12 Years After a Brutal Murder, Police Have a Break in a Cold Case

But he does have some unfinished business. Before he dies, Morrison says he’d like to see justice for his murdered friend: Richard Clements. 

“Richard was the most loving person this world has ever produced, and I miss him terribly,” Morrison says. “I don’t want to go to my grave without knowing that this has been settled.” 

On Dec. 3, 2008, Clements—a double amputee—was discovered in his Toronto apartment, bleeding on the ground next to his overturned wheelchair. He was 72. His murder remains unsolved to this day. 

“He had a heart bigger than his brain,“ says Merrica Bonett, 70, another friend of Clements’, who met him when her sister worked at his copy shop on Toronto’s historic Bond Street. “He’d always give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”

Police believe Clements was targeted due to his vulnerability and blind trust in others. 

Although the likelihood of solving a historical murder is low, the discovery of new DNA evidence means Clements’ loved ones might finally get the answers for which they’ve been searching. Earlier this year, Toronto cold case investigators sent items left from Clements’ murder scene to be re-examined for DNA for the first time since he was killed. The results yielded a lead: what they believe is the killer’s DNA profile. Detectives weren’t able to find a match at the national offender databank, so now they have to work backwards, tracing people who could have been involved with the case and getting their DNA. 

Stephen Smith, one of the Toronto cold case homicide detectives currently overlooking the case, believes that changes in forensics and the potential for people who knew the perpetrator to come forward mean there is still a chance to find who killed Clements. “This case is solvable,” says Smith. “Somebody knows who committed this crime.”

"Clements met with a brutal death. It was obvious to me then and it still is obvious to me today," says Borg. But that’s not the only reason the case sticks out in his mind. “The ones that you don't solve are the ones that you think about the most.”

One of the most notable things about the murder scene was the bloody footprints right outside Clements’ door, which went across the hall, down the stairs to the 12th floor, and stopped at the doorstep of the apartment directly underneath Clements’. But a thorough forensic examination revealed that whoever made the footprints, wearing Nike high-tops, never stepped inside that apartment. 

Detectives also found more traces of blood across different floors in the building that they weren’t able to directly link to the murder. When police sent a sample of what they believe is the killer’s blood from Clements’ apartment to be re-examined for DNA this year, they were hoping it would match the DNA profile from the blood scattered around the building. Instead, they got two profiles, raising the possibility of more than one perpetrator. One thing that detectives are pretty certain of, is whoever committed this crime wasn’t a stranger to Clements and was familiar with his building.

Clements, who lived at 1 Coin Street about a year and a half before his death, was said to have had a good relationship with his neighbors. Investigators say he was the kind of guy who always helped people out, even when they had nothing to give in return. With his door unlocked throughout the day, neighbours frequently piled into his apartment to borrow money or a cigarette. 

The building’s property manager, G.B., who does not want to be named out of concern for his safety, says Clements had a close relationship with a neighbour named Michael Edge, who was also a double amputee (Clements’ legs were amputated following a bad reaction to a surgery). Bonett and Morrison say Clements would do Edge’s taxes and walk his Jack Russell terrier twice a day. The last time Clements was seen alive was the evening of Dec. 2, 2008 when he was walking Edge’s dog. The bloody footprints Borg found the next day stopped at Edge’s doorstep on the 12th floor. 

A few days before Clements was killed, G.B. says he was about to leave for a short trip when Edge came into his office and warned him that something bad is about to happen. “He didn't give me any details of it at all,” says G.B. “He came into my office and said that something is happening that he does not like, and he's afraid somebody would get injured.” G.B. didn’t have time to talk to Edge about his concerns as he was already on his way out. Instead, he told him he should call the police. He says Edge told him he was too scared to make the call. About a year after Clements was murdered, Edge died.

Toronto detectives believe the bloody footsteps leading to Edge’s door suggest the killer may have been trying to frame Edge for the murder. They also believe that whoever committed the crime was likely acquainted with both Edge and Clements and that Edge knew the killer’s identity. 

“That wasn't a random apartment that that person had selected,” Borg says. “He went down there because he knew the person that was living inside.” 

Edge never told investigators who killed Clements. Detectives believe he was afraid of meeting the same fate as Clements if he spoke out. G.B. says that after Clements’ murder, Edge started carrying a hammer in his backpack. ”He was just fearful, if anyone attacked him, what he would do,“ G.B. says. “He was scared for his life.” 

When Edge died, Borg made sure his death was thoroughly examined through a coroner's investigation. It concluded that Edge died of natural causes.

G.B., who has managed 1 Coin Street since the early ’90s, says Clements’ murder really changed the dynamic in the building. Two families who lived on the 13 floor moved out because of it, and the question “do you know what happened?” continues to swirl in the residence 12 years later.  It took weeks before someone finally cleaned Clements’ blood stains from the hallway. “It took a long time for them to really sort of overcome that trauma,” says G.B. 

When Rizzo had a hard time after her mother’s death, Clements let her and her then six-year-old daughter live with him rent-free for years. “They had a relationship unlike a lot of employees and employers. They were also friends,” says Bonett.

In his free time, Clements volunteered at Casey House, the first and only stand-alone hospital for people with HIV/AIDS in Canada. He spent his time sitting with patients who were lonely—people whose loved ones wouldn’t visit. Bonett recalls how devastated Clements was whenever a patient he befriended passed away. But despite the grief that accompanied the job, he kept going back. “Richard was Richard,” Bonett says. 

In the mid-2000s, after dealing with chronic heartburn for years, Clements announced to his friends that he was getting rid of his gallbladder. But while in a medically-induced coma after the surgery, his feet started to turn blue. “He went to the hospital for one thing, and he came out with two things missing, both legs,” says G.B. His home, where he had lived for decades, couldn’t accommodate his disability, so he had no choice but to move to 1 Coin Street. When he first moved in and met G.B., Clements would sometimes cry while struggling with basic tasks like opening his door. “Everything for him was sort of difficult,” G.B. recalls. 

Even after his double amputation, Bonett says Clements, who was five-foot-three, would crack jokes about how his shoe size had gone up with his new prosthetics.

Clements’ disability made him vulnerable. His trusting tendencies like leaving his door unlocked throughout the day and lending others money led Smith to believe Clements’ death was likely a low-level robbery. “Richard would have willingly given whatever this person wanted, cigarettes, money, he did it all the time,” he says. 

Police were able to determine that a small amount of cash was taken from the apartment, as the perpetrators dropped some coins while going down the building’s staircases. “Even quarters, nickels, they were taking change,” says Stephen. “That's how low-level it was.”

But if Clements was robbed, it wouldn't be the first time.

Morrison still remembers the day Clements realized that someone had stolen cash from the copy shop. Clements told him he knew who the thief was, but never revealed their identity. Morrison doubts Clements ever confronted whoever stole the money. “Richard never had a bad word to say about anybody. He knew these people were using him. and he never did anything about it,” he says. 

Money was never really Clements’ focus when it came to the business. Bonett says that he was always running the shop basically at a loss. The most important thing for him was just to pay his employees. “He often didn't even take a draw for himself because he had to pay their wages,” says Bonett. But she thinks she knows who might have stolen money from the shop. 

One of the many people Clements helped throughout his life was Raymond Hicks. For years, Clements gave Hicks, a heroin user, money, a place to live, and even paid for his lawyer when he got into trouble. Bonett and Morrison say Hicks repeatedly stole from Clements, whether it was money, his mother’s diamond ring, or paintings off his walls. When friends of Hicks would get out of jail, he directed them to Clements’ home when they needed anything. Bonett says she once witnessed Hicks threaten Clements when he refused to give him money. 

Despite everything, Clements never gave up on Hicks, believing he could help him get better. 

“That was Richard's treasure in life,” says Morrison. “He looked after the down and lonely, and the down and lonely turned on him and ripped him off.” 

Hicks would later end up finding Clements’ body. He attempted to use the phone in his apartment to call 911 but it was not working, so he went downstairs to Edge’s apartment. Edge then called the police and spoke to the operator as Hicks relayed details of what he saw. 

Hicks later called Bonett, sobbing and weeping over the phone, she says. 

According to Bonett, Hicks said, “What am I gonna do without Richard?” Bonett says she told him to go fuck himself. He died in 2011.

DNA evidence ruled out Hicks as Clements’ killer. But with both Hicks and Edge gone, Morrison doubts that detectives will be able to pick up on a new lead unless they match the killer’s DNA profile. “I think they've done the best they can, but then I don't know what the best should be,” he says. “I mean, they must have many cases to work on.” 

Since the unit deals with old cases, a huge bulk of them aren’t digitized. That means that if a detective wants to take a quick look at what a witness said in a certain case, they might have to look through over a dozen paper-stuffed boxes before they find what they need. 

As the pandemic moved meetings and court hearings online, the cold case unit was able to use the time they saved to finally scan and digitize their files. Nearly 200 are digitized so far. Smith says the shift is allowing detectives to investigate cold cases like Clements’ faster than they ever have before and hopefully give grieving loved ones the closure they need. “They call in, they just want an update. They just want to talk to someone and be assured that their loved one isn’t forgotten,” says Smith. “Because in their minds, it's every day for them, right? To live through that.” 

Bonett says that if or when they find the “culprit,” she’ll make sure to be at the courthouse. “I want to see who did this to my Richard,” she says. 

Despite the years she spent struggling with his death, Bonett still holds onto her good memories of Clements. She still remembers the way she jokingly called him Yul Brynner when he stressed over losing his hair. She remembers the parties they had and the tartan shirts he’d wear everyday with a cashmere sweater over top. It was always cashmere. She still remembers how much he loved to watch figure skating and go to the ballet. How he would visit his father and step-mother in Milton every Christmas with a fresh Butterball turkey. How he relished sunny Sunday afternoons in the winter.

“He was a very tiny man, with a great big heart.” 

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