Hamilton man charged in 2006 Toronto cold case murder

Toronto police have charged a 43-year-old Hamilton man in connection with the murder of Patrick Santos in a nearly 20-year-old cold case.

On Sept. 17, 2006 at around 7:30 a.m., police responded to a call at a home in the area of Ellesmere and Bellamy roads.

Officers found a man lying on the ground with obvious signs of trauma — he was tied up, beaten and tortured before he suffocated to death.

“They abducted him, they zip-tied his hands and his feet, and then they taped his entire head with duct tape,” said Det. Sgt. Stephen Smith of the Homicide and Missing Persons Unit – Cold Case Section.

Investigators identified the victim as Patrick Santos, 21, of Toronto in the city’s 49th homicide of that year.

“Patrick was a young man. He had a job, a future ahead of him, and plans to move into his own place with his girlfriend,” said Smith.

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“While nothing will ever bring Patrick back to his family, today we can say that the person alleged to be responsible for taking his life has been identified, arrested and will now have to answer for this crime before the courts.”

Since then, the Toronto Police Homicide and Missing Persons Unit, Cold Case Section, has been actively investigating this case.

While investigators developed a DNA profile from the scene, it didn’t match anyone in the National DNA databank, leaving them without a suspect at the time but opening further investigative leads.

Last year, detectives from the cold case unit were able to identify a person of interest.

Police say DNA was collected from the suspect and confirmed a match to the DNA evidence left at the scene of the homicide in 2006.

“It brought us to a place where cases we had thought were completely unsolvable are now solvable,” said Smith.

“So what they’re trying to do is they’re taking this profile from the crime scene and comparing it to these databases to see, is there anyone that might be related?,” said Steen Hartsen, a forensic analyst with British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) Forensic DNA Lab.

Hartsen says police can run evidence through two privately run DNA databases to try and find a relative of a potential suspect.

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The DNA profiles in the databases come from people who consented to law enforcement using them, and if a match to even a distant relative is found, a genealogist can potentially track down the alleged criminal.

“Kinda like putting a puzzle together where you’re looking at this big family tree and you’re trying to figure out where everyone fits,” said Hartsen.

Hartsen, who works with law enforcement on cases like this in the forensic lab at BCIT, says Canadian law enforcement is being careful, as it embraces investigative genetic genealogy, because of the privacy implications.

“If you do all this work and you get your guy, and the courts say ‘now you’ve violated their charter’ in some way, then you’ve wasted their time,” said Hartsen, who expects the method to become widely used.

“It’s so much more of a powerful tool than any other type of forensic DNA that exists,” said Hartsen. “This allows us to find suspects where we don’t have any other data.”

Toronto police say it took five years, from the time they began the DNA search with the American firm Othram, until they identified a person of interest.

On Wednesday, Pierre O’Connor of Hamilton was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

O’Connor was scheduled to appear in court at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre.

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Investigators believe that more than one person may have been involved in this homicide.

“We believe that there was possibly more than one person there in order to take physical control of him, and not let him alert anyone else he was being abducted,” said Smith.

Police say they don’t know why Santos was killed, but they have previously said he was involved in an unsophisticated debit-card scheme.

“We believe there was a dispute between two different people or two different groups, not gangs but just groups of friends,” said Smith.

While investigators have not established the relationship between them, officers say the O’Connor is responsible for Santos’ death.

None of the allegations against O’Connor have been tested in court.

Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators at 416-808-7400.

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