From an Etobicoke pony farmer to an undercover cop: What the GTA’s biggest cold cases say about the changing science of murder

Their ranks include a prolific Mafia hitman, an undercover cop and a shy Etobicoke senior who offered Shetland pony rides to schoolchildren on Saturday afternoons. One of them was found entombed in concrete under an auto dealership on the Danforth. Others have shown up in the waters of Lake Ontario by a popular site for weddings.

They're GTA homicide victims whose cases have not been solved over the years. These cold cases are detailed in a new series by The Star's organized crime beat reporter Peter Edwards called Toronto Unsolved.

Statistically, Canadian police do quite well solving homicides, although that's scant comfort to the families and loved ones of victims whose deaths have not been solved.

Toronto police report that 80 per cent of homicide cases since 1921 have been cleared.

That's far better than in some other countries such as Mexico, where, academic and author Luis Horacio Najera notes, only two out of 10 crimes are believed to be reported to authorities, with less than one per cent of cases making it through the courts.

Solving society's worst crimes - such as murder, sexual abuse and kidnapping - is vital to maintaining faith in society, Najera says.

If a government is incapable or unwilling to solve such hideous crimes, the possibility of community development and social well-being are extremely hard to achieve," Najera says, adding things are worst when legal zeal is blunted by corruption.

Paul Beesley, a retired OPP chief superintendent, said forensic knowledge, equipment and officer training are constantly advancing, which helps solve old cases.

Now they're so highly trained," Beesley said of investigators. They're technicians."

He investigated one of the world's largest biker massacres when eight bikers and their associates were shot to death in the spring of 2006 at the southwestern Ontario farm of Bandido biker gang member Wayne (Weiner) Kellestine.

Beesley noted that a team of four forensics officers spent two months combing the farm for clues.

That helped lead to first-degree murder convictions against six men, including Kellestine.

Homicide scenes in Canada are so meticulously examined," Beesley said.

Developments in DNA testing also helped police recently solve the murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop, who was killed in Queensville in October 1984.

A process known as genetic genealogy" was used to identify her killer as Calvin Hoover of Toronto. He was 28 at the time of the murder and dead in 2015 when the testing was revealed.

There are plenty of reasons why some notorious cases are never solved.

Sometimes, dumb people have dumb luck, thwarting smart people and smart science.

Even detective Adolphus J. (Dolph) Payne, Toronto's answer to Sherlock Holmes, didn't solve all his cases.

Payne was creative as well as smart and patient. In 1952, he famously dressed as a missionary to nab Edwin Alonzo Boyd, a bank-robber whose gang killed a Toronto detective and wounded another, then busted out of Toronto's notorious Don Jail.

Payne didn't believe there were many criminal masterminds, often saying: Most robbers are dumb clucks."

That said, Payne was still unable to solve Etobicoke's coldest cold case, the 1960 sniper murder of Elgin Cullen, a 62-year-old who ran Shetland pony rides for kids.

Some of the GTA's unsolved murders are professional jobs.

Sometimes, they are killed by other killers before police can nab them.

Salvatore (Sam) Calautti was a gambler and restaurateur who was believed to have run up a toll of five victims before he and a friend were murdered outside a stag in Vaughan in 2013.

There's a good chance whoever killed gang leader Asau Tran at Pot of Gold karaoke bar in 1991 at Dundas West and Beverley Street has met a similar fate.

Sometimes, unsolved homicides point to the need for police to improve contacts in various communities or to broaden their thinking.

Serial killer Bruce McArthur preyed upon members of Toronto's Gay Village for years. He was 67 years old when he was finally convicted in February 2019 of murdering eight men between 2010 and 2017.

His advanced age put him outside the norm for serial killers, who are believed to usually stop or slow down as their testosterone drops in later years.

McArthur was eventually brought to justice after an exhaustive forensic investigation, aided by a note on a victim's fridge calendar, with the single word, Bruce."

Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him by email at pedwards@thestar.ca