said Kaye, police chief in Owen Sound, Ont.
"Up until that time, we had really never seen anything like Bernardo before," Kaye said. "The changes that have been made since then have been profound in the way that we do business."
In a stinging 2006 report on the botched Bernardo investigation, Justice Archie Campbell concluded that slain teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy might still be alive, but for the "systemic failure" of police forces and other organizations involved.
Campbell, who conducted a public inquiry into the Bernardo probe, went on to conclude that there was an "astounding and dangerous lack of co-operation between police forces" and a litany of errors, miscalculations and disputes.
The failure to share information prevented police from identifying Bernardo as the terrorizing "Scarborough rapist," whose victims were spread across several police jurisdictions.
Also, videotapes that showed Bernardo torturing and raping his victims were not discovered during a massive search of his home, because a police officer did not reach far enough into the cavity above a bathroom light, where they were hidden.
"Based on the omission that happened, I think you would see people search areas that they wouldn't have 20 years ago," said Kaye, who suggested that "tearing down walls" now would be in order for major murder probes.
Before arresting Williams on Sunday at his Ottawa home, three police services pooled information that led to two charges of first-degree murder and two unrelated sexual assaults.
Kaye speculated the failures in the Bernardo probe are on the minds of officers as they meticulously prepare "with a fine-tooth comb" for the potentially pivotal search in the Williams case.
Bob Runciman, who was Ontario solicitor general when the Campbell report was released, said the province made several technological improvements in police information-sharing following the inquiry that likely helped track down Williams.
One was the creation of a "violent crime linkage analysis system," which is managed by the Ontario Provincial Police and requires forces to submit information about sexual assaults, enabling them to see patterns, said Runciman, who was appointed to the Senate two weeks ago.
There have been other initiatives that enable better information sharing among police forces, among them a major case management system, which requires all significant investigations to be entered into a searchable database shared among police services.
Also, the RCMP oversees a police information portal that can be accessed nationwide.
"I suspect those linkages have helped in this current situation in linking those (alleged) crimes," said Runciman.
But Runciman said improvements can still be made in the protective nature of police forces, which he suspects still suffer from a culture of pride and are reluctant to admit when they need outside assistance in calling in more-experienced help.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Williams faces harsh life in Ontario detention centre: Ex-cons
By Laura Stone
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
NAPANEE, Ont. — Five days ago, he was the highest-ranking officer at eastern Ontario's CFB Trenton, in charge of some 3,500 personnel and a pillar in that military community. Now, Col. Russell Williams calls home the compact barbed-wire complex at the Quinte Detention Centre, some 40 kilometres away in Napanee, Ont.
Williams is charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and sexual assault. His next court appearance is set for Feb. 18 in Belleville, Ont.
On Thursday, past Quinte's expansive fencing and dried yellow grass, Williams was with the chaplain and declined an interview request.
"He's not interested in an interview," said Larry Shorts, the deputy superintendent of the institution.
The Quinte remand centre houses a wide range of offenders, in minimum-security dorms and maximum-security cells shared by two or three inmates. Offenders can stay there for years as they await trial.
This is Williams' new reality since he was charged Monday with the murders of Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville, Ont., and Marie-France Comeau, 37, a corporal on the base found murdered at her home in Brighton, Ont.
Williams was also charged with two counts of sexual assault related to home invasions in Tweed, Ont., where he has a cottage.
He and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, also have a new house in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood. Police conducted a search there on Thursday.
Little is known of Williams' personal life before his arrest. He has been alternately described as pleasant, professional, standoffish, quiet, and in one case, brilliant, by people who have met or worked with him.
Lawrence Ramsey, the owner of the Tweedsmuir Bar and Grill, where Lloyd would frequently watch live country music bands, said: "I've lived here all my life and I've never seen the guy."
Former inmates from Quinte say a rough time lies ahead for the soldier.
"Somebody's going to pound him," said one man, who was in custody a short while ago for driving offences, and was back at the institution to pick up his compact plastic bag of possessions.
"You don't want to say anything to the guards, or they'll pound you even harder."
Another former inmate, who also declined to give his name, said Williams would most likely be placed in protective custody.
Even in prison, he explained, there is a moral code.
Charges of murder and sexual assaults against women are not tolerated there any more than they are in the real world.
"It's going to be horrible," said the second man as he smoked a cigarette out of his car window.
"He's accused of killing two women. He won't be accepted . . . the inmates already know who he is (from the media) and they won't want him on the range (cellblock)," he said.
"There's breaking the law, and then there's doing the wrong thing."
He said men like Williams without criminal records are referred to in prison as "Straight Johns."
If Williams indeed is placed in protective custody away from the general population, he will be locked in his cell for up to 23 hours a day, the men said, with one hour a day to shower and use the phone.
He is afforded the same rights as other inmates, including the use of chaplaincy services, said the second man.
"Other than that, he's going to be one bored old man," he said.
Prison authorities were not talking about Williams.
"We don't discuss any information about the conditions of his custody," said Stuart McGetrick, spokesman for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.
While Williams' alleged fall from grace has been deemed an individual — and not a military — matter, there is fear it could provoke a backlash against the military.
On Wednesday, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk addressed some 500 officers at CFB Trenton, telling them to stand tall and proud in the face of allegations around their commander.
In Trenton, stories about anti-military incidents are beginning to unfold.
At the aptly-titled Rumours bar, a military hangout, owner and former military pilot Pierre Bouchard said he's heard of soldiers being yelled at or spit on in public.
One woman in the grocery store allegedly told a female soldier, "You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Today, some young officer got spit on in uniform," Bouchard said.
While he, like most others in and around Trenton, said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations against Williams, he hoped it wouldn't affect military morale.
"This town survives because of the base," said Bouchard.
"I hate to see people become ashamed of their uniform."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
NAPANEE, Ont. — Five days ago, he was the highest-ranking officer at eastern Ontario's CFB Trenton, in charge of some 3,500 personnel and a pillar in that military community. Now, Col. Russell Williams calls home the compact barbed-wire complex at the Quinte Detention Centre, some 40 kilometres away in Napanee, Ont.
Williams is charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and sexual assault. His next court appearance is set for Feb. 18 in Belleville, Ont.
On Thursday, past Quinte's expansive fencing and dried yellow grass, Williams was with the chaplain and declined an interview request.
"He's not interested in an interview," said Larry Shorts, the deputy superintendent of the institution.
The Quinte remand centre houses a wide range of offenders, in minimum-security dorms and maximum-security cells shared by two or three inmates. Offenders can stay there for years as they await trial.
This is Williams' new reality since he was charged Monday with the murders of Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville, Ont., and Marie-France Comeau, 37, a corporal on the base found murdered at her home in Brighton, Ont.
Williams was also charged with two counts of sexual assault related to home invasions in Tweed, Ont., where he has a cottage.
He and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, also have a new house in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood. Police conducted a search there on Thursday.
Little is known of Williams' personal life before his arrest. He has been alternately described as pleasant, professional, standoffish, quiet, and in one case, brilliant, by people who have met or worked with him.
Lawrence Ramsey, the owner of the Tweedsmuir Bar and Grill, where Lloyd would frequently watch live country music bands, said: "I've lived here all my life and I've never seen the guy."
Former inmates from Quinte say a rough time lies ahead for the soldier.
"Somebody's going to pound him," said one man, who was in custody a short while ago for driving offences, and was back at the institution to pick up his compact plastic bag of possessions.
"You don't want to say anything to the guards, or they'll pound you even harder."
Another former inmate, who also declined to give his name, said Williams would most likely be placed in protective custody.
Even in prison, he explained, there is a moral code.
Charges of murder and sexual assaults against women are not tolerated there any more than they are in the real world.
"It's going to be horrible," said the second man as he smoked a cigarette out of his car window.
"He's accused of killing two women. He won't be accepted . . . the inmates already know who he is (from the media) and they won't want him on the range (cellblock)," he said.
"There's breaking the law, and then there's doing the wrong thing."
He said men like Williams without criminal records are referred to in prison as "Straight Johns."
If Williams indeed is placed in protective custody away from the general population, he will be locked in his cell for up to 23 hours a day, the men said, with one hour a day to shower and use the phone.
He is afforded the same rights as other inmates, including the use of chaplaincy services, said the second man.
"Other than that, he's going to be one bored old man," he said.
Prison authorities were not talking about Williams.
"We don't discuss any information about the conditions of his custody," said Stuart McGetrick, spokesman for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.
While Williams' alleged fall from grace has been deemed an individual — and not a military — matter, there is fear it could provoke a backlash against the military.
On Wednesday, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk addressed some 500 officers at CFB Trenton, telling them to stand tall and proud in the face of allegations around their commander.
In Trenton, stories about anti-military incidents are beginning to unfold.
At the aptly-titled Rumours bar, a military hangout, owner and former military pilot Pierre Bouchard said he's heard of soldiers being yelled at or spit on in public.
One woman in the grocery store allegedly told a female soldier, "You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Today, some young officer got spit on in uniform," Bouchard said.
While he, like most others in and around Trenton, said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations against Williams, he hoped it wouldn't affect military morale.
"This town survives because of the base," said Bouchard.
"I hate to see people become ashamed of their uniform."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Charges move military to review selection process
By Laura Stone and David Wylie
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
CFB TRENTON, Ont. — Canada's chief of defence staff said there will be an administrative review to determine if the military had missed any signs that Col. Russell Williams — the base commander charged with murdering two women — may have been unfit for leadership.
Gen. Walter Natynczyk, visiting Canadian Forces Base Trenton in eastern Ontario to boost troop morale, said he was shocked by the charges.
"We are all in shock. I felt as if I had a body blow, and I was winded, because . . . I represent the leadership," he told a news conference at the base Wednesday.
Williams, 46, is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37. 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.
"We've put additional rigour over the past five year into the selection of our leadership," he said. "We'll do an administrative review to see, what did we miss? Did we miss anything here? And it's a difficult situation, one that certainly I've not faced, nor talking to the leadership of the Canadian Forces, that we have faced, and so again, what can we learn from this to ensure it doesn't occur," said Natynczyk.
He said he was not aware of anything on Williams record that was cause for concern. In fact, Williams was a rising star in the military.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Williams was known as "Mr. By the Book" during his years as one of Canada's top VIP pilots.
Among his official passengers on the Challenger and, later, the bigger Airbus planes, were the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as well as former Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Williams may even have flown to England to transport Queen Elizabeth and her husband to Western Canada in 2005 for an official royal visit.
Natynczyk called military leadership a "sacred trust. And I see that I must hold, and I must maintain that trust, not only of all Canadians, but right down to the young privates, the young sailors, and the young airmen, who are deployed, enable their success, and they need to have confidence in their leadership.
"So any time, any time, you have that kind of violation, a perceived violation of leadership, that's where you know you've had a body blow."
As commander of 8 Wing, Williams oversaw the lives of more than 3,500 military and civilian staff at CFB Trenton, the base known to Canadians as the location where the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan first arrive back in Canada.
Natynczyk said Williams will not hold the title of base commander much longer.
"He will be removed from command, and there is a process for that," he said. "We have a process to ensure that from a legal standpoint, that from a human rights standpoint, we follow the paces."
Natynczyk also encouraged the personnel at CFB Trenton to support each other through the ordeal, saying "a lot of people (are) feeling like they are indeed victims, directly and indirectly, and we have to support them. We have to support them, and support their families."
Natynczyk also played up the role of the base. He said CFB Trenton is essential to Canadian Forces operation in Afghanistan, Haiti, and in Vancouver's 2010 Olympic Games.
"I told them (personnel of 8 Wing) to stand tall, I told them to stand proud. We have to move forward, but at the same time we have to support the victims," he said.
He encouraged them "to move forward, to allow the judicial process to unfold, and to carry on with our mission."
Meanwhile, Ontario Provincial Police clarified on Wednesday that Williams has not been ruled out as a suspect in the unsolved 2001 death at CFB Trenton of Kathleen MacVicar, 19, despite an assertion from MacVicar's mother that she was told Williams has been ruled out.
On Wednesday, Ontario police told Canwest News Service they have not explored whether there is a connection because they have not examined the cold case files.
The OPP said they have been receiving calls from across Canada since Williams' arrest, and are continuing to investigate other cases for links.
"After this, then we'll also be looking at and reviewing other unsolved crimes trying to see if there's any similarities to what we have now," Sgt. Kristine Rae told Canwest News Service on Wednesday.
Ottawa police said Wednesday that they hadn't yet searched Williams' Ottawa home, as was earlier reported, but expected to search it on Thursday, when they'll be looking for digital storage devices, video and camera gear, computer equipment, pornographic images, and DNA linked to the two murders and the sexual assaults of two other women.
Toronto cold case investigators are investigating whether Williams may be connected to two unsolved murders, according to one of the murder victims' brothers.
In 1983, Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice, were sexually assaulted and murdered within four months of each another in downtown Toronto. DNA evidence revealed that both women had been killed by the same man.
Gilmour's brother, Sean McCowan, told Global News he called Det.-Sgt. Steve Ryan of the Toronto Police Cold Case Squad on Tuesday."(Ryan) just mentioned that the colonel is a person of interest and they're going to take a look at it," McCowan said.
Williams graduated with a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto in 1987.
An Ottawa police inspector will lead the search for links between the murders Williams has been charged with and unsolved cases in Ottawa, including the violent 2007 sexual assault of a Carleton university student.
"We're pulling cases right now, but don't have enough info from OPP," said Ottawa police Chief Vern White. "We're examining our cases from the modus operandi." Williams owns a house in Ottawa.
Police in Halifax are also reviewing three cold cases, according to media reports.
And the OPP has been fielding calls from families of victims whose crimes have gone unsolved — for example, Windsor resident Ron Grozelle, the father of a cadet who died mysteriously at the Royal Military College in 2003, who wants the case into his son's death reviewed because Williams was there at the same time.
Canadian Forces National Investigation Service spokeswoman Maj. Paule Poulin said that military police are "assisting the lead investigative agency, in this case the Ontario Provincial Police, as required" but noted that the service does not discuss matters to do with ongoing investigations.
"As part of the investigative team, the CFNIS will examine any new evidence that comes to light as a result of this investigation and will assess any connection to any relevant unsolved CF Military Police historical files," Poulin noted.
The case of a base commander charged with two murders and two sexual assaults has drawn the world's attention, with many high-profile news agencies such as the BBC, The Guardian and Australia's Courier Mail all providing coverage of the unfolding drama.
Germany's largest daily newspaper, Bild, ran a large article about the murders that had "shaken Canada completely."
Meanwhile, response to the case on popular social-media websites has been overwhelming, with Facebook groups quickly attracting thousands of members in the days since charges were laid against Williams. A memorial page dedicated to Lloyd had garnered more than 11,000 supporters, while another group with the name "Russell Williams should get the death penalty!" claimed more than 3,100 members as of Wednesday afternoon. Williams has been a recurring trending topic on Twitter.
Comeau 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, Ont., a small town about 15 kilometres west of Trenton, on Nov. 25.
Lloyd went missing Jan. 28, after texting a friend that she'd arrived safe at her Belleville home. Police found her body after arresting Williams. An autopsy on Lloyd's body was completed Wednesday, but police would not release the cause of death.
Police said it was a roadside canvass on a nearby highway that made Williams a person of interest in the case. Reports suggest the special type of tire treads on Williams' vehicle tipped off police to his possible involvement in the murders.
Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kristine Rae would not comment on the treads nor suggestions that Williams confessed to police. "I can't speak about anything evidentiary," said Rae.
Police have searched Williams's home in Tweed, Ont., near where the sexual assaults took place, before turning their focus to his Ottawa home, where he lived with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
CFB TRENTON, Ont. — Canada's chief of defence staff said there will be an administrative review to determine if the military had missed any signs that Col. Russell Williams — the base commander charged with murdering two women — may have been unfit for leadership.
Gen. Walter Natynczyk, visiting Canadian Forces Base Trenton in eastern Ontario to boost troop morale, said he was shocked by the charges.
"We are all in shock. I felt as if I had a body blow, and I was winded, because . . . I represent the leadership," he told a news conference at the base Wednesday.
Williams, 46, is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37. 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.
"We've put additional rigour over the past five year into the selection of our leadership," he said. "We'll do an administrative review to see, what did we miss? Did we miss anything here? And it's a difficult situation, one that certainly I've not faced, nor talking to the leadership of the Canadian Forces, that we have faced, and so again, what can we learn from this to ensure it doesn't occur," said Natynczyk.
He said he was not aware of anything on Williams record that was cause for concern. In fact, Williams was a rising star in the military.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Williams was known as "Mr. By the Book" during his years as one of Canada's top VIP pilots.
Among his official passengers on the Challenger and, later, the bigger Airbus planes, were the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as well as former Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Williams may even have flown to England to transport Queen Elizabeth and her husband to Western Canada in 2005 for an official royal visit.
Natynczyk called military leadership a "sacred trust. And I see that I must hold, and I must maintain that trust, not only of all Canadians, but right down to the young privates, the young sailors, and the young airmen, who are deployed, enable their success, and they need to have confidence in their leadership.
"So any time, any time, you have that kind of violation, a perceived violation of leadership, that's where you know you've had a body blow."
As commander of 8 Wing, Williams oversaw the lives of more than 3,500 military and civilian staff at CFB Trenton, the base known to Canadians as the location where the bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan first arrive back in Canada.
Natynczyk said Williams will not hold the title of base commander much longer.
"He will be removed from command, and there is a process for that," he said. "We have a process to ensure that from a legal standpoint, that from a human rights standpoint, we follow the paces."
Natynczyk also encouraged the personnel at CFB Trenton to support each other through the ordeal, saying "a lot of people (are) feeling like they are indeed victims, directly and indirectly, and we have to support them. We have to support them, and support their families."
Natynczyk also played up the role of the base. He said CFB Trenton is essential to Canadian Forces operation in Afghanistan, Haiti, and in Vancouver's 2010 Olympic Games.
"I told them (personnel of 8 Wing) to stand tall, I told them to stand proud. We have to move forward, but at the same time we have to support the victims," he said.
He encouraged them "to move forward, to allow the judicial process to unfold, and to carry on with our mission."
Meanwhile, Ontario Provincial Police clarified on Wednesday that Williams has not been ruled out as a suspect in the unsolved 2001 death at CFB Trenton of Kathleen MacVicar, 19, despite an assertion from MacVicar's mother that she was told Williams has been ruled out.
On Wednesday, Ontario police told Canwest News Service they have not explored whether there is a connection because they have not examined the cold case files.
The OPP said they have been receiving calls from across Canada since Williams' arrest, and are continuing to investigate other cases for links.
"After this, then we'll also be looking at and reviewing other unsolved crimes trying to see if there's any similarities to what we have now," Sgt. Kristine Rae told Canwest News Service on Wednesday.
Ottawa police said Wednesday that they hadn't yet searched Williams' Ottawa home, as was earlier reported, but expected to search it on Thursday, when they'll be looking for digital storage devices, video and camera gear, computer equipment, pornographic images, and DNA linked to the two murders and the sexual assaults of two other women.
Toronto cold case investigators are investigating whether Williams may be connected to two unsolved murders, according to one of the murder victims' brothers.
In 1983, Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice, were sexually assaulted and murdered within four months of each another in downtown Toronto. DNA evidence revealed that both women had been killed by the same man.
Gilmour's brother, Sean McCowan, told Global News he called Det.-Sgt. Steve Ryan of the Toronto Police Cold Case Squad on Tuesday."(Ryan) just mentioned that the colonel is a person of interest and they're going to take a look at it," McCowan said.
Williams graduated with a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto in 1987.
An Ottawa police inspector will lead the search for links between the murders Williams has been charged with and unsolved cases in Ottawa, including the violent 2007 sexual assault of a Carleton university student.
"We're pulling cases right now, but don't have enough info from OPP," said Ottawa police Chief Vern White. "We're examining our cases from the modus operandi." Williams owns a house in Ottawa.
Police in Halifax are also reviewing three cold cases, according to media reports.
And the OPP has been fielding calls from families of victims whose crimes have gone unsolved — for example, Windsor resident Ron Grozelle, the father of a cadet who died mysteriously at the Royal Military College in 2003, who wants the case into his son's death reviewed because Williams was there at the same time.
Canadian Forces National Investigation Service spokeswoman Maj. Paule Poulin said that military police are "assisting the lead investigative agency, in this case the Ontario Provincial Police, as required" but noted that the service does not discuss matters to do with ongoing investigations.
"As part of the investigative team, the CFNIS will examine any new evidence that comes to light as a result of this investigation and will assess any connection to any relevant unsolved CF Military Police historical files," Poulin noted.
The case of a base commander charged with two murders and two sexual assaults has drawn the world's attention, with many high-profile news agencies such as the BBC, The Guardian and Australia's Courier Mail all providing coverage of the unfolding drama.
Germany's largest daily newspaper, Bild, ran a large article about the murders that had "shaken Canada completely."
Meanwhile, response to the case on popular social-media websites has been overwhelming, with Facebook groups quickly attracting thousands of members in the days since charges were laid against Williams. A memorial page dedicated to Lloyd had garnered more than 11,000 supporters, while another group with the name "Russell Williams should get the death penalty!" claimed more than 3,100 members as of Wednesday afternoon. Williams has been a recurring trending topic on Twitter.
Comeau 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, Ont., a small town about 15 kilometres west of Trenton, on Nov. 25.
Lloyd went missing Jan. 28, after texting a friend that she'd arrived safe at her Belleville home. Police found her body after arresting Williams. An autopsy on Lloyd's body was completed Wednesday, but police would not release the cause of death.
Police said it was a roadside canvass on a nearby highway that made Williams a person of interest in the case. Reports suggest the special type of tire treads on Williams' vehicle tipped off police to his possible involvement in the murders.
Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kristine Rae would not comment on the treads nor suggestions that Williams confessed to police. "I can't speak about anything evidentiary," said Rae.
Police have searched Williams's home in Tweed, Ont., near where the sexual assaults took place, before turning their focus to his Ottawa home, where he lived with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Accused Canadian colonel comes from accomplished but fractured family
By Adrian Humphreys
National Post
February 11, 2010
TORONTO — Col. Russell Williams, the Canadian Forces base commander who is charged with two murders and two separate sexual assaults, showed little interest in repairing the fractured family life that followed him since he was young.
Williams, 46, grew up amid great accomplishment but also instability, say several members of his family on both sides.
Two years ago his mother, Nonie, and brother, Harvey, reached out to Williams in a bid at reconciliation following his parent's divorce, the second time the fast-rising military man's home life was torn asunder.
"Our relationship with him was broken off in early 2001 when our mother's divorce from my stepfather caused a deep rift between him and my mother and myself," said his brother, Harvey Williams.
"We rarely had any contact until two years ago when my mother and I tried to find a way to repair the family rift. We have had only minimal contact with him in the past two years."
"We were shocked and appalled to learn of the crimes with which Col. Williams is being charged," he said in a written statement, calling it "alarming and distressing news."
Similarly, relatives of Williams' stepfather, Jerry Sovka, an eminent nuclear scientist, described a family that maintained little contact.
Relatives of Sovka say the scientist's globe-spanning travel with high-profile jobs — including his current position as a senior official with ITER, an international megaproject to create an experimental thermonuclear reactor in southern France — have meant little connection.
Sovka's father's funeral more than a decade ago was a rare opportunity for the wider Sovka family to come together.
Family matriarchs and patriarchs have been telephoning kin with the shocking news that the man at the heart of the allegations is a relative. But most have only vague memories of Williams as a child.
Even with the distant connection, it remains a shock.
"Our prayers go out to our extended family during this difficult time," said Jason Sovka, Sovka's nephew.
Born in England, Williams was still young when his father, David, split with his mother and the youngster continued to live with his mother and his new stepfather, Dr. Jerry Sovka.
Sovka grew up on farms in Cranford and Coaldale, Alta., as one of three sons of Czech immigrants, but eschewed agriculture and the lure of oil for the emerging science of nuclear technology and he accepted a scholarship to study at the University of Birmingham in England, where it is believed he met Nonie Williams.
He returned to Canada for a job at Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., in Toronto, where he helped design Canada's early Candu nuclear plants, and later as a senior engineer with Ontario Hydro while the young Williams attended Toronto's Birchmount Collegiate in Scarborough, near Toronto.
Sovka's work in the nuclear industry led him to move several times, including four years in South Korea, a stint with the Montreal-based engineering firm SNC and Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick, and even to Hawaii as a chief engineer for the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, according to an article in the University of Alberta alumni magazine.
For some of this travel, Williams remained in Toronto.
From 1980 to 1982, he completed his high school education at Upper Canada College while boarding at the sprawling private boys school.
While at UCC, Williams was a prefect, whose job was to mentor younger boys, and went by the last name Sovka with the abbreviated first name Russ.
Williams played trumpet, and his interest in jazz is obvious from his entry in the 1982 College Times: he offered a quotation from the legendary American jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong: "If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." To this he added: "Thank you all to those who made these two years possible, enjoyable."
School officials only realized the connection on Wednesday.
The current vice-principal, Innes van Nostrand, who was in Williams' graduating class, said "most people from our time at the school would remember him as a diligent, responsible, serious hard-working guy who was really good at the trumpet as well."
"The stories and the allegations in general have been pretty shocking for everyone in the broader community, and I think any time anyone would find a situation where someone they went to school with was being implicated, and with those kinds of allegations, the shock is compounded, and certainly that would be the case for the people who were at school here at that time," he said.
Williams then sought higher education and graduated with a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto in 1987 before embarking that same year on a military career while returning to his birth name Williams.
While his family life and schooling meant a low profile and quiet existence, in the military he shone.
"He was what we call 'a streamer,' " said a ranking Canadian military officer who did not wish his name to be published. "He was getting groomed, fast-tracked. You have to punch your ticket through certain types of jobs (to enter the senior ranks).
"When you're the commander of the largest airbase in Canada at that age, it says you're going somewhere."
As a pilot during the 1990s he flew VIP flights on the federal government's Challenger aircraft that are used by federal politicians including the prime minister. A series of postings led him to higher rank and greater responsibility.
On July 15, 2009, he was named as the commander of CFB Trenton where he maintained good relationships with the community until his arrest on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Random House Canada has already announced the fall release of a book on Williams.
With files from Kathryn Blaze Carlson
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
National Post
February 11, 2010
TORONTO — Col. Russell Williams, the Canadian Forces base commander who is charged with two murders and two separate sexual assaults, showed little interest in repairing the fractured family life that followed him since he was young.
Williams, 46, grew up amid great accomplishment but also instability, say several members of his family on both sides.
Two years ago his mother, Nonie, and brother, Harvey, reached out to Williams in a bid at reconciliation following his parent's divorce, the second time the fast-rising military man's home life was torn asunder.
"Our relationship with him was broken off in early 2001 when our mother's divorce from my stepfather caused a deep rift between him and my mother and myself," said his brother, Harvey Williams.
"We rarely had any contact until two years ago when my mother and I tried to find a way to repair the family rift. We have had only minimal contact with him in the past two years."
"We were shocked and appalled to learn of the crimes with which Col. Williams is being charged," he said in a written statement, calling it "alarming and distressing news."
Similarly, relatives of Williams' stepfather, Jerry Sovka, an eminent nuclear scientist, described a family that maintained little contact.
Relatives of Sovka say the scientist's globe-spanning travel with high-profile jobs — including his current position as a senior official with ITER, an international megaproject to create an experimental thermonuclear reactor in southern France — have meant little connection.
Sovka's father's funeral more than a decade ago was a rare opportunity for the wider Sovka family to come together.
Family matriarchs and patriarchs have been telephoning kin with the shocking news that the man at the heart of the allegations is a relative. But most have only vague memories of Williams as a child.
Even with the distant connection, it remains a shock.
"Our prayers go out to our extended family during this difficult time," said Jason Sovka, Sovka's nephew.
Born in England, Williams was still young when his father, David, split with his mother and the youngster continued to live with his mother and his new stepfather, Dr. Jerry Sovka.
Sovka grew up on farms in Cranford and Coaldale, Alta., as one of three sons of Czech immigrants, but eschewed agriculture and the lure of oil for the emerging science of nuclear technology and he accepted a scholarship to study at the University of Birmingham in England, where it is believed he met Nonie Williams.
He returned to Canada for a job at Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., in Toronto, where he helped design Canada's early Candu nuclear plants, and later as a senior engineer with Ontario Hydro while the young Williams attended Toronto's Birchmount Collegiate in Scarborough, near Toronto.
Sovka's work in the nuclear industry led him to move several times, including four years in South Korea, a stint with the Montreal-based engineering firm SNC and Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in New Brunswick, and even to Hawaii as a chief engineer for the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, according to an article in the University of Alberta alumni magazine.
For some of this travel, Williams remained in Toronto.
From 1980 to 1982, he completed his high school education at Upper Canada College while boarding at the sprawling private boys school.
While at UCC, Williams was a prefect, whose job was to mentor younger boys, and went by the last name Sovka with the abbreviated first name Russ.
Williams played trumpet, and his interest in jazz is obvious from his entry in the 1982 College Times: he offered a quotation from the legendary American jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong: "If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." To this he added: "Thank you all to those who made these two years possible, enjoyable."
School officials only realized the connection on Wednesday.
The current vice-principal, Innes van Nostrand, who was in Williams' graduating class, said "most people from our time at the school would remember him as a diligent, responsible, serious hard-working guy who was really good at the trumpet as well."
"The stories and the allegations in general have been pretty shocking for everyone in the broader community, and I think any time anyone would find a situation where someone they went to school with was being implicated, and with those kinds of allegations, the shock is compounded, and certainly that would be the case for the people who were at school here at that time," he said.
Williams then sought higher education and graduated with a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto in 1987 before embarking that same year on a military career while returning to his birth name Williams.
While his family life and schooling meant a low profile and quiet existence, in the military he shone.
"He was what we call 'a streamer,' " said a ranking Canadian military officer who did not wish his name to be published. "He was getting groomed, fast-tracked. You have to punch your ticket through certain types of jobs (to enter the senior ranks).
"When you're the commander of the largest airbase in Canada at that age, it says you're going somewhere."
As a pilot during the 1990s he flew VIP flights on the federal government's Challenger aircraft that are used by federal politicians including the prime minister. A series of postings led him to higher rank and greater responsibility.
On July 15, 2009, he was named as the commander of CFB Trenton where he maintained good relationships with the community until his arrest on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Random House Canada has already announced the fall release of a book on Williams.
With files from Kathryn Blaze Carlson
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Residents near CFB Trenton downplay reports of military backlash
By Laura Stone
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
TRENTON, Ont. — If there is any truth to tales of fractured relations between residents and military personnel in this Forces-first eastern Ontario town of approximately 20,000, one would be hard-pressed to find it.
In the town where Col. Russell Williams commanded Canada's busiest air force base, there was talk Thursday of soldiers being harassed or spit at by angry townsfolk.
But when approached, most people here said they support the military more than ever, and save for one "bad apple," as one local man put it, there is no strife among the masses.
Nevertheless, it is a small town, and people talk.
At the aptly titled Rumours bar, a military hangout, owner and former military pilot Pierre Bouchard said he's heard of soldiers being yelled at, or in one case, spit upon while pumping gas.
A survey of some local gas stations, however, failed to confirm that story.
While Bouchard, like most others in and around Trenton, said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations against Williams, adding he hoped it wouldn't affect military morale.
"This town survives because of the base," said Bouchard. "I'd hate to see people become ashamed of their uniform."
Williams, 46, is charged with in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, who was posted to Canadian Forces Base Trenton. He is also charged with the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two other women in nearby Tweed, Ont., where he has a cottage.
Many residents said the fact that Williams was in the military shouldn't have any bearing on the way other soldiers are treated in Trenton.
"It could have been anywhere, it could have been a Bay Street, high-profile person," said Tia Waddling, who splits her time between Brighton, Ont., and Toronto.
And if it were, for example, that doesn't mean people should go around spitting on people in suits walking along Bay Street, she said.
At the Independent Grocer on Dundas St. E., Master Cpl. Bryan Hupe cast a large figure alongside civilians in the produce aisle.
He's also heard the stories about spitting, but in his experience, everyone's been treating the military well. At the grocery store, for example, staff can now wear their red "support the troops" shirts every day of the week, and not just Fridays.
Still, Hupe didn't dismiss the rumours outright.
"People are angry, they're confused. People are maybe taking anger out in the wrong spot," he said. "But by and large, everybody's very supportive."
In the parking lot of the grocery store, Johanna Jenkins, 72, called the reported incidents "just ridiculousness."
"As far as I'm concerned, it's stupid, ignorant people who are doing that," she said.
On Wednesday, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, the chief of Canada's defence staff, addressed some 500 officers at CFB Trenton, telling them to stand tall and proud in the face of allegations around their commander.
Still, Canada's top soldier admitted some within the ranks had asked him if they should still wear their uniforms around town. 'Yes,' was his answer.
"This has been a difficult 48 or so hours as we learned what has occurred, but now we've got to move forward and allow the judicial process to unfold, and we have to carry on with our mission," said Natynczyk.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
TRENTON, Ont. — If there is any truth to tales of fractured relations between residents and military personnel in this Forces-first eastern Ontario town of approximately 20,000, one would be hard-pressed to find it.
In the town where Col. Russell Williams commanded Canada's busiest air force base, there was talk Thursday of soldiers being harassed or spit at by angry townsfolk.
But when approached, most people here said they support the military more than ever, and save for one "bad apple," as one local man put it, there is no strife among the masses.
Nevertheless, it is a small town, and people talk.
At the aptly titled Rumours bar, a military hangout, owner and former military pilot Pierre Bouchard said he's heard of soldiers being yelled at, or in one case, spit upon while pumping gas.
A survey of some local gas stations, however, failed to confirm that story.
While Bouchard, like most others in and around Trenton, said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations against Williams, adding he hoped it wouldn't affect military morale.
"This town survives because of the base," said Bouchard. "I'd hate to see people become ashamed of their uniform."
Williams, 46, is charged with in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, who was posted to Canadian Forces Base Trenton. He is also charged with the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two other women in nearby Tweed, Ont., where he has a cottage.
Many residents said the fact that Williams was in the military shouldn't have any bearing on the way other soldiers are treated in Trenton.
"It could have been anywhere, it could have been a Bay Street, high-profile person," said Tia Waddling, who splits her time between Brighton, Ont., and Toronto.
And if it were, for example, that doesn't mean people should go around spitting on people in suits walking along Bay Street, she said.
At the Independent Grocer on Dundas St. E., Master Cpl. Bryan Hupe cast a large figure alongside civilians in the produce aisle.
He's also heard the stories about spitting, but in his experience, everyone's been treating the military well. At the grocery store, for example, staff can now wear their red "support the troops" shirts every day of the week, and not just Fridays.
Still, Hupe didn't dismiss the rumours outright.
"People are angry, they're confused. People are maybe taking anger out in the wrong spot," he said. "But by and large, everybody's very supportive."
In the parking lot of the grocery store, Johanna Jenkins, 72, called the reported incidents "just ridiculousness."
"As far as I'm concerned, it's stupid, ignorant people who are doing that," she said.
On Wednesday, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, the chief of Canada's defence staff, addressed some 500 officers at CFB Trenton, telling them to stand tall and proud in the face of allegations around their commander.
Still, Canada's top soldier admitted some within the ranks had asked him if they should still wear their uniforms around town. 'Yes,' was his answer.
"This has been a difficult 48 or so hours as we learned what has occurred, but now we've got to move forward and allow the judicial process to unfold, and we have to carry on with our mission," said Natynczyk.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Accused colonel flew PMs, Queen
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
OTTAWA — Col. Russell Williams is remembered as an extremely meticulous pilot — "Mr. By the Book" — during his years as one of Canada's top VIP pilots.
Williams' arrest for two alleged murders, forcible confinement and sexual assault, has come as a shock to those who got to know him as the pilot for Canada's state elite.
Among his official passengers on the Challenger and, later, the bigger Airbus planes, were the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh; former Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin; and Romeo LeBlanc, the late governor general.
It is believed Williams flew to England to transport Queen Elizabeth and her husband to Western Canada in 2005 for an official royal visit to mark the 100th anniversary of Alberta and Saskatchewan joining Confederation.
One former official who was frequently on flights where Williams was pilot says he was very rigid about protocols with his staff, ensuring they enforced passenger rules.
"He was very nice, very friendly, but he was definitely Mr. By the Book," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
On overseas trips for example, he would not allow the use of three seats for sleeping and ensured everyone had their shoes on for landing.
The official was "completely shocked" by the charges against Williams.
His official biography says Williams was posted in the mid- to late-1990s to 412 Transport Squadron in Ottawa where he flew the Challenger for VIPs.
He was appointed commanding officer of 437 Transport Squadron in Trenton, Ont., in June 2004 and served there for most of two years. One of the five Airbus planes operated by the squadron is used for VIP transport.
He was promoted to colonel in 2009 and named commander of 8 Wing Trenton last summer.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
OTTAWA — Col. Russell Williams is remembered as an extremely meticulous pilot — "Mr. By the Book" — during his years as one of Canada's top VIP pilots.
Williams' arrest for two alleged murders, forcible confinement and sexual assault, has come as a shock to those who got to know him as the pilot for Canada's state elite.
Among his official passengers on the Challenger and, later, the bigger Airbus planes, were the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh; former Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin; and Romeo LeBlanc, the late governor general.
It is believed Williams flew to England to transport Queen Elizabeth and her husband to Western Canada in 2005 for an official royal visit to mark the 100th anniversary of Alberta and Saskatchewan joining Confederation.
One former official who was frequently on flights where Williams was pilot says he was very rigid about protocols with his staff, ensuring they enforced passenger rules.
"He was very nice, very friendly, but he was definitely Mr. By the Book," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
On overseas trips for example, he would not allow the use of three seats for sleeping and ensured everyone had their shoes on for landing.
The official was "completely shocked" by the charges against Williams.
His official biography says Williams was posted in the mid- to late-1990s to 412 Transport Squadron in Ottawa where he flew the Challenger for VIPs.
He was appointed commanding officer of 437 Transport Squadron in Trenton, Ont., in June 2004 and served there for most of two years. One of the five Airbus planes operated by the squadron is used for VIP transport.
He was promoted to colonel in 2009 and named commander of 8 Wing Trenton last summer.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Police say no cold cases ruled out in Williams murder probe
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
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
Canadian base commander accused of murder directed police to evidence
By Gary Dimmock, Laura Stone and Adrian Humphreys
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
The OPP investigators are executing a search warrant at Col. Russell Williams' residence at 473 Edison in Westboro in Ottawa on Feb. 11, 2010.
Photograph by: Pat McGrath, Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Accused killer Col. Russell Williams told police where they could find evidence, including hidden keepsakes, inside the Ottawa home where he lived with his wife, police say.
The statements were given to Ontario Provincial Police detectives on Sunday at Ottawa Police headquarters. On Monday, he led police to the body of Jessica Lloyd, one of two women the disgraced colonel is accused of killing.
Forensic investigators began searching Williams’ Ottawa home Thursday. They were looking for specific items, including women’s bras and panties, and digital storage devices, computer equipment, camera and video gear, and photographs.
Williams is charged in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, who was posted to Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the busy air force base that Williams commanded.
He is also charged with the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two other women in nearby Tweed, Ont., where he has a cottage. The victims in the latter two cases were bound naked to chairs and photographed by their attacker.
After his first interview with police, which ran into the night, OPP searched his cottage in Tweed for women’s undergarments — including a bra and thong — baby blankets, digital storage devices and a white shoe as part of their investigation into the two home-invasion sexual assaults.
On Thursday, a dozen OPP forensic officers arrived just after noon at the three-storey Ottawa home where Williams lives with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman.
Detectives covered all the windows at the front of the house and filed inside through the garage, carrying hard-yellow cases, black brief cases, file folders and flattened boxes.
Police wouldn’t say what, if anything, was found in Williams’ Ottawa home as they streamed out empty-handed Thursday evening.
OPP investigators said they were to continue their search Friday.
An OPP cruiser remained on guard at the front of the residence after the forensics team left.
Meanwhile, details of the man’s fractured family life emerged Thursday, as Williams’ relatives spoke out for the first time since the charges.
They said the colonel was still young when his father and mother split. The young Williams continued to live with his mother and his new stepfather, Dr. Jerry Sovka, an eminent nuclear scientist. However, that marriage also turned sour.
“Our relationship with him was broken off in early 2001 when our mother’s divorce from my stepfather caused a deep rift between him and my mother and myself,” said his brother, Harvey Williams, in a written statement.
Two years ago his mother and brother reached out to Williams, 46, in a bid at reconciliation following the divorce. “We rarely had any contact until two years ago when my mother and I tried to find a way to repair the family rift. We have had only minimal contact with him in the past two years.”
“We were shocked and appalled to learn of the crimes with which Col. Williams is being charged,” he said, calling it “alarming and distressing news.”
Williams and Harriman have been a couple since at least 1991, the year a search of old city directories shows they were sharing the same apartment in Portage la Prairie, Man., where Williams was then working as a flying instructor at the Canadian Forces Flying Training School. The two have no children.
Williams graduated with a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto in 1987, and in the early ’80s attended Upper Canada College, the sprawling private Toronto boys school whose graduates include Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, Loblaw executive chairman Galen Weston, billionaire David Thomson and author Robertson Davies.
The news that Williams, or Russ Sovka, as he was then known, was charged came as a surprise, said Cristina Coraggio, a spokeswoman for the college.
She said the school only realized that Sovka was Williams late Wednesday.
“We’re shocked by the allegations, but keep in mind, it was 28 years ago,” she said.
Williams went to the school from 1980-82. He boarded there and was a prefect, whose job was to mentor younger boys.
“From what I understand, he was a fine, upstanding student. He kept a lower profile. He was a very good musician,” Coraggio said.
Williams played trumpet, and his interest in music was obvious from his entry in the 1982 College Times: a quote by Louis Armstrong — “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” He also wrote: “Thank you all to those who made these two years possible, enjoyable.”
The current vice-principal of the school, Innes van Nostrand, said “most people from our time at the school would remember him as a diligent, responsible, serious hard-working guy who was really good at the trumpet, as well.”
Van Nostrand, who also graduated in 1982, but did not board at the school, said “the stories and the allegations in general, have been pretty shocking for everyone in the broader community, and I think any time anyone would find a situation where someone they went to school with was being implicated, and with those kinds of allegations, the shock is compounded, and certainly that would be the case for the people who were at school here at that time.”
Andrew Saxton, a Conservative member of Parliament for the riding of North Vancouver, was one of those students, having attended Upper Canada College at the same time as Williams. He said Thursday he was shocked his former classmate had been implicated in the investigation.
“I went to high school with Col. Williams many years ago when he went by the name ‘Russ Sovka.’ However, 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,” he said through an e-mail from his constituency office.
“I extend my sympathies to the families affected by these tragic events. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further.”
Kevin Barnett, who now lives in Ottawa but who once bought a house from Williams in Portage la Prairie, Man., described the fallen air force leader as a “hard-working, diligent individual.”
“I always knew him to be the person you see as the military has been saying. I’m as stunned as anyone else.”
Williams has been alternately described as pleasant, professional, standoffish, quiet and, in one case, brilliant, by acquaintances.
Williams, who is being held at the Quinte Detention Centre, near Napanee in eastern Ontario, spoke with the prison chaplain Thursday, an official said, but Williams declined to speak to a reporter.
“He’s not interested in an interview,” said Larry Shorts, the deputy superintendent of the barbed-wire complex.
The remand centre houses a wide range of offenders, in minimum-security dorms and maximum-security cells shared by two or three inmates.
Meanwhile, in the town of Trenton, there was talk Thursday of soldiers being harassed and spat upon by angry townsfolk.
If there is any truth to the tales of fractured relations between town residents and military personnel in the town, one would be hard pressed to find it. Most people say they support the military more than ever.
Yet at the aptly titled Rumours bar, a military hangout, owner and former military pilot Pierre Bouchard said he’s heard of soldiers being yelled at or spit on in public since news of Williams’ arrest last Sunday.
While he, like most others in and around Trenton, said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations against Williams, Bouchard said he hoped it wouldn’t affect military morale.
“This town survives because of the base,” said Bouchard. “I (would) hate to see people become ashamed of their uniform.”
Authorities were mum on Williams’ incarceration.
“We don’t discuss any information about the conditions of his custody,” said Stuart McGetrick, a Correctional Services spokesman.
Across the country, police forces are looking to their cold cases for similarities to the murders of the two Ontario women.
Media inquiries about unsolved homicides have been made in other cities where Williams was also stationed with the Canadian Forces, including Ontario and Manitoba.
Williams has not been ruled outas a suspect in the unsolved 2001 death at CFB Trenton of Kathleen MacVicar, 19.
In Halifax, police said there is no evidence to suggest any connection with their cold cases.
“That is exactly correct,” said Halifax Regional Police Const. Brian Palmeter.
Palmeter told Canwest News Service his force received a number of calls asking whether there was any connection with any cold cases in the area because Williams had served at CFB Shearwater, near Halifax. But Palmeter said the Halifax and Ontario officers have not discussed any evidence in the specific cases.
“We reached out and contacted the investigators from the OPP. That was specifically as a result of various calls we were receiving from various media outlets across Canada after the story broke out of Trenton. That’s why we called them. Our investigators reached out and contacted those investigators and had a very brief conversation.”
Palmeter said three cold cases in Halifax involved the deaths of young women, including one in January 1992 and another in late November 1994. But Palmeter said there is no evidence Williams was even in the area during those times
“We were getting a lot of calls trying to connect him to these files and I said we had no information. We don’t even know that this guy was here when these happened.”
Ontario Provincial Police said the focus of its investigation is on the current cases before the courts involving Williams as a suspect. The force has yet to begin any detailed investigations on cold cases, Sgt. Kristine Rae said.
The Toronto Police Service does not consider Williams a suspect in any unsolved homicide or assault cases in that city, spokeswoman Const. Wendy Drummond said.
However, the family of a Toronto woman murdered nearly 30 years ago insisted cold-case investigators are probing possible connections to that slaying and another as well. In 1983, Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice were sexually assaulted and murdered within four months of each another in downtown Toronto. DNA evidence revealed that both women had been killed by the same man.
Gilmour’s brother, Sean McCowan, told Global News he called Det.-Sgt. Steve Ryan of the Toronto Police Cold Case Squad on Tuesday. “(Ryan) just mentioned that the colonel is a person of interest and they’re going to take a look at it,” McCowan said.
Ottawa police are also probing unsolved cases, including the violent 2007 sexual assault of a Carleton University student.
“We’re pulling cases right now, but don’t have enough info from OPP,” said Ottawa police Chief Vern White. “We’re examining our cases from the modus operandi.”
Comeau 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, Ont., a small town about 15 kilometres west of Trenton, on Nov. 25.
Lloyd went missing Jan. 28, after texting a friend that she’d arrived safe at her Belleville home.
Police found her body after arresting Williams.
An autopsy on Lloyd’s body was completed Wednesday, but police would not release the cause of death.
Police said it was a roadside canvass on a nearby highway that made Williams a person of interest in the case. Police were led to Williams after stopping cars at a roadside checkpoint to match truck snow tires with a unique design.
Rae would not comment on the treads nor whether Williams confessed to police.
“I can’t speak about anything evidentiary,” said Rae.
Williams’ next court appearance is set for Feb. 18 in Belleville.
Ottawa Citizen and National Post
With files from Linda Nguyen, Mike Barber, Tony Spears and Alyssa Dalton
CNS 2/11/10 22:36:50
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
February 11, 2010
The OPP investigators are executing a search warrant at Col. Russell Williams' residence at 473 Edison in Westboro in Ottawa on Feb. 11, 2010.
Photograph by: Pat McGrath, Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Accused killer Col. Russell Williams told police where they could find evidence, including hidden keepsakes, inside the Ottawa home where he lived with his wife, police say.
The statements were given to Ontario Provincial Police detectives on Sunday at Ottawa Police headquarters. On Monday, he led police to the body of Jessica Lloyd, one of two women the disgraced colonel is accused of killing.
Forensic investigators began searching Williams’ Ottawa home Thursday. They were looking for specific items, including women’s bras and panties, and digital storage devices, computer equipment, camera and video gear, and photographs.
Williams is charged in the deaths of Belleville, Ont., resident Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, who was posted to Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the busy air force base that Williams commanded.
He is also charged with the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two other women in nearby Tweed, Ont., where he has a cottage. The victims in the latter two cases were bound naked to chairs and photographed by their attacker.
After his first interview with police, which ran into the night, OPP searched his cottage in Tweed for women’s undergarments — including a bra and thong — baby blankets, digital storage devices and a white shoe as part of their investigation into the two home-invasion sexual assaults.
On Thursday, a dozen OPP forensic officers arrived just after noon at the three-storey Ottawa home where Williams lives with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman.
Detectives covered all the windows at the front of the house and filed inside through the garage, carrying hard-yellow cases, black brief cases, file folders and flattened boxes.
Police wouldn’t say what, if anything, was found in Williams’ Ottawa home as they streamed out empty-handed Thursday evening.
OPP investigators said they were to continue their search Friday.
An OPP cruiser remained on guard at the front of the residence after the forensics team left.
Meanwhile, details of the man’s fractured family life emerged Thursday, as Williams’ relatives spoke out for the first time since the charges.
They said the colonel was still young when his father and mother split. The young Williams continued to live with his mother and his new stepfather, Dr. Jerry Sovka, an eminent nuclear scientist. However, that marriage also turned sour.
“Our relationship with him was broken off in early 2001 when our mother’s divorce from my stepfather caused a deep rift between him and my mother and myself,” said his brother, Harvey Williams, in a written statement.
Two years ago his mother and brother reached out to Williams, 46, in a bid at reconciliation following the divorce. “We rarely had any contact until two years ago when my mother and I tried to find a way to repair the family rift. We have had only minimal contact with him in the past two years.”
“We were shocked and appalled to learn of the crimes with which Col. Williams is being charged,” he said, calling it “alarming and distressing news.”
Williams and Harriman have been a couple since at least 1991, the year a search of old city directories shows they were sharing the same apartment in Portage la Prairie, Man., where Williams was then working as a flying instructor at the Canadian Forces Flying Training School. The two have no children.
Williams graduated with a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto in 1987, and in the early ’80s attended Upper Canada College, the sprawling private Toronto boys school whose graduates include Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, Loblaw executive chairman Galen Weston, billionaire David Thomson and author Robertson Davies.
The news that Williams, or Russ Sovka, as he was then known, was charged came as a surprise, said Cristina Coraggio, a spokeswoman for the college.
She said the school only realized that Sovka was Williams late Wednesday.
“We’re shocked by the allegations, but keep in mind, it was 28 years ago,” she said.
Williams went to the school from 1980-82. He boarded there and was a prefect, whose job was to mentor younger boys.
“From what I understand, he was a fine, upstanding student. He kept a lower profile. He was a very good musician,” Coraggio said.
Williams played trumpet, and his interest in music was obvious from his entry in the 1982 College Times: a quote by Louis Armstrong — “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” He also wrote: “Thank you all to those who made these two years possible, enjoyable.”
The current vice-principal of the school, Innes van Nostrand, said “most people from our time at the school would remember him as a diligent, responsible, serious hard-working guy who was really good at the trumpet, as well.”
Van Nostrand, who also graduated in 1982, but did not board at the school, said “the stories and the allegations in general, have been pretty shocking for everyone in the broader community, and I think any time anyone would find a situation where someone they went to school with was being implicated, and with those kinds of allegations, the shock is compounded, and certainly that would be the case for the people who were at school here at that time.”
Andrew Saxton, a Conservative member of Parliament for the riding of North Vancouver, was one of those students, having attended Upper Canada College at the same time as Williams. He said Thursday he was shocked his former classmate had been implicated in the investigation.
“I went to high school with Col. Williams many years ago when he went by the name ‘Russ Sovka.’ However, 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,” he said through an e-mail from his constituency office.
“I extend my sympathies to the families affected by these tragic events. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further.”
Kevin Barnett, who now lives in Ottawa but who once bought a house from Williams in Portage la Prairie, Man., described the fallen air force leader as a “hard-working, diligent individual.”
“I always knew him to be the person you see as the military has been saying. I’m as stunned as anyone else.”
Williams has been alternately described as pleasant, professional, standoffish, quiet and, in one case, brilliant, by acquaintances.
Williams, who is being held at the Quinte Detention Centre, near Napanee in eastern Ontario, spoke with the prison chaplain Thursday, an official said, but Williams declined to speak to a reporter.
“He’s not interested in an interview,” said Larry Shorts, the deputy superintendent of the barbed-wire complex.
The remand centre houses a wide range of offenders, in minimum-security dorms and maximum-security cells shared by two or three inmates.
Meanwhile, in the town of Trenton, there was talk Thursday of soldiers being harassed and spat upon by angry townsfolk.
If there is any truth to the tales of fractured relations between town residents and military personnel in the town, one would be hard pressed to find it. Most people say they support the military more than ever.
Yet at the aptly titled Rumours bar, a military hangout, owner and former military pilot Pierre Bouchard said he’s heard of soldiers being yelled at or spit on in public since news of Williams’ arrest last Sunday.
While he, like most others in and around Trenton, said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations against Williams, Bouchard said he hoped it wouldn’t affect military morale.
“This town survives because of the base,” said Bouchard. “I (would) hate to see people become ashamed of their uniform.”
Authorities were mum on Williams’ incarceration.
“We don’t discuss any information about the conditions of his custody,” said Stuart McGetrick, a Correctional Services spokesman.
Across the country, police forces are looking to their cold cases for similarities to the murders of the two Ontario women.
Media inquiries about unsolved homicides have been made in other cities where Williams was also stationed with the Canadian Forces, including Ontario and Manitoba.
Williams has not been ruled outas a suspect in the unsolved 2001 death at CFB Trenton of Kathleen MacVicar, 19.
In Halifax, police said there is no evidence to suggest any connection with their cold cases.
“That is exactly correct,” said Halifax Regional Police Const. Brian Palmeter.
Palmeter told Canwest News Service his force received a number of calls asking whether there was any connection with any cold cases in the area because Williams had served at CFB Shearwater, near Halifax. But Palmeter said the Halifax and Ontario officers have not discussed any evidence in the specific cases.
“We reached out and contacted the investigators from the OPP. That was specifically as a result of various calls we were receiving from various media outlets across Canada after the story broke out of Trenton. That’s why we called them. Our investigators reached out and contacted those investigators and had a very brief conversation.”
Palmeter said three cold cases in Halifax involved the deaths of young women, including one in January 1992 and another in late November 1994. But Palmeter said there is no evidence Williams was even in the area during those times
“We were getting a lot of calls trying to connect him to these files and I said we had no information. We don’t even know that this guy was here when these happened.”
Ontario Provincial Police said the focus of its investigation is on the current cases before the courts involving Williams as a suspect. The force has yet to begin any detailed investigations on cold cases, Sgt. Kristine Rae said.
The Toronto Police Service does not consider Williams a suspect in any unsolved homicide or assault cases in that city, spokeswoman Const. Wendy Drummond said.
However, the family of a Toronto woman murdered nearly 30 years ago insisted cold-case investigators are probing possible connections to that slaying and another as well. In 1983, Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice were sexually assaulted and murdered within four months of each another in downtown Toronto. DNA evidence revealed that both women had been killed by the same man.
Gilmour’s brother, Sean McCowan, told Global News he called Det.-Sgt. Steve Ryan of the Toronto Police Cold Case Squad on Tuesday. “(Ryan) just mentioned that the colonel is a person of interest and they’re going to take a look at it,” McCowan said.
Ottawa police are also probing unsolved cases, including the violent 2007 sexual assault of a Carleton University student.
“We’re pulling cases right now, but don’t have enough info from OPP,” said Ottawa police Chief Vern White. “We’re examining our cases from the modus operandi.”
Comeau 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, Ont., a small town about 15 kilometres west of Trenton, on Nov. 25.
Lloyd went missing Jan. 28, after texting a friend that she’d arrived safe at her Belleville home.
Police found her body after arresting Williams.
An autopsy on Lloyd’s body was completed Wednesday, but police would not release the cause of death.
Police said it was a roadside canvass on a nearby highway that made Williams a person of interest in the case. Police were led to Williams after stopping cars at a roadside checkpoint to match truck snow tires with a unique design.
Rae would not comment on the treads nor whether Williams confessed to police.
“I can’t speak about anything evidentiary,” said Rae.
Williams’ next court appearance is set for Feb. 18 in Belleville.
Ottawa Citizen and National Post
With files from Linda Nguyen, Mike Barber, Tony Spears and Alyssa Dalton
CNS 2/11/10 22:36:50
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Serial killers become chameleons to get away with murder: Experts
By Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
A senior officer being groomed for the highest ranks of the military doesn't fit stereotypes of a vicious criminal. But those who study the minds of serial killers say they are remarkably adept 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," says criminologist and sociologist Jack Levin, an expert on the psychology behind multiple murderers.
"They look more innocent than an innocent man," Levin says. "And that's part of the secret of their success of getting away with murder.
"They just don't look like the monsters that they are."
CFB Trenton Wing Commander Col. Russell Williams — a man described as quiet, and even awkward at times, a man the top commander of Air Force operations across the country said seemed like "just a shining bright star" based on his file — stands charged with two counts of first-degree murder and the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two others in cases where women were bound naked to chairs and photographed by their attacker.
Williams has not been found guilty of anything, but if police and a Crown prosecutor can prove the allegations then he would seem to fall into the category of a serial killer and rapist. But does he fit this profile?
It is a question that police agencies across Canada are dealing with as they revisit cold cases and calling Ontario investigators probing the multiple murders and sexual assaults. Who are these people what criteria do they have to meet?
The FBI defines serial killings as three or more victims killed one at a time, over a period of months, years or even decades, says Levin, author of the book, Serial Killers and Sadistic Murderers: Up Close and Personal.
"But when you find two, you almost always find three."
Canadian anthropologist Elliott Leyton says serial killers tend to be of what psychologists call a "sociopathic character." They have no comprehension of remorse, he says, "no feeling of empathy for anyone else. People are just things that they can use for their own enjoyment and titillation," says Leyton, and if they are sexual sadists as well, "then we've got a real problem with someone who can do what he wants, whenever he wants, and lie about it easily."
The author of Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Multiple Modern Murderer, one of the most renowned books on serial killings, Leyton says one of the most disturbing things he has seen in life is a collection at the FBI academy in Quantico, Va., of serial killer fantasies — detailed writings and notebooks in which the killers "first begin to work out what they're going to do," and photographs taken by serial killers of their killings.
"It's not like, as people often say, 'Oh, he just cracked,' or something," says Leyton, a professor emeritus at Memorial University. "This is a very thought out, conscious, first-degree murder kind of extravagance."
Serial killers are meticulous planners, Levin says, and like the baseball player who hits a home run and wants to keep the ball, they seek "trophies" of their accomplishments. Black and purple bras, thong underwear with a poodle, white shoes, zip ties and pornographic photos and videos were among the items listed in a search warrant police previously executed on another man suspected last year in the sexual attacks Williams is accused of.
"To a normal person, these are hideous crimes, but to the rapist-slash-killer, these are his greatest accomplishments, and he wants to reminisce about them when he's not actually attacking women," says Levin, Brudnick Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University in Boston, who spent 25 years investigating and interviewing serial killers, including Canada's most notorious multiple murderer, Clifford Olson. Levin interviewed Olson while he was serving time in Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario.
"These guys will collect photographs, body parts, underwear, jewellery — anything they can use later on to remind them of their cherished moments causing their victims to suffer," he says.
The sexual assaults and killings Williams is accused of occurred over a span of five months: In September, two women were bound and sexually assaulted in homes within walking distance from his cottage in Tweed, Ont. In November, the body of Marie France Comeau, 37, a corporal from the base that Williams commanded, was found dead in her home in nearby Brighton, Ont. Monday, police discovered the body of Jessica Lloyd, 27, who had been missing for 11 days.
Levin said most serial killers don't "graduate" from rape or sexual assault. "The last thing a prolific killer would do is to leave the victim alive so that she can serve as an eye witness or testify against him."
But there have been exceptions: Schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo would later confess to being the "Scarborough rapist." He was convicted of 11 sexual assaults as his dangerous offender hearing in 1995. He has since admitted to several more.
"What happens in those cases, the killer gets bored," Levin says. "He wants to up the ante, have a little more fun at the expense of his victims. Rather than just torture them, he then takes their lives. That's typically the way these killers will graduate from rape to murder, or from sexual assault to murder."
They also have a comfort zone, preferring to kill close to home. They know the neighbourhood, Levin says. "They know escape routes, they may be familiar with the victims, having stalked them before attacking."
It's possible there are more victims who have been sexually assaulted by the same person, Levin says, but who don't want to come forward.
Leyton, said he didn't want to comment on the case specifically, but in general, the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults and serial murders are committed by people who are "burning with rage" over some real, or imagined trauma in their lives. "As they develop and grow they begin to blame their trauma, their failure in life, whatever they are upset about, on a particular group." Sometimes that group is a race, sometimes it's a religion, and sometimes it's a gender. "They begin to foment first the rage, and then the idea of vengeance against selected members of this group," Leyton says.****
In most cases serial killers are working class, or lower middle class at their highest, he says. "They feel that they've been cheated out of their just desserts in life, and they're raging."
In that sense, Williams does not appear to fit the pattern.
But power, and the need for it, also plays a role in the psychology of criminal minds.
"Most men who are in the military and become officers are there for the right reasons," Levin said. "They want to help their country, they want to prevent conflict, they want to fight wars. But a few of them are there for the power and the control and the dominance."
"I've seen this before. There are a few bad cops who also joined up for the wrong reason. They like the uniform — maybe the military uniform in this case — and the merit badges and the position of honour and masculine authority," he said.
"There are many guys who have grown up powerless, and then they compensate in a socially acceptable way. They may hire and fire, wheel and deal . . . but for some reason serial killers can't satisfy their need for power in a socially acceptable way."
Instead, he says, they compensate "by making their victims suffer.
"The more their victim begs for mercy, the better they feel about themselves. It makes them feel superior to their victims. It makes them feel important. And that's why they do it."
But what distresses Leyton is the tendency for the media to glamorize violent acts. Serial killer movies such as the Silence of the Lamb, "they're still pumping them out," he says. "They treat them as intelligent and dashing and people of great power, when in fact, they're nothing of the kind.
"They're pathetic, defective people who have drawn the wool over people's eyes about how limited and pathetic they are, and whose only idea of a human relationship is to capture and obliterate the person."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
A senior officer being groomed for the highest ranks of the military doesn't fit stereotypes of a vicious criminal. But those who study the minds of serial killers say they are remarkably adept 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," says criminologist and sociologist Jack Levin, an expert on the psychology behind multiple murderers.
"They look more innocent than an innocent man," Levin says. "And that's part of the secret of their success of getting away with murder.
"They just don't look like the monsters that they are."
CFB Trenton Wing Commander Col. Russell Williams — a man described as quiet, and even awkward at times, a man the top commander of Air Force operations across the country said seemed like "just a shining bright star" based on his file — stands charged with two counts of first-degree murder and the forcible confinement and sexual assault of two others in cases where women were bound naked to chairs and photographed by their attacker.
Williams has not been found guilty of anything, but if police and a Crown prosecutor can prove the allegations then he would seem to fall into the category of a serial killer and rapist. But does he fit this profile?
It is a question that police agencies across Canada are dealing with as they revisit cold cases and calling Ontario investigators probing the multiple murders and sexual assaults. Who are these people what criteria do they have to meet?
The FBI defines serial killings as three or more victims killed one at a time, over a period of months, years or even decades, says Levin, author of the book, Serial Killers and Sadistic Murderers: Up Close and Personal.
"But when you find two, you almost always find three."
Canadian anthropologist Elliott Leyton says serial killers tend to be of what psychologists call a "sociopathic character." They have no comprehension of remorse, he says, "no feeling of empathy for anyone else. People are just things that they can use for their own enjoyment and titillation," says Leyton, and if they are sexual sadists as well, "then we've got a real problem with someone who can do what he wants, whenever he wants, and lie about it easily."
The author of Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Multiple Modern Murderer, one of the most renowned books on serial killings, Leyton says one of the most disturbing things he has seen in life is a collection at the FBI academy in Quantico, Va., of serial killer fantasies — detailed writings and notebooks in which the killers "first begin to work out what they're going to do," and photographs taken by serial killers of their killings.
"It's not like, as people often say, 'Oh, he just cracked,' or something," says Leyton, a professor emeritus at Memorial University. "This is a very thought out, conscious, first-degree murder kind of extravagance."
Serial killers are meticulous planners, Levin says, and like the baseball player who hits a home run and wants to keep the ball, they seek "trophies" of their accomplishments. Black and purple bras, thong underwear with a poodle, white shoes, zip ties and pornographic photos and videos were among the items listed in a search warrant police previously executed on another man suspected last year in the sexual attacks Williams is accused of.
"To a normal person, these are hideous crimes, but to the rapist-slash-killer, these are his greatest accomplishments, and he wants to reminisce about them when he's not actually attacking women," says Levin, Brudnick Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University in Boston, who spent 25 years investigating and interviewing serial killers, including Canada's most notorious multiple murderer, Clifford Olson. Levin interviewed Olson while he was serving time in Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario.
"These guys will collect photographs, body parts, underwear, jewellery — anything they can use later on to remind them of their cherished moments causing their victims to suffer," he says.
The sexual assaults and killings Williams is accused of occurred over a span of five months: In September, two women were bound and sexually assaulted in homes within walking distance from his cottage in Tweed, Ont. In November, the body of Marie France Comeau, 37, a corporal from the base that Williams commanded, was found dead in her home in nearby Brighton, Ont. Monday, police discovered the body of Jessica Lloyd, 27, who had been missing for 11 days.
Levin said most serial killers don't "graduate" from rape or sexual assault. "The last thing a prolific killer would do is to leave the victim alive so that she can serve as an eye witness or testify against him."
But there have been exceptions: Schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo would later confess to being the "Scarborough rapist." He was convicted of 11 sexual assaults as his dangerous offender hearing in 1995. He has since admitted to several more.
"What happens in those cases, the killer gets bored," Levin says. "He wants to up the ante, have a little more fun at the expense of his victims. Rather than just torture them, he then takes their lives. That's typically the way these killers will graduate from rape to murder, or from sexual assault to murder."
They also have a comfort zone, preferring to kill close to home. They know the neighbourhood, Levin says. "They know escape routes, they may be familiar with the victims, having stalked them before attacking."
It's possible there are more victims who have been sexually assaulted by the same person, Levin says, but who don't want to come forward.
Leyton, said he didn't want to comment on the case specifically, but in general, the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults and serial murders are committed by people who are "burning with rage" over some real, or imagined trauma in their lives. "As they develop and grow they begin to blame their trauma, their failure in life, whatever they are upset about, on a particular group." Sometimes that group is a race, sometimes it's a religion, and sometimes it's a gender. "They begin to foment first the rage, and then the idea of vengeance against selected members of this group," Leyton says.****
In most cases serial killers are working class, or lower middle class at their highest, he says. "They feel that they've been cheated out of their just desserts in life, and they're raging."
In that sense, Williams does not appear to fit the pattern.
But power, and the need for it, also plays a role in the psychology of criminal minds.
"Most men who are in the military and become officers are there for the right reasons," Levin said. "They want to help their country, they want to prevent conflict, they want to fight wars. But a few of them are there for the power and the control and the dominance."
"I've seen this before. There are a few bad cops who also joined up for the wrong reason. They like the uniform — maybe the military uniform in this case — and the merit badges and the position of honour and masculine authority," he said.
"There are many guys who have grown up powerless, and then they compensate in a socially acceptable way. They may hire and fire, wheel and deal . . . but for some reason serial killers can't satisfy their need for power in a socially acceptable way."
Instead, he says, they compensate "by making their victims suffer.
"The more their victim begs for mercy, the better they feel about themselves. It makes them feel superior to their victims. It makes them feel important. And that's why they do it."
But what distresses Leyton is the tendency for the media to glamorize violent acts. Serial killer movies such as the Silence of the Lamb, "they're still pumping them out," he says. "They treat them as intelligent and dashing and people of great power, when in fact, they're nothing of the kind.
"They're pathetic, defective people who have drawn the wool over people's eyes about how limited and pathetic they are, and whose only idea of a human relationship is to capture and obliterate the person."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Residents are torn between anger, loyalty
By Laura Stone, Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
BELLEVILLE, Ont. — The 50,000 residents of this city at the eastern end of Lake Ontario are torn.
On one hand, the tragedy of Jessica Lloyd's murder has made a lot of people angry. In a place where everybody knows everybody, some won't give their names to reporters as they don't want to be seen as disrespecting Lloyd's family by talking publicly about the commanding officer of nearby CFB Trenton — now charged in her murder and the murder of Marie-France Comeau, 38, a corporal at the base.
On the other, there is a fierce loyalty to the military. The local Legion hosts the Canadian Forces base commander from nearby Trenton, Ont. every year — as they did with Col. Russell Williams this past January — and the OHL hockey team is scheduled for a "Faceoff for the Forces" night on Saturday.
No one knows what to say, except this: they just don't understand how, and why, this could happen.
"That stuff just doesn't happen here," one bartender who knew Lloyd from high school said Tuesday.
Grief for Lloyd, 27, is palpable and public. "We love u Jessica," read signs along the road.
But something else has died, too —_a small city's idea of itself as peaceful and safe.
"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.
Like many others, Wright feels a mixture of sadness and relief at the arrest of Williams, who also faces charges of sexual assault against two other women.
Ralph Collins, the president of Branch 99 of the Royal Canadian Legion, recalled meeting Williams at the New Year's Day party.
"Like everybody else, I'm shocked," said Collins. "As far as I was concerned, he was just another officer in uniform."
Around a common table in the branch, men and a few women sip beverages and talk about the news.
"You would not expect this," said Gord Bodmore, 74, a former Toronto fire department chief, shaking his head.
"I really have a hard time getting it in my head," he said, adding, Williams "had a very good reputation."
Still, few will talk about Williams. Those who do want to make it very clear — this is about one man, and one man only.
"This isn't about the military," said Mayor John Williams of nearby Quinte West. "We're here to support the military, the men and women out there do a great job, they work extremely hard. We'll let the justice system deal with him."
As leader of the municipality that includes Trenton, Williams spoke with Williams every week. He was very professional but kept to himself, Williams said.
"He wasn't what I would call an outgoing individual . . . fairly reserved and hard to get to know a bit. Hard to warm up to," said the mayor.
At the arena that's home to the Belleville Bulls hockey team, no one would talk about Williams.
It's too soon, said one manager. But he added the team still supports the troops.
Twenty-five kilometres west along Highway 401, Trenton has long had its economy are linked to the military. Construction of the base, which began in 1929, was an economic boon for the area during the Depression and again during the Second World War.
CFB Trenton is the largest military airbase in Canada. With about 3,500 civilian and military on the payroll, it is the largest employer in Trenton, population 20,000.
At Branch 110 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Trenton, the arrest was on everyone's lips Tuesday.
Don, a retired sergeant who declined to give his last name, said Williams was a nightly customer at the officer's mess where his daughter often served him drinks.
He says the thought that his daughter might have been at risk did cross his mind when he heard about the arrest, but says Williams "never made a pass at her."
"She's finding it hard to believe. He seemed like a nice guy," he said.
When asked if he thinks the recent events would change the perception of the military in the community, he responds: "I'm going to give it a little time to see what happens."
Eighteen-year-old Nathan Wells, who lives on the base and whose father is in the military, called the news "devastating."
"It's pretty crazy. The mood is down right now and everyone is grieving for the girl's family right now."
The most distressing aspect about the arrest, said Wells, is the esteem with which Williams was held.
"He was very well respected, not just because he was the base commander. He was also a nice person. He was always smiling and shaking hands with people. He was well thought of."
— With files from National Post
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
BELLEVILLE, Ont. — The 50,000 residents of this city at the eastern end of Lake Ontario are torn.
On one hand, the tragedy of Jessica Lloyd's murder has made a lot of people angry. In a place where everybody knows everybody, some won't give their names to reporters as they don't want to be seen as disrespecting Lloyd's family by talking publicly about the commanding officer of nearby CFB Trenton — now charged in her murder and the murder of Marie-France Comeau, 38, a corporal at the base.
On the other, there is a fierce loyalty to the military. The local Legion hosts the Canadian Forces base commander from nearby Trenton, Ont. every year — as they did with Col. Russell Williams this past January — and the OHL hockey team is scheduled for a "Faceoff for the Forces" night on Saturday.
No one knows what to say, except this: they just don't understand how, and why, this could happen.
"That stuff just doesn't happen here," one bartender who knew Lloyd from high school said Tuesday.
Grief for Lloyd, 27, is palpable and public. "We love u Jessica," read signs along the road.
But something else has died, too —_a small city's idea of itself as peaceful and safe.
"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.
Like many others, Wright feels a mixture of sadness and relief at the arrest of Williams, who also faces charges of sexual assault against two other women.
Ralph Collins, the president of Branch 99 of the Royal Canadian Legion, recalled meeting Williams at the New Year's Day party.
"Like everybody else, I'm shocked," said Collins. "As far as I was concerned, he was just another officer in uniform."
Around a common table in the branch, men and a few women sip beverages and talk about the news.
"You would not expect this," said Gord Bodmore, 74, a former Toronto fire department chief, shaking his head.
"I really have a hard time getting it in my head," he said, adding, Williams "had a very good reputation."
Still, few will talk about Williams. Those who do want to make it very clear — this is about one man, and one man only.
"This isn't about the military," said Mayor John Williams of nearby Quinte West. "We're here to support the military, the men and women out there do a great job, they work extremely hard. We'll let the justice system deal with him."
As leader of the municipality that includes Trenton, Williams spoke with Williams every week. He was very professional but kept to himself, Williams said.
"He wasn't what I would call an outgoing individual . . . fairly reserved and hard to get to know a bit. Hard to warm up to," said the mayor.
At the arena that's home to the Belleville Bulls hockey team, no one would talk about Williams.
It's too soon, said one manager. But he added the team still supports the troops.
Twenty-five kilometres west along Highway 401, Trenton has long had its economy are linked to the military. Construction of the base, which began in 1929, was an economic boon for the area during the Depression and again during the Second World War.
CFB Trenton is the largest military airbase in Canada. With about 3,500 civilian and military on the payroll, it is the largest employer in Trenton, population 20,000.
At Branch 110 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Trenton, the arrest was on everyone's lips Tuesday.
Don, a retired sergeant who declined to give his last name, said Williams was a nightly customer at the officer's mess where his daughter often served him drinks.
He says the thought that his daughter might have been at risk did cross his mind when he heard about the arrest, but says Williams "never made a pass at her."
"She's finding it hard to believe. He seemed like a nice guy," he said.
When asked if he thinks the recent events would change the perception of the military in the community, he responds: "I'm going to give it a little time to see what happens."
Eighteen-year-old Nathan Wells, who lives on the base and whose father is in the military, called the news "devastating."
"It's pretty crazy. The mood is down right now and everyone is grieving for the girl's family right now."
The most distressing aspect about the arrest, said Wells, is the esteem with which Williams was held.
"He was very well respected, not just because he was the base commander. He was also a nice person. He was always smiling and shaking hands with people. He was well thought of."
— With files from National Post
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Search warrant reveals details of Ontario police probe
By Jorge Barrera
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
TWEED, Ont. — Police detectives were searching for women's undergarments, baby blankets and computer data storage devices as part of their investigation into attacks against two women who were bound and sexually assaulted in homes within walking distance from the Tweed, Ont., cottage of Col. Russell Williams who was charged Monday in the murders of two other women.
Williams faces first-degree murder charges in connection to the deaths of 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37.
Williams also faces two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault in connection with two attacks on women in Tweed last September. His cottage Monday was cordoned off by police tape and an OPP trailer was parked in front.
Details of the police investigation were revealed in a warrant used to search the home of 65-year-old Larry Jones, who was an early suspect in the home break-ins.
The first woman was attacked in September and lived in a house near Williams's street. The second woman attacked also lived near Williams's cottage.
Jones said the woman had been separated from her husband for about a year when she was attacked in last September.
Both Jones and resident Clifford Rivers, 84, said the women had been stripped naked and bound. Jones said OPP had told him the women had their hands bound with zip ties and their heads were covered. The attacker then took photographs of them, said Jones.
Jones was initially a suspect in the home invasion attacks and police threatened to charge him in connection to the incidents. Jones's home was searched on Oct. 29 and the search warrant, which was viewed by Canwest News Service, outlines a list of items wanted by police.
According to the search warrant, OPP were searching for computer 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 tires" on Williams's vehicle tipped off police to his possible involvement in the murders. Jones said police had been looking for a specific type of tire tread marks matching those connected to the disappearance of Lloyd.
"There were special tread designs on his tire," said Jones. "They stopped him and recognized it after he left."
Jones said OPP investigators "went to Ottawa to compare treads."
Jones said he obtained his information through personal contacts in the OPP.
Residents of the area had been living in fear since the September attacks, said Rivers.
"They are not over (the fear) yet," said Rivers.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
TWEED, Ont. — Police detectives were searching for women's undergarments, baby blankets and computer data storage devices as part of their investigation into attacks against two women who were bound and sexually assaulted in homes within walking distance from the Tweed, Ont., cottage of Col. Russell Williams who was charged Monday in the murders of two other women.
Williams faces first-degree murder charges in connection to the deaths of 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37.
Williams also faces two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault in connection with two attacks on women in Tweed last September. His cottage Monday was cordoned off by police tape and an OPP trailer was parked in front.
Details of the police investigation were revealed in a warrant used to search the home of 65-year-old Larry Jones, who was an early suspect in the home break-ins.
The first woman was attacked in September and lived in a house near Williams's street. The second woman attacked also lived near Williams's cottage.
Jones said the woman had been separated from her husband for about a year when she was attacked in last September.
Both Jones and resident Clifford Rivers, 84, said the women had been stripped naked and bound. Jones said OPP had told him the women had their hands bound with zip ties and their heads were covered. The attacker then took photographs of them, said Jones.
Jones was initially a suspect in the home invasion attacks and police threatened to charge him in connection to the incidents. Jones's home was searched on Oct. 29 and the search warrant, which was viewed by Canwest News Service, outlines a list of items wanted by police.
According to the search warrant, OPP were searching for computer 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 tires" on Williams's vehicle tipped off police to his possible involvement in the murders. Jones said police had been looking for a specific type of tire tread marks matching those connected to the disappearance of Lloyd.
"There were special tread designs on his tire," said Jones. "They stopped him and recognized it after he left."
Jones said OPP investigators "went to Ottawa to compare treads."
Jones said he obtained his information through personal contacts in the OPP.
Residents of the area had been living in fear since the September attacks, said Rivers.
"They are not over (the fear) yet," said Rivers.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Canadian Forces base commander faces 2 homicide charges in Ontario deaths
Col. Russell Williams charged in 2 homicides, 2 home invasions
By Jorge Barrera, Juliet O’Neill and Ken Meaney
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
BELLEVILLE, Ont. — In a shocking turn, the commander of a Canadian Forces Base Trenton has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women whose disappearances in the fall and winter struck fear into local residents.
Col. Russell Williams, 46, commander of 8 Wing Trenton, was arrested Sunday in connection with the deaths of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37.
Police detectives working the file are now reviewing all cold cases of missing and slain women at every military posting — including Canada’s secret base in the Middle East — at which Williams has served during his 23-year career, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.
Williams, who lives in Tweed, northeast of Brighton and Belleville, appeared in court Monday afternoon in Belleville. He was also charged with two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault relating to two home invasions.
Shackled and clad in a blue jumpsuit, he looked down for the most part, but when prompted, glanced up at the judge and said his name. His face, according to people in the courtroom, was expressionless.
Lloyd, of Belleville, Ont., worked at Tri-Board Student Transportation Services in Napanee, Ont. She was reported missing Jan. 29 after she didn’t show up for work. She last communicated with a family friend on Jan. 28 at 10:36 p.m. through text messaging. Her body was found Monday in a secluded area near Tweed, Ont.
Comeau, 38, was found dead in her home, in nearby Brighton, Ont., on Wednesday, Nov. 25. She was a military flight attendant based in Trenton.
Police aren’t saying much about what led them to Williams, except that there was a canvass of an area highway to check vehicle tracks and that pointed them to the officer.
And according to Global News, the investigation is widening to include every community where Williams has ever lived.
One of those cases is the unsolved 2001 murder of Kathleen MacVicar, 19, which happened at CFB Trenton.
From Glace Bay, N.S., MacVicar was staying with relatives on the base and working at a call centre in Belleville when she was found murdered on the base in June, 2001. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.
Her mother, Colleen MacVicar, said Monday night that she had been phoned by OPP officer earlier in the day and told that they were examining the case in light of the charges against Williams. While they told her there were no obvious similarities between the the cases he has been charged with and Kathleen’s murder, more work would be done on the case.
“They are still looking for Kathleen’s killer and they are keeping her in mind,” MacVicar said, adding the call made her feel sick to her stomach and “anxious to know if we can find a face to put to Kathleen’s killer or not.”
"It really has hit us hard . . . particularly the young women of the area,” said Wendell White, a Tweed resident. “It’s been devastating in a lot of ways"
At Williams’s Tweed home, yellow police tape was strung through a part of the mailbox bearing the names Williams and Harriman.
An OPP cruiser and an unmarked police car were parked in front of the home, where red pylons marked a path to the front door.
The area is bordered by tall pine trees with cottage-like houses overlooking an ice-covered lake dotted with fishing huts.
Neighbours Larry and Bonnie Jones said Williams and his wife had lived there about five years.
He said the couple have a place in Trenton and a new house in Ottawa where his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, works for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The two have no children, he said, adding Williams kept to himself and did not seem to have many friends. He said in all the time they were neighbours, they had probably spoken only 20 times.
Bonnie Jones said she sometimes took them cucumbers from her garden but they didn’t interact much. “They were city folks who kept to themselves,” she said.
According to Larry Jones, police at one point considered him a suspect in the home invasions, which he said occurred at two nearby homes.
“(You) wouldn’t believe the rumours around town . . . Wife getting calls, ‘How does it feel to live with a murderer?’” he said.
He said he was detained for questioning and believes he was under police surveillance for weeks.
“I told them they were barking up the wrong tree,” he said. “They wasted weeks . . . never questioned (Williams) . . . because he’s untouchable.”
The Rivers family, which lives nearby, said Monday’s arrest has quelled some of the anxiety that had been prevalent over the last few months.
“There was fear all over this neighbourhood.” said Clifford Rivers, 84. “It was a very quiet neighbourhood. I’ve had a cottage here for 50 years and nothing had ever happened.”
“I think everybody is relieved,” said his wife Muriel. “They (residents of this community) just found out today. Some people are more fearful of the situation than we were but who knows,” added Clifford Rivers.
Harriman is taking an extended leave from her position in Ottawa as associate executive director at the Heart and Stroke Foundation to deal with the situation.
“She is one of our most beloved staff,” said spokeswoman Eileen Melnick-McCarthy. “She is taking an extended leave to focus on family matters and we continue to support her.”
Williams, who assumed command of 8 Wing Trenton last July, joined the military in 1987.
Among previous postings, he was formerly a member of 412 (Transport) Squadron in Ottawa, a position that involved flying VIPs on a government Challenger jet.
Neighbours in Tweed said they heard he had flown prime ministers including Jean Chretien.
A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay had little to say Monday.
“These are serious charges and a minister of the Crown would never comment on a criminal matter,” he said.
Williams was at CFB Shearwater, near Halifax, in the early 1990s but local police said they had not, as of yet, been contacted by authorities in Ontario to assist in the Williams investigation.
Capt. Paul Finnemore, media relations officer at the Shearwater airbase, said the news of Williams’ arrest "was news to us today as well." He said "there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on here today related to his arrest. It was a long time ago that he was here."
CFB Trenton is the main hub of military air transport in Canada, with operations that include the response to the Haiti earthquake, resupply of the Afghan mission and support of RCMP security operations at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Chief of Air Staff Lt.-Gen. Andre Deschamps said that, in light of the seriousness of the charges and the high-level responsibilities that go with to the position of wing commander, an interim commander will be appointed.
“As chief of the air staff, I take very seriously all allegations of service or criminal offences against one of our members,” Deschamps said in a statement.
He said a review will be initiated by 1 Canadian Air Division, in Winnipeg, to determine the appropriate action to take regarding Williams, pending the outcome of his civilian court proceedings.
“The air force is fully supporting civilian authorities in the conduct of the current matter,” he added.
Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, the Winnipeg-based commander of 1 Canadian Air Division who commands the operational arms of all 12 Air Force wings, addressed personnel Monday afternoon.
“Today we’re shocked by the connection made to a leader in our air force,” said Blondin. “I cannot speak to any aspect of the investigative process or the charges.”
Blondin, who said he met with as many members of the wing as he could on short notice, called Trenton the busiest wing in Canada, pivotal in co-ordinating domestic search-and-rescue operations and foreign missions.
“My priority is our people, the men and women of 8 Wing Trenton, and to enable them to carry on with critical missions at home,” he said. “These operations must and will continue, and they will continue safely.
“It is untenable for (Williams) to act as commander 8 Wing at this time,” he added.
Deschamps, meanwhile, said he is confident that “air force personnel at 8 Wing will carry on with their duties, displaying the usual level of professionalism and sense of duty that they have always shown in the past. We will ensure that the wing leadership and personnel are supported throughout this difficult period. This situation affects us all and I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the families of those affected by these tragic events.”
Retired colonel Alain Pellerin is the executive director of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and served in the army for 36 years. He said he had never heard of such a “strange” case. He compared notes with fellow long-serving military friends Monday.
“If you look at his (record) and his career, he had good prospects for the future,” he said. As the base commander at Trenton, the only air transport base that we have in Canada, one would think he would have a good future. So it’s difficult to explain what happened.”
Pellerin said he does not believe the arrest will taint the armed forces.
“I think it’s a local affair that will affect the population in Trenton because they knew him personally and people served under him. He was the base commander, after all.
“But the rest of the people in the forces, it’s not related to the work, really, so it’s not something that will taint the armed forces negatively. There is a love affair between the population and the armed forces and I don’t think that will change. It’s really just one individual who’s accused of a serious crime.”
Williams was remanded into custody following the brief appearance and will be back in court in Belleville Feb. 18 at 9 a.m.
He was brought to court in an an unmarked OPP cruiser, escorted by an OPP tactical unit.
— With files from Global News
Sidebar: Career highlights
Col. Russell Williams, 46, commander of 8 Wing Trenton, was arrested Sunday in connection with the deaths of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38. He was also charged with two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault.
Williams joined the Canadian Forces in 1987 after obtaining a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto. He received his pilot’s wings in 1990 and was posted to 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School, Portage la Prairie, Man., where he served for two years as an instructor on the CT-134 Beech Musketeer.
In 1992, he was posted to 434 (Combat Support) Squadron in Shearwater, N.S., where he flew the CC-144 Challenger in the electronic warfare/coastal patrol role, according to his official military biography.
He was subsequently posted to 412 (Transport) Squadron in Ottawa where he continued to fly the Challenger, this time in a VIP transport role. Promoted to major in November 1999, he was posted to director general military careers where he served as the multi-engine pilot career manager.
Williams attended the Canadian Forces command and staff course from August 2003 to June 2004, where he obtained a master of defence studies from the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont. Following promotion to lieutenant-colonel in June 2004, he was appointed commanding officer 437 (Transport) Squadron.
In January 2009, he was posted to the Canadian Forces Language School in Gatineau, Que., for a six-month period of French-language training, during which he was promoted to his current rank.
His bio states Williams is a keen photographer, golfer, fisherman and runner.
with files from the Ottawa Citizen
Factbox: Key dates
Mon., Feb. 8.
• Police discover the body of missing Belleville, Ont., woman Jessica Lloyd off Carry Road, in the Municipality of Tweed, Ont.
Sun., Feb. 7.
• Ontario Provincial Police and the Belleville Police arrested Col. Russell Williams, 46, wing commander of CFB Trenton. Williams was charged with the first-degree murders of Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau. He also faces two counts of forcible confinement, and two each of break and enter and sexual assault.
Thurs, Feb. 4.
• Police say Williams came to their attention as a result of information gathered during a roadside canvass on Highway 37.
Thurs, Jan. 28.
• The last time Jessica Lloyd, 27, was seen alive.
Wed. Nov. 25, 2009
• Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, was found dead in her Brighton, Ont., residence.
September 2009
• There were two separate home invasions in the Tweed, Ont., area in which two women were the victims of sexual assault.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
By Jorge Barrera, Juliet O’Neill and Ken Meaney
Canwest News Service
February 10, 2010
BELLEVILLE, Ont. — In a shocking turn, the commander of a Canadian Forces Base Trenton has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women whose disappearances in the fall and winter struck fear into local residents.
Col. Russell Williams, 46, commander of 8 Wing Trenton, was arrested Sunday in connection with the deaths of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37.
Police detectives working the file are now reviewing all cold cases of missing and slain women at every military posting — including Canada’s secret base in the Middle East — at which Williams has served during his 23-year career, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.
Williams, who lives in Tweed, northeast of Brighton and Belleville, appeared in court Monday afternoon in Belleville. He was also charged with two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault relating to two home invasions.
Shackled and clad in a blue jumpsuit, he looked down for the most part, but when prompted, glanced up at the judge and said his name. His face, according to people in the courtroom, was expressionless.
Lloyd, of Belleville, Ont., worked at Tri-Board Student Transportation Services in Napanee, Ont. She was reported missing Jan. 29 after she didn’t show up for work. She last communicated with a family friend on Jan. 28 at 10:36 p.m. through text messaging. Her body was found Monday in a secluded area near Tweed, Ont.
Comeau, 38, was found dead in her home, in nearby Brighton, Ont., on Wednesday, Nov. 25. She was a military flight attendant based in Trenton.
Police aren’t saying much about what led them to Williams, except that there was a canvass of an area highway to check vehicle tracks and that pointed them to the officer.
And according to Global News, the investigation is widening to include every community where Williams has ever lived.
One of those cases is the unsolved 2001 murder of Kathleen MacVicar, 19, which happened at CFB Trenton.
From Glace Bay, N.S., MacVicar was staying with relatives on the base and working at a call centre in Belleville when she was found murdered on the base in June, 2001. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed.
Her mother, Colleen MacVicar, said Monday night that she had been phoned by OPP officer earlier in the day and told that they were examining the case in light of the charges against Williams. While they told her there were no obvious similarities between the the cases he has been charged with and Kathleen’s murder, more work would be done on the case.
“They are still looking for Kathleen’s killer and they are keeping her in mind,” MacVicar said, adding the call made her feel sick to her stomach and “anxious to know if we can find a face to put to Kathleen’s killer or not.”
"It really has hit us hard . . . particularly the young women of the area,” said Wendell White, a Tweed resident. “It’s been devastating in a lot of ways"
At Williams’s Tweed home, yellow police tape was strung through a part of the mailbox bearing the names Williams and Harriman.
An OPP cruiser and an unmarked police car were parked in front of the home, where red pylons marked a path to the front door.
The area is bordered by tall pine trees with cottage-like houses overlooking an ice-covered lake dotted with fishing huts.
Neighbours Larry and Bonnie Jones said Williams and his wife had lived there about five years.
He said the couple have a place in Trenton and a new house in Ottawa where his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, works for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The two have no children, he said, adding Williams kept to himself and did not seem to have many friends. He said in all the time they were neighbours, they had probably spoken only 20 times.
Bonnie Jones said she sometimes took them cucumbers from her garden but they didn’t interact much. “They were city folks who kept to themselves,” she said.
According to Larry Jones, police at one point considered him a suspect in the home invasions, which he said occurred at two nearby homes.
“(You) wouldn’t believe the rumours around town . . . Wife getting calls, ‘How does it feel to live with a murderer?’” he said.
He said he was detained for questioning and believes he was under police surveillance for weeks.
“I told them they were barking up the wrong tree,” he said. “They wasted weeks . . . never questioned (Williams) . . . because he’s untouchable.”
The Rivers family, which lives nearby, said Monday’s arrest has quelled some of the anxiety that had been prevalent over the last few months.
“There was fear all over this neighbourhood.” said Clifford Rivers, 84. “It was a very quiet neighbourhood. I’ve had a cottage here for 50 years and nothing had ever happened.”
“I think everybody is relieved,” said his wife Muriel. “They (residents of this community) just found out today. Some people are more fearful of the situation than we were but who knows,” added Clifford Rivers.
Harriman is taking an extended leave from her position in Ottawa as associate executive director at the Heart and Stroke Foundation to deal with the situation.
“She is one of our most beloved staff,” said spokeswoman Eileen Melnick-McCarthy. “She is taking an extended leave to focus on family matters and we continue to support her.”
Williams, who assumed command of 8 Wing Trenton last July, joined the military in 1987.
Among previous postings, he was formerly a member of 412 (Transport) Squadron in Ottawa, a position that involved flying VIPs on a government Challenger jet.
Neighbours in Tweed said they heard he had flown prime ministers including Jean Chretien.
A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay had little to say Monday.
“These are serious charges and a minister of the Crown would never comment on a criminal matter,” he said.
Williams was at CFB Shearwater, near Halifax, in the early 1990s but local police said they had not, as of yet, been contacted by authorities in Ontario to assist in the Williams investigation.
Capt. Paul Finnemore, media relations officer at the Shearwater airbase, said the news of Williams’ arrest "was news to us today as well." He said "there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on here today related to his arrest. It was a long time ago that he was here."
CFB Trenton is the main hub of military air transport in Canada, with operations that include the response to the Haiti earthquake, resupply of the Afghan mission and support of RCMP security operations at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Chief of Air Staff Lt.-Gen. Andre Deschamps said that, in light of the seriousness of the charges and the high-level responsibilities that go with to the position of wing commander, an interim commander will be appointed.
“As chief of the air staff, I take very seriously all allegations of service or criminal offences against one of our members,” Deschamps said in a statement.
He said a review will be initiated by 1 Canadian Air Division, in Winnipeg, to determine the appropriate action to take regarding Williams, pending the outcome of his civilian court proceedings.
“The air force is fully supporting civilian authorities in the conduct of the current matter,” he added.
Maj.-Gen. Yvan Blondin, the Winnipeg-based commander of 1 Canadian Air Division who commands the operational arms of all 12 Air Force wings, addressed personnel Monday afternoon.
“Today we’re shocked by the connection made to a leader in our air force,” said Blondin. “I cannot speak to any aspect of the investigative process or the charges.”
Blondin, who said he met with as many members of the wing as he could on short notice, called Trenton the busiest wing in Canada, pivotal in co-ordinating domestic search-and-rescue operations and foreign missions.
“My priority is our people, the men and women of 8 Wing Trenton, and to enable them to carry on with critical missions at home,” he said. “These operations must and will continue, and they will continue safely.
“It is untenable for (Williams) to act as commander 8 Wing at this time,” he added.
Deschamps, meanwhile, said he is confident that “air force personnel at 8 Wing will carry on with their duties, displaying the usual level of professionalism and sense of duty that they have always shown in the past. We will ensure that the wing leadership and personnel are supported throughout this difficult period. This situation affects us all and I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the families of those affected by these tragic events.”
Retired colonel Alain Pellerin is the executive director of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and served in the army for 36 years. He said he had never heard of such a “strange” case. He compared notes with fellow long-serving military friends Monday.
“If you look at his (record) and his career, he had good prospects for the future,” he said. As the base commander at Trenton, the only air transport base that we have in Canada, one would think he would have a good future. So it’s difficult to explain what happened.”
Pellerin said he does not believe the arrest will taint the armed forces.
“I think it’s a local affair that will affect the population in Trenton because they knew him personally and people served under him. He was the base commander, after all.
“But the rest of the people in the forces, it’s not related to the work, really, so it’s not something that will taint the armed forces negatively. There is a love affair between the population and the armed forces and I don’t think that will change. It’s really just one individual who’s accused of a serious crime.”
Williams was remanded into custody following the brief appearance and will be back in court in Belleville Feb. 18 at 9 a.m.
He was brought to court in an an unmarked OPP cruiser, escorted by an OPP tactical unit.
— With files from Global News
Sidebar: Career highlights
Col. Russell Williams, 46, commander of 8 Wing Trenton, was arrested Sunday in connection with the deaths of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38. He was also charged with two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of break and enter and sexual assault.
Williams joined the Canadian Forces in 1987 after obtaining a degree in economics and political science from the University of Toronto. He received his pilot’s wings in 1990 and was posted to 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School, Portage la Prairie, Man., where he served for two years as an instructor on the CT-134 Beech Musketeer.
In 1992, he was posted to 434 (Combat Support) Squadron in Shearwater, N.S., where he flew the CC-144 Challenger in the electronic warfare/coastal patrol role, according to his official military biography.
He was subsequently posted to 412 (Transport) Squadron in Ottawa where he continued to fly the Challenger, this time in a VIP transport role. Promoted to major in November 1999, he was posted to director general military careers where he served as the multi-engine pilot career manager.
Williams attended the Canadian Forces command and staff course from August 2003 to June 2004, where he obtained a master of defence studies from the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont. Following promotion to lieutenant-colonel in June 2004, he was appointed commanding officer 437 (Transport) Squadron.
In January 2009, he was posted to the Canadian Forces Language School in Gatineau, Que., for a six-month period of French-language training, during which he was promoted to his current rank.
His bio states Williams is a keen photographer, golfer, fisherman and runner.
with files from the Ottawa Citizen
Factbox: Key dates
Mon., Feb. 8.
• Police discover the body of missing Belleville, Ont., woman Jessica Lloyd off Carry Road, in the Municipality of Tweed, Ont.
Sun., Feb. 7.
• Ontario Provincial Police and the Belleville Police arrested Col. Russell Williams, 46, wing commander of CFB Trenton. Williams was charged with the first-degree murders of Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau. He also faces two counts of forcible confinement, and two each of break and enter and sexual assault.
Thurs, Feb. 4.
• Police say Williams came to their attention as a result of information gathered during a roadside canvass on Highway 37.
Thurs, Jan. 28.
• The last time Jessica Lloyd, 27, was seen alive.
Wed. Nov. 25, 2009
• Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, was found dead in her Brighton, Ont., residence.
September 2009
• There were two separate home invasions in the Tweed, Ont., area in which two women were the victims of sexual assault.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
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