Mother felt 'pulled' to spot where she found her daughter dead

The mother of a Toronto woman murdered in a busy area of the city says she felt “pulled” to the spot where she herself eventually found her daughter’s lifeless body.

Tess Richey was killed some time after she left a nightclub in the early hours of Nov. 25, 2017.

Her sisters reported her missing the next morning but it took four days for her body to be found, just a couple of blocks from where she was last seen. In the end it was not police who found Richey’s body, but her mother, Christine Hermeston, who had joined in the search.

Police have said Richey was strangled and died of “neck compression.” They are investigating her death as a homicide.

Hermeston eventually found Richey’s body outside a construction site. She told CTV Toronto that “something pulled” her to the spot where she found her daughter.

“There was just something very eerie about that construction site – it was drawing me,” she said on Thursday. “I just think if I were to follow my gut instinct I would have found her sooner.”

“We started opening up trashcans and stuff, and sadly enough, in the stairwell she was found. It looked like a graveyard, like a grave plot, very narrow. I can’t imagine the nightmare that she lived.”

Hermeston said, when she found her, she was still hoping her daughter was alive.

“I know I’m told I did the right thing by not contaminating the crime scene, but really, I wish I would have just grabbed her and held her tight,” she said. “I just wanted to get an ambulance there quickly in case she was just unconscious.”

Holding back tears, Hermeston said “there is no greater loss” than losing Richey – the youngest of her five daughters.

“Of course I love all my children, but I’m just saying that she was my baby,” she said. “They (her sisters) knew she was my favourite and they had no problem. She was their favourite too.”

Tess’s sister Rachel Richey said there were eight years between them, but they were still close.

“I helped babysit her. I took care of her when she was little,” she said.

“…I lost my baby sister, I lost my best friend and I lost my soulmate.”

Rachel Richey said their last day together was “perfect.”

“We sang, we ate, we played games, we joked, we talked,” she said. “It was a beautiful, beautiful afternoon. I’m very lucky.”

In December, police released security camera images of a man who they believe could be connected to Richey’s death.

Hermeston said she has been sharing the photos every day on Facebook since police released the photos.

“Every time I look at him, I keep thinking, ‘I’ve seen this man before’,” she said. “I call him a man but he’s not. That’s just loosely termed. But, it’s true, I look at him and I think I’ve seen him before somewhere. I keep going through my time here in Toronto with Tess and I met some of her friends but I just can’t pinpoint him.”

Rachel Richey says many people have been coming together to try to identify the man.

“Someone out there has to know him,” she said. “We’ve tirelessly posted all over social media and we’re still doing it, we’re still in the process of promoting any kind of posts, just trying to continue to circulate his image, because someone has to recognize him.”

With files from CTV Toronto's Tracy Tong