the bodies were found, armed with metal detectors and original crime scene photos. The hedgerow near the farmer’s field had grown over in the decades since the first body was discovered, but it was recognizable, and looked about the same way it did back in the sixties — still isolated, and not a place likely to attract much attention.
The Ontario Provincial Police soon presented details of the crimes to the media, along with the faces of the deceased victims. Using the actual skulls, a forensic artist carefully placed tissue depth markers and layers of clay to reconstruct the faces, which were displayed at an OPP press conference in late 2006, almost forty years after the two sets of remains were found. The heads and neck were visible, and both wore simple white dress shirts, one with stripes, the other checks. The faces were young and boyish looking underneath brown wigs that sat atop the heads of both victims, their expressions wide-eyed and not quite human, almost frozen with terror.
A major crimes investigator and forensic artist with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, Master-Corporal Peter Thompson spent hour after hour applying clay to the skulls of the deceased, rebuilding the faces in the hope that someone could identify them and finally give them back their names. Thompson was known to the OPP for some time for his composite drawings, many of them based on witness descriptions of bank robbers and kidnappers. Although he was accustomed to creating sketches of criminal suspects this was the first time in his career that Thompson did three-dimensional reconstructions.2 Before he could begin working for the OPP, Thompson had to receive permission from his superiors at the Canadian Forces. Once the chain of command gave their approval, Thompson met with the OPP, who presented him with photographs of the skulls and old crime scene photos of the remains. These were essential to providing the artist with a sense of the tools he would require — and the many challenges he would face — recreating the faces of the dead.
“With three-dimensional reconstruction, skulls have to be in good condition, and be able to bear the weight of the clay,” said Thompson, who painstakingly examined, measured, sketched, photographed, and catalogued the remains from the moment he received them. If the skulls were damaged he likely would have created a drawing instead, a two-dimensional reconstruction of the faces. Fortunately, the remains were stable enough to tolerate handling and the application of depth markers and clay.
Thompson was thoroughly prepared to recreate the faces of the two dead boys. He is quick to credit the forensic techniques taught to him by two of his key instructors when he was learning his craft at “the Academy,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Quantico, Virginia. A fast learner, Thompson was fortunate enough to study under artists widely considered legends in the field of forensics: Betty Pat Gatliff and Karen T. Taylor. Gatliff, a retired medical illustrator, teaches forensic art workshops on facial reconstruction using actual human skulls, and operates her own studio, Skullpture Lab, in Norman, Oklahoma. Among her many credits, Gatliff did clay reconstructions of some of the decomposed victims of John Wayne Gacy, one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Her work allowed a number of families to give their dead sons proper burials.
Taylor’s background is no less impressive than that of her fellow instructor. Credited with coining the term “forensic art” in the 1980s, her qualifications include working as a portrait sculptor at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, and as an instructor at the FBI Academy for over twenty years. The classes Peter Thompson took with Taylor and Gatliff were his only formal art instruction, and he said his natural ability to draw came from his father.
(Master Corporal Peter Thompson, Canadian Forces National Investigation Service)
Forensic facial reconstructions of two young men who were recognized years later as Eric Jones (left) and Richard “Dickie” Hovey. The actual skulls are beneath the layers of clay.
The forensic reconstruction process, said Thompson, is a cooperative one between the police, the coroner’s office, and the artist. Meeting with the coroner in Toronto where the skeletal remains of both young men were housed, Thompson performed intensive assessments on the bodies. Although he had the training to identify bones as being male or female, an anthropologist measured the bones as they lay on a table, and compared the measurements to photos taken in the sixties.
Remaining true to his FBI training, Thompson avoided putting any “ego” into his work. He omitted any details or embellishments that could mislead anyone viewing the completed reconstructions, keeping them as simple as possible. Before applying any clay to the skulls he did a detailed preliminary examination, noticing both victims had an overbite of the bottom teeth. This detail was crucial, and the faces were deliberately created with the mouths slightly open, “So that people who would view the reconstructions would be able to see the teeth, and perhaps that would trigger some recognition.” Once the faces were completed the two victims looked like brothers, young men united in death.
(Master Corporal Peter Thompson, Canadian Forces National Investigation Service)
The skull of Richard “Dickie” Hovey with depth markers attached. His skeletal remains were found in an isolated area of Tecumseth Township near Schomberg, about twenty-five miles north of Toronto, on May 15, 1968.
After finishing his work, Thompson remembers hoping to God that someone would recognize the young men, and be able to give a name to the mysterious remains that sat shelved in boxes for almost forty years. His silent prayer was answered when a friend and a family member, independent of one another, viewed media coverage of the reconstructions and contacted the OPP. One of the clay-covered skull photographs seemed hauntingly familiar, resembling a long-lost relative and friend who left home for Toronto back in 1967. Members of the OPP travelled to New Brunswick and, after obtaining blood samples from family members, confirmed that one set of remains were those of Richard Hovey, the handsome young guitarist missing for almost forty years. A name could finally be placed to the “Schomberg” remains found in May 1968, just one day after what would have been Hovey’s eighteenth birthday.
Although the positive identification of the body provided some degree of consolation to Hovey’s family and the police, many questions remained unanswered. What was the identity of the other young male found in the desolate forest of Balsam Lake Provincial Park? How did these young men arrive at their final destinations? When were they killed, and how? What happened to Hovey and the other male during the last hours of their lives? Were there other known victims, living or dead? Most important of all: who killed them?
(Master Corporal Peter Thompson, Canadian Forces National Investigation Service)
A profile view of the skull of Richard “Dickie” Hovey with depth markers attached.
Although police will not confirm any specific suspect or suspects in the murders, it is known that young men were targeted by a serial sexual predator in the Church and Wellesley area of Toronto back in 1967. Just as Yorkville was a haven for musicians in the sixties, so was the downtown Church/Wellesley section the heart of the city’s growing gay village. Today, the area is an immensely popular tourist destination for gays, lesbians, the transgendered, drag queens, and the merely curious. Regarded as “the Gay Mecca of Canada,” the place was not nearly as open or friendly in the sixties. Back then, the area was frequented by young men who feared the police morality squad and gangs of gay bashing teenagers more than being picked up by an overly aggressive sexual partner. Yellowed, old newspapers of the time reveal articles about one man who frequented the area, and remains the most likely suspect in the murders.
Now in his early
