The Summer of Death may be a more appropriate nickname for Toronto 1967.
It certainly was for three young men -- and almost a fourth -- during that summer's teen revolution in Yorkville known as the Summer of Love.
And there is a man serving a life sentence in a British Columbia prison who may know who is responsible for these heinous crimes.
One thing for sure, with convicted killer James Henry Greenidge comes decades of death -- murder, attempted murder and rape to be precise.
His rap sheet, with a sadistic death count, has police wondering what else may be on the list.
Similarities
The sickening crime file of the serial killer shows violence from 1955 to 1981, when he was finally put away for "life" for a vicious murder of a 24-year-old woman in Vancouver.
His victim roll call: Robert W . Mortimore, 17. Dead. Elizabeth Fells, 24. Dead. William
Howell, 2 1. Left for dead. In every case the victims were tied, stripped, raped, slashed, stabbed and left in rural areas. Now the OPP is trying to determine whether unidentified men found in fields in 1967 may be linked. Thanks to some innovative detective work and a reconstruction of faces, police have been able to ID Richard Hovey, 17, a musician from New Brunswick, as one and are waiting on D N A to see if they can determine the other.
Their circumstances are eerily similar, although police have not indicated Greenidge, who now goes by James Gordon Henry, is a suspect. But the name Greenidge has been on the tongues of cops for a long time.
As he stood over Mortimore's rotting corpse " riddled with maggots" in 1967, one word popped into the mind of
one of Toronto's most famous homicide detectives about the method used to slay him.
"Brutal," said Jim Crawford.
And the legendary cop, who Frank Barbetta called "Mr. Homicide, " would know since he investigated 300 murders during his 3 9 years on Toronto Police. He's 76 now and retired -- but not in his opinion of M r. Greenidge.
His recommendation is to never let him out of prison.
"This murder in the field made me sit up and take notice, " he said. "When it came to Greenidge, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up for his propensity for violence. "
He doubts he has changed. "I have warned of these kinds of people before," he said.
Easier to collect Greenidge's prey seemed to be young people of both sexes, which during that time of hitchhiking, sex , drugs and rock 'n' roll made it easier to collect vulnerable victims.
The stories of Mortimore and Howell are chilling and may give some hints into other potential victims.
Innuendo and some press reports mention a seedy, homosexual underworld back then, but O PP Det.-Insp. Dave Quigley says so far there's no evidence the victims were involved in that or in prostitution or hustling.
Nothing is ruled out but cops do know Mortimore had come from Sarnia, was working as a messenger and had been hanging around with a 16-yearold girl when he vanished.
In the Telegram his father, Harry, in Sarnia said: "He seemed quite happy living in Toronto, according to his letters ... The last letter said he was planning to marry a girl here, but it didn't give her name, nor the wedding date. "
That girl was Barbara Bird of Kelowna, B.C., who told the Tely's Nicol Kingsmill that while police told her he was " homosexual" she had not ever considered that.
"He wanted to come home to someone he loved. He was sincere and he was lonely," she said.
He's not alive to tell us and Greenidge, sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter, has not spoken. As for Howell, whose attempted murder landed Greenidge a seven-year sentence -- his survival was as horrifying an experience as his attack.
Even after being stabbed and slashed and left for dead, he managed to walk for a mile before collapsing. A farmer located him "lying in the nude" in a field and called for help. He was taken to Barrie's Victoria Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to save his life.
A Telegram story indicated his wife was down east and unavailable. The story stated Howell gave police a description of his attacker before "slipping into a coma. " If not for that, Greenidge may have gotten away with both crimes. Sake of his courage It's unknown if Howell is still out there somewhere but for the sake of his courage, and in the memory of Robert Wayne Mortimore, Elizabeth Fells and all other victims, James Henry Greenidge should be permitted no more opportunities to create Seasons of Murder.
This callous creature should be given a lifetime of prison.
joe.warmington@tor.sunpub.com
