Murder charge withdrawn after conviction of Timothy Rees set aside in 1989 killing

Timothy Rees arrives at court in Toronto on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. Rees, who spent 23 years in prison for the murder of a 10-year-old girl in 1989, had his conviction set aside. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Prosecutors have withdrawn a second-degree murder charge against Timothy Rees, weeks after Ontario’s top court set aside his conviction in the 1989 killing of a 10-year-old girl.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario last month ordered a new trial for Rees, but it was up to the Crown to decide whether to proceed with one.

Prosecutors said Thursday that in light of the appeal ruling and the passage of time, it was no longer in the public interest to try the case.

Rees’s defence lawyer, James Lockyer, previously said he hoped prosecutors would use their discretion to agree to enter an acquittal.

Rees was found guilty in 1990 of second-degree murder in the killing of Darla Thurrott and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years.

He challenged his conviction but the appeal was dismissed in 1994, and the Supreme Court declined to hear his case.

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Rees was released on day parole in 2009 and later granted full parole.

More than 20 years after his conviction, the federal justice minister referred Rees’s case back to the Appeal Court following the identification of new information that the court had not heard in his trial or appeal.

The Appeal Court found there was a miscarriage of justice that warranted a new trial.

The new appeal turned on a recording of a conversation between an officer and the landlord of the building, which police had not disclosed.

On the recording, the landlord, who lived in the same home as Darla and her family, denied killing the girl and “made some statements suggesting prior sexual contact with her,” the decision said.

He also made comments that suggested he had encountered Darla on the night of her death, and others denying he had, it said.

The fact that the tape had not been disclosed affected the fairness of the trial by depriving the defence of material to further advance its theory of a third-party suspect, the court ruled.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 18, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press