Mahaffy woke up that morning, Leslie wasn’t there. She’d done this kind of thing before, crashing at friends’ houses, so Debbie wasn’t overly concerned until Leslie didn’t turn up at Chris Evans’s funeral. That was totally out of keeping. Leslie would have made sure to be there. At 4:30 and panic-stricken, Debbie Mahaffy called the Halton police and reported her daughter missing. In the next several days, Leslie’s family and friends put up more than five hundred missing person posters throughout Burlington and the Halton area, hoping for any lead or word on her.
On June 29, 1991, two weeks to the day after she was reported missing, Leslie’s dismembered body was discovered encased in several blocks of concrete in the shallow waters of nearby Lake Gibson. Autopsy reports indicated a brutal sexual attack.
Every parent I’ve ever encountered whose child has become the victim of a violent crime goes through a harrowing and punishing personal inquisition, agonizing over whether he or she could have done anything to prevent what happened. Debbie Mahaffy was no exception. As soon as Leslie disappeared she was plagued by thoughts that if she hadn’t locked her out that night, her daughter would still be with her.
Before Leslie’s parents even had the opportunity to bury their daughter, another local girl, Nina DeVilliers, was discovered murdered. There was no clear-cut connection but two violent deaths of young girls in the same area seemed like more than coincidence. The previous November, Terri Anderson, another fifteen-year-old who was a good student and cheerleader at Lakeport High School, next to Holy Cross, had disappeared around 2:00 A.M. from her home on Linwell Road after returning from a party where she reportedly took LSD for the first time.
These, then, were the fears as days dragged on into weeks and Kristen French had still not been heard from. Police put out an all-points bulletin for the cream-colored Camaro.Before the investigation had taken its course, billboards throughout Ottawa would picture the type of car police were looking for together with a toll-free number to call and as each cream-colored Camaro or similar-looking car was noticed, an officer would question the driver and place a sticker on the windshield to register it.
But on the morning of Thursday, April 30, 1992, two weeks to the day since Kristen disappeared, a forty-nineyear-old scrap metal dealer named Roger Boyer was horrified to come upon a naked body amidst the underbrush by the side of a road while foraging for abandoned farm equipment to salvage. The corpse was folded into the fetal position, as if asleep. The black hair was cut short like a boy’s, but from what he could see of the shape of the body and the small size of the hands and feet, Boyer thought it was probably a woman or girl.
As it happened, the site was only separated by a narrow greenbelt from Halton Hills Memorial Gardens in Burlington, the cemetery where Leslie Mahaffy was buried.
Police responded immediately to Boyer’s call and cordoned off the area. It wasn’t long, however, until the media got wind of the discovery. Speculation as to its significance was rampant and pointed. It was left to Halton Detective Leonard Shaw to confirm everyone’s worst fears. As the result of a childhood accident, Kristen was missing the tip of the little finger of her left hand. As soon as Shaw lifted the corpse’s left hand, he saw an identical disfigurement.
The medical examiner’s report compounded the horror. The cause of death was ligature asphyxiation. Like Leslie Mahaffy, she had been beaten and sexually attacked. And the well-preserved state of the body suggested that Kristen had been alive until a few days ago, maybe even less than twenty-four hours ago, held captive for at least a week and a half by whoever did this to her.
More than four thousand mourners showed up for Kristen’s funeral on May 4 at St. Alfred’s Church in St. Catharines. So great
On June 29, 1991, two weeks to the day after she was reported missing, Leslie’s dismembered body was discovered encased in several blocks of concrete in the shallow waters of nearby Lake Gibson. Autopsy reports indicated a brutal sexual attack.
Every parent I’ve ever encountered whose child has become the victim of a violent crime goes through a harrowing and punishing personal inquisition, agonizing over whether he or she could have done anything to prevent what happened. Debbie Mahaffy was no exception. As soon as Leslie disappeared she was plagued by thoughts that if she hadn’t locked her out that night, her daughter would still be with her.
Before Leslie’s parents even had the opportunity to bury their daughter, another local girl, Nina DeVilliers, was discovered murdered. There was no clear-cut connection but two violent deaths of young girls in the same area seemed like more than coincidence. The previous November, Terri Anderson, another fifteen-year-old who was a good student and cheerleader at Lakeport High School, next to Holy Cross, had disappeared around 2:00 A.M. from her home on Linwell Road after returning from a party where she reportedly took LSD for the first time.
These, then, were the fears as days dragged on into weeks and Kristen French had still not been heard from. Police put out an all-points bulletin for the cream-colored Camaro.Before the investigation had taken its course, billboards throughout Ottawa would picture the type of car police were looking for together with a toll-free number to call and as each cream-colored Camaro or similar-looking car was noticed, an officer would question the driver and place a sticker on the windshield to register it.
But on the morning of Thursday, April 30, 1992, two weeks to the day since Kristen disappeared, a forty-nineyear-old scrap metal dealer named Roger Boyer was horrified to come upon a naked body amidst the underbrush by the side of a road while foraging for abandoned farm equipment to salvage. The corpse was folded into the fetal position, as if asleep. The black hair was cut short like a boy’s, but from what he could see of the shape of the body and the small size of the hands and feet, Boyer thought it was probably a woman or girl.
As it happened, the site was only separated by a narrow greenbelt from Halton Hills Memorial Gardens in Burlington, the cemetery where Leslie Mahaffy was buried.
Police responded immediately to Boyer’s call and cordoned off the area. It wasn’t long, however, until the media got wind of the discovery. Speculation as to its significance was rampant and pointed. It was left to Halton Detective Leonard Shaw to confirm everyone’s worst fears. As the result of a childhood accident, Kristen was missing the tip of the little finger of her left hand. As soon as Shaw lifted the corpse’s left hand, he saw an identical disfigurement.
The medical examiner’s report compounded the horror. The cause of death was ligature asphyxiation. Like Leslie Mahaffy, she had been beaten and sexually attacked. And the well-preserved state of the body suggested that Kristen had been alive until a few days ago, maybe even less than twenty-four hours ago, held captive for at least a week and a half by whoever did this to her.
More than four thousand mourners showed up for Kristen’s funeral on May 4 at St. Alfred’s Church in St. Catharines. So great
Similar Books
