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Nicole Morin. Sharin Morningstar Keenan. Allison Parrot. Tracey Bruley. Emmanuel Jacques. Christine Jessup. Farah Khan.
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Tear-stained names from the past continue to haunt this city’s present. Children murdered by monsters.
The decades of the 1970s and 1980s were the years of urban panic when, at times, our kids did not seem safe in what had once been Toronto the Good. A photo of Keenan’s killer, a loser named Dennis Melvin Howe, causes revulsion to this day.
That chilling specter returned on May 2, 2022, around 4:46 pm, when cops arrived at an empty home at the Castle Frank Rd. and Dale Ave. area in Rosedale. Inside a dumpster in one of the richest neighborhoods in this country, officers found the body of a little girl.
On Tuesday, Toronto Police released composite photos of the child — and photos of a vehicle of interest as part of the human investigation remains.
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Cops do not know who their tiny Jane Doe is. Tips, I’m told, have been sparse and so far, nothing has clicked.
Toronto Police Homicide Insp. Hank Idsinga told reporters that school board officials are scouring their records to see if there’s a match.
“The school boards are doing their diligent work … but the child might have been too young for school or was never in the school system,” the veteran detective said.
Idsinga said that it didn’t appear that the house — which has undergone renovations for years — where the Rosedale Jane Doe was discovered has any connection to the girl’s death.
A police source earlier told The Toronto Sun that the child’s remains were in a bad state because of the length of time she had been dead. Idsinga said that he believes the composite sketch released on Tuesday is a “very good likeness” of what the child looked like in life.
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The child is between the age of four and seven, she is black of African or mixed African descent, stands about 3-foot-6, and was thin with black, curly hair sectioned into four short ponytails. Two of them had been braided and secured with black and blue elastic bands. She has all her teeth from her.
But so far, her cause of death has not been determined.
But the involvement of the Toronto Police homicide unit should tell you everything you need to know. The child has probably never been reported missing, Idsinga added.
“There is no evidence which links any of the 58 missing children to our case. And in fact, since May 2, eight of the 58 have now been accounted for. Unfortunately, we believe that it is unlikely that the child located on Dale Ave. has ever been reported missing,” Idsinga told reporters.
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Cops suspect the child’s remains were dumped in Rosedale sometime between April 28, at noon, and May 2, at 4:45 pm Detectives believe the little one could have died last summer or fall, or maybe earlier.
So far, investigators don’t have much to go on. Photos of two items of clothing linked to where the tiny Jane Doe was so cruelly abandoned have also been released, and it’s hoped this points cops to her identity of her — and the heartless suspects who dumped her.
Detectives have also identified a vehicle that may have been involved. It is described as a dark colored Porsche Cayenne SUV, model year 2011 – 2014.
It’s worth noting that within minutes of Tuesday’s press conference, cops were getting tips, sources said. Good ones.
With a nearly daily bombardment of murder and mayhem, it is understandable how something could fall between the cracks in the public psyche, the media and everyone else.
But when the victim is a child, everyone sits up and takes notice. Then, they mutter a silent prayer whispering “but for the grace of God…”
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-5300, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or at www.222tips.com.
@HunterTOSun
