Stuff I’m Talking About Here Because It’s Too Depressing to Discuss at Home

[moon_custafer]

 A friend posted on Facebook a few days ago that his friend’s sister had gone missing, and I signal-boosted along with many others. About two days ago, I saw on the news the body had been found. Comments posted from my friend and others in that circle suggested there were even worse details — turns out it was the woman’s mother and sister who found the body themselves, while searching the neighbourhood where she’d disappeared, after the police had apparently missed that detail. And a lot of people have been disappearing from Church and Wellesley in the past year — it’s the gay neighbourhood, and it used to be considered pretty safe.

Comments

[sovay]

I am sorry to hear all of this.

Crime

[palain-7.livejournal.com]

That is a depressing incident. Finding the body of your child in an abandoned house is something right out of a horror movie. It's now being treated as a murder and, if it has anything to do with the rest of the disappearances in the area, is the first time there's been much to go on. There's a body and an, albeit vague, description of someone who might be the killer.

The "serial killer" theory has been around for about 10 years since the disappearances of about 5 men of mostly Middle Eastern descent about 10 years ago. There was a police task force set up to investigate that but it came to nothing. Then nothing happened until around 5 more people disappeared this year: most of them in much more suspicious circumstances than the first set. For example one guy just vanished without feeding or taking along his cat.

I think there's probably something to it but that there's at least 2, or maybe even 3, sets of people involved. The two women's bodies were just left were they were presumably killed so those look like targets of opportunity. The rest would seem to be well planned and executed crimes in as much as there are no bodies. Hiding the bodies is incredibly difficult and you can't just luck out and hide three of them without a trace. Still, the 10 year gap and the close ethnic grouping of the first set would hint at someone different than any serial killer of today.

There's a new task force on this one and I'm somewhat optimistic that they'll get at least nearer to the bottom of this set. The CID detectives in it are always several levels above the uniformed cops (who, contrary to popular belief, probably aren't any better at investigations than you or I) and since there's now two definite murders they can call upon the resources of the Homicide Squad - which is traditionally the most elite unit. Toronto's Homicide Squad was once of legendary acumen but all those people have probably long since retired. One hopes that some sort of tradition of excellence has survived. There's also the much greater electronic footprint than in the first set in this age of smart phones.

It's all very frustrating in that, of course, the cops can't talk about exactly how far they're getting or not getting in an ongoing investigation. I hope everyone is being more careful in that neighbourhood and that at least some neighourhood watch is being set up. Since there is probably some connection to anonymous sexual encounters I'd suggest people get in the habit of tweeting their locations to random character hashtags with letters left in safe, yet findable, locations of the form "If I disappear my last location would have been tweeted to #2l?wwbZ."

Re: Crime

[moon_custafer]

Yeah, the guy who vanished, leaving behind his cat, was the first disappearance I heard of, and then people discussing it brought up all the others.