It was on Sunday afternoon that Colonel Russell Williams, a decorated pilot who has delivered prime ministers and soldiers to remote locales around the world, agreed to sit down with a behavioural science expert from the Ontario Provincial Police.
What has happened since that interview has shaken the Canadian Forces, and the citizens of three small towns in Eastern Ontario: Police charged Col. Williams, the commander of Canada's largest Air Force base, with the murder of two women, and assaults on two others.
And as quickly as the charges were laid against Col. Williams – he became the prime suspect in a string of unexplained attacks on women only five days ago – the detectives’ net is widening even faster. Investigators are examining crime-scene evidence from several Eastern Ontario cities and additional charges are anticipated, sources familiar with the investigation said late last night. One officer close to the case said: “This may be all, but we suspect – a guy just doesn’t start doing murders out of the blue.”
Since September, detectives in three different communities near CFB Trenton have been searching for clues in what, on its face, appeared to be three separate incidents. In September, over a span of two weeks on a quiet lakeside road in the village of Tweed, two women living just a short walk from each other were tied up in the middle of the night and photographed by an unknown assailant.
Murder victims Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau
Two months later, 78 kilometres west, in the town of Brighton, the boyfriend of CFB Trenton's Corporal Marie-France Comeau discovered his girlfriend dead in her home, the victim of what was quickly deemed a homicide.
Little more than a week ago, a Belleville woman, 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd, was reported missing when she failed to show up for her shift with Tri-Board Student Transportation in the town of Napanee.
Police found her body Monday morning.
In each community, the attacks had their distinct unnerving effects. “Girls my age are terrified,” said Erin Fisher, 28, of Belleville. At the Fare and Fowl Pub on Tweed's main drag, the patrons dubbed the mysterious attacker “The Creeper.”
Larry Jones, a resident of Tweed's Cosy Cove Lane, where the two assaults took place, said his friends stopped speaking to him after he was hauled in for repeated police interviews.
Five days ago, police got their break during roadside stops on a rural highway.
Something – police won't say what – pointed at Col. Williams, the seasoned pilot who took command of CFB Trenton about six months ago.
One police source called it “luck of the draw. Just old-fashioned police work. He lived in the area, and there were some things seen, vehicles seen that matched his, and they started looking at cases, linked the three of them, and just went from there.”
The roadside discovery prompted police to sweep out across the province.
By Sunday, OPP officers with search warrants were combing through Col. Williams's cottage-like home on Cosy Cove Lane, and the residence he shares with his wife in the upscale Ottawa neighbourhood of Westboro.
It has been less than two months since the couple moved into the newly developed, $700,000 home on Edison Avenue. Col. Williams's wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, is the associate director of Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation.
“She is taking extended leave to focus on family matters,” a spokeswoman for the charity said on Monday. “And we continue to support her.”
The day the searches commenced, Col. Williams had his police interrogation.
Investigators are saying nothing about what was discussed during those few hours.
But while police are pushing their probe forward, the residents of Trenton are trying to come to grips with the allegations against Col. Williams, a man that many of them have met.
“We all look up to the soldiers. This really is scary. It would be like finding out the mayor was killing girls,” said Chantal Jouan, 17.
In an interview with The Kingston Whig-Standard, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk said: “This is a tough day for anyone in uniform.”
