Richard (Dickie) Hovey, Unidentified Murder Victim,1968,Toronto ( Yorkville), Your Help Needed,

A young man whose remains were found in a rural area north of Toronto nearly 40 years ago has been identified as Richard "Dickie" Hovey of Fredericton.

Police say Hovey, who moved to Toronto in 1966 or 1967, was a musician in the city's trendy Yorkville neighbourhood before he vanished in the late spring or early summer of 1967.

His body was found in a rural area near Schomberg, Ont., northwest of Toronto, in 1968, but never identified. He was approximately 17 years old at the time of his death.

"He was a nice kid with a voracious appetite for playing guitar, and he was good at it," said a Fredericton man Tuesday who asked not to be named.

He said the two met in a friend's basement more than 40 years ago and remembered playing music with Hovey.

"He was a great guitar player," he said. "Though he didn't get to have much of a career.

"Everyone who knew him is saddened"Â‰"..."Â‰We used to wonder what happened to him."

Provincial police were able to identify Hovey through tips that followed the release of facial reconstruction images last month.

"We had two separate tips, two totally unrelated persons, one being a family member and one being a friend of Hovey's," he said during a news conference.

Quigley said the pair noticed a similarity between Hovey and the facial reconstruction and contacted police independent of each other.

As a result of the tips, pathologists with the Centre of Forensic Sciences were able to make an identification using DNA samples provided by members of Hovey's family.

"We are very relieved to be able to bring our brother home after years of anguish," it read. "We loved him dearly. We wish to thank the Ontario Provincial Police for their hard work and thoughtfulness."

Quigley said he spoke with Hovey's relatives in New Brunswick and that they couldn't decide whether to accept the news as good or bad.

"It's wonderful for them to at least resolve what's happened to their brother, but of course, it's very sad and tragic at the same time," he said. "There's a lot of mixed emotions about that."

Quigley said identifying the body as Hovey is only part of the process and that finding out how and why he died is the next step.

"We're appealing to the public again for help in tracing the activities of Hovey during his time in Toronto," he said.

Quigley said police also need help identifying a second murder victim, whose remains were found in Balsam Lake Provincial Park near Coboconk, Ont., in 1967.

"Investigators continue to follow up on tips (and) numerous witnesses have been interviewed," said Quigley, in reference to the ongoing probe into that cold case.

[GMMAC Please Post this to the Canada Ping List. This kid was my next door neighbor, and we might be able to help catch the killer, after all these years.]

Anyone with information can contact the OPP via e-mail or phone as follows at:

1-877-9FIND ME (1-877-934-6363) Toll Free in North America

opp.isb.resolve@jus.gov.on.ca [atten. Insp. David Quigley]

(705) 330-4144 for local or outside of North America

A nearly 40-year-old mystery involving unidentified human remains has been solved, much to the surprise of those who knew the young man who disappeared and was murdered so many years ago. Ontario police say the remains found in a rural area northwest of Toronto in 1968 were those of Fredericton native Richard (Dickie) Hovey.

I like to think this family was reunited in heaven.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thank you for your kind words. This boy lived RIGHT next door to me. We fished together, climbed trees and ran in the same Junior High crowd. Then he went his own way, living a very rough life.

I, like you , hope that he asked for the Lord's Salvation before he breathed his last. Its never too late. Dickie and I went to a lot of Sunday School classes together as boys. I like to think the same way you do.

Suspect in decades-old Ont. murders a career criminal Chris Wattie, CanWest News Service; National Post
Published: Friday, November 17, 2006

Released from prison in 1978 on the attempted murder conviction, Henry changed his name to James Gordon Henry and moved to Vancouver.

In 1981, a passing motorist stopped to help a bloodied, naked woman lying on the side of the Squamish Highway, north of Vancouver. Elizabeth Fells, 24, was bleeding from six stab wounds, including an attempt to slash her throat and told police she was raped and left for dead.

Fells managed to crawl to the roadside for help but died in hospital a few days later. Her statement, however, helped police identify her attacker and Henry was arrested and charged with murder.

A jury convicted Henry in 1982 and during his sentencing, B.C. Supreme Court Justice George Murray called him brutal, callous and appalling, and said the attack on his victim was committed ''to satisfy your perverted sexual desires.''

The judge said he was also shocked that Henry had been released on parole ''to an unsuspecting public'' after his 1967 convictions.

Quigley said the publicity surrounding the re-opened case has already resulted in dozens of tips and detectives are hopeful that one will lead them to identify one or both of the victims.

Police have offered $50,000 for any information leading to the two men's killer.

National Post

SIDEBAR:TIMELINE:

1955 - James Henry Greenidge, then 18, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for rape, an attack on a 14-year-old girl whom he dragged into an alley as she walked home with a bag of groceries. He choked the girl as he assaulted her and Justice Dalton Wells told him during sentencing: ''You are very fortunate you are not charged with murder.''

1960 - paroled on the rape conviction.

1962 - convicted of assault causing bodily harm and sentenced to six months in jail.

1965 - convicted of a second assault causing bodily harm and sentenced again to six months in jail.

1968 - sentenced to 17 years in prison for manslaughter and attempted murder in two separate attacks on young men he had picked up in Toronto's gay village.

1978 - released on parole. Changes his name to James Gordon Henry and moves to Western Canada.

1981 - Henry picks up Elizabeth Fells, 24, in Vancouver and drives her to a remote woods before raping her and slashing her throat. Fells crawls to a nearby highway and survives long enough to identify her attacker. She later dies in hospital of multiple stab wounds.

1982 - convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole for 25 years.

June 2006 - Henry, now 69, is eligible for parole. The National Parole Board turns down his application for both full and day parole.

May 2008 - Henry is eligible to re-apply for parole.

Today Yorkville is trendy and pricey.

Then it was a major attraction for young people from all across Canada, especially young people with any musical ability. It and Rochville College were the two major Canadian illegal drug hot spots.

In the eyes of the police and the two Toronto Children's Aid Societies, Yorkville was an attractive nuisance and a major pain in the neck, especially the work involved in keeping the runaway minors out and returning the ones that got caught to their home municipalities' child welfare authorities.

But there may be some hope for someone to know something and possibly for something useful to have been recorded. Because of the drugs, Yorkville was crawling with undercover Horsemen.

Thanks Clive. You know, this is perhaps just about the saddest day I have had in a long time. This young man and I were innocents together. The world can be such a cruel place for those not prpepared for survival in its jungles.

Despite all of today's glitz, Yorkville was then a pit of suffering. Young people hoping for a break and then forced to turn tricks to buy drugs to feed a habit they did not foresee, just a month from their arrival there with glitter and hope in their youthful eyes, destroyed themselves, became prematurely aged, or mental and emotional defectives.Others dipped in just for a little thrill. There was, after all, nothing nuch more than a mutual feeding frenzy, continued today commercially.

Some were smart, gave up and returned home. A very few , (and I know of one friend), made it out to become professional musicians.And then others died of an OD, or later of AIDS, or simply disappeared.

Maybe we will luck out and find the geriatric killer of Dickie Hovey, may G_D rest his soul.

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