The Toronto Police professional standards unit is looking into how officers handled the case of a young woman who was found dead in an alleyway by her mother last week.
Tess Richey, 22, was last seen near Church and Wellesley streets at around 3 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 25. Her sisters reported her missing later that day.
Police issued a press release the following day that said “it is believed that Tess Richey was in the company of an unknown male when her friend departed the area.”
“She would have been in the company of this male on Church Street, in the areas of Wellesley Street and Dundonald Street, between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.,” police added in the release.
Richey’s body was found three days later in the alleyway behind a building under renovation at Church and Dundonald streets -- mere metres from where police had said she was last seen.
It was only after an autopsy revealed the cause of death as neck compression that police announced on Friday that homicide investigators were taking over the case.
Richey’s family told CTV Toronto that it was her own mother who discovered the body.
William Ayers, owner of a dog training and boarding business next to where the body was found, says he was working with a client on Wednesday afternoon when he heard women screaming.
“Two females were screaming out in the street saying, ‘There’s a body out in the alleyway,’” he said. Ayers says he went outside and saw a body at the bottom of a set of short stairs.
Ayers says he gathered from how the women were acting that they were probably family. Police and ambulances soon arrived, he said.
Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash said Monday that there are “questions” surrounding how the investigation into the disappearance “was initially carried out.”
“There were some concerns and we felt that it was appropriate to look into it further, to see exactly what happened, to see where there was anything that could have been done different,” Pugash added.
Richey’s friend Veronica Sanchez says she missed a phone call at around 1:30 a.m. on the Saturday that Richey was reported missing. Sanchez described her friend as a “hilarious, ridiculous person with the biggest heart in the entire world.”
The Church-Wellesley community, home to Toronto’s gay village, has been on edge this year after two men, Selim Esen, 44, and Andrew Kinsman, 49, disappeared weeks apart.
Police have described the “unknown male” last seen with Richey as white and approximately 5’7” to 6’ tall, with a slim build and short, light-coloured hair.
With files from CTV Toronto’s Tracy Tong, CP24 and The Canadian Press
