Sadistic killer eyed in 1967 murders

December 23, 2006
New link to old crimes? Sadistic killer eyed in 1967 murders By ALAN CAIRNS

Even if James Henry Greenidge did not kill the two young men whose bodies were found north of Toronto in 1967, he remains a dangerous, sadistic and psychopathic killer.

But if Greenidge did kill the two men -- which OPP have not ruled out -- he would become one of the most prolific, most vicious and one of the most unusual serial sex killers in Canadian history.

Serving time in B.C. for a 1981 murder, the spotlight is back on Greenidge for the unsolved 1967 killings of the two young drifters, one who was finally identified this week.

Men and women, boys and girls. Gender didn't much matter to Greenidge. He hated everyone equally. But in another odd twist, Greenidge, who is black, picked exclusively white victims.

This appears a departure from the stereotypical serial killers, who, experts agree, pick out same-race victims as a kind of substitute for a hated authority figure, such as a mother, or another parent.

In a 1998 prison assessment of Greenidge referred to in National Parole Board documents, a psychiatrist warned that he may be responsible for more than just the two killings and an attempted murder that are on his official record.

'EXCELLENT' INMATE

In the 24 years since his 1982 first-degree murder conviction in the rape slaying of a Squamish, B.C. woman, Greenidge has slowly worked his way through Canada's prison system, to where he is now: A cottage camp with one foot already out the door.

By all accounts, Greenidge, who, while imprisoned changed his name to James Gordon Henry, has been an "excellent" inmate.

He has never been in trouble or done drugs. He has co-operated with staff. He has completed 10 years of sex offender programming. He has had escorted day passes. He even tutors other inmates.

Despite his rejection for parole in May, Greenidge could be back on the street by April, 2008. Despite his murderous past and a near-lifetime in prison, he is entitled to collect old age pension. He wants to live on Vancouver Island, starting out in a half-way house and working as a volunteer with the Salvation Army.

If anyone needs salvation, whether in the face of God or in the eyes of the law, it is Greenidge.

Even at age 69, experts say Greenidge is still at high risk for brutal sex crimes, like the one which led to his "life" imprisonment in 1982.

A year earlier, Greenidge picked up a Vancouver prostitute in his car, drove her to a secluded area and, after raping her at knifepoint, stabbed her five times in the throat and four times in the chest and left her for dead.

But the woman was alive. She managed to crawl out to the road and flagged down a car. She died in hospital eight days later.

Greenidge's tendencies for anger and violence had emerged long before his subsequent conviction for that murder.

In 1955, at age 18, Greenidge, who was working in a hospital and living with his parents on Euclid Ave., Toronto, dragged a 14-year-old girl into a laneway while she was out grocery shopping. He was found guilty of raping her while restraining and choking her.

In 1962, he was convicted of assault causing bodily harm after he beat a male in a Toronto movie theatre known as a gay sex haven.

In 1967, Greenidge was charged with trying to kill 21-year-old William Howell. After the pair met in Toronto, Greenidge bound his hands, stripped him naked, slashed his throat numerous times and left him for dead in a farmer's field 16 km north of Barrie. Police said if Howell had not been found he would have died within hours.

HANDS TIED

Days later, Greenidge was charged with the murder of 17-year-old Robert Wayne Mortimore of Toronto, whose badly decomposed body was found near Markham. A coroner said Mortimore was beaten and his body possibily burned. Greenidge was convicted of attempted murder and manslaughter and sentenced to a maximum of 10 years.

In late 1967, a young man's decomposing remains were found at Balsam Lake Provincial Park, near Coboconk. The hands were tied behind the back of the naked corpse. The murder is believed to have occurred earlier that summer.

In May, 1968, the decomposing naked remains of a second young male were found in bushes on a Schomberg farm. The rotting body was found with its arms tied behind its back, secured with a white shoelace.

The identities of both men were shrouded in mystery for more than four decades.

It was only this week, after a concentrated OPP effort to reconstruct the skull and facial features of both victims, that one was named as Richard Hovey, a 17-year-old musician from New Brunswick.

Greenidge was on the radar screen for both those murders, but for reasons as yet unexplained by OPP he was never charged.

Police have denied his impending release has anything to do with the drive to identify the other 1967 victims.

NEVER CHARGED

Shortly after his release from prison, Greenidge moved to Manitoba and was charged in 1980 after a 13-year-old Winnipeg boy alleged that he passed out at Greenidge's home after being given tea and awoke to find Greenidge trying to anally rape him as he strangled him with a blanket. The boy struggled, broke free and fled. Greenidge has always maintained the young boy lied. Those charges were ultimately stayed.

It would be B.C. police who would next put Greenidge in prison after they nabbed him in 1981 for the murder of Elizabeth Fells, 24.

The sentencing judge expressed shock that Greenidge had been released on parole to an "unsuspecting public" after his 1967 crimes.

While Greenidge is still very much an enigma, parole case documents reveal an angry, fearful and lonely black man, who saw himself as a victim of racism and sex abuse. He was prone to fits of rage.

Greenidge was raised by a strict, physically abusive aunt, parole board officials reported, before he was put into a sanatorium and then later sent to a juvenile training school.

His aunt, parole board members wrote in a May 31, 2006 decision, instilled in him a sense of fearfulness and isolation.

"She would tell you stories of lynchings of black men in the southern U.S.A. and instilled in you a fear of being black in a white world ... she reinforced almost daily that associating with white women or homosexuals would get you into a great deal of trouble ... in the end, you became lonely and self-protective," the parole board wrote.

Greenidge became a male hustler at age 16 and soon began paying for sex himself, viewing sex workers as being lower than himself. When asked by parole board members why he always carried a knife when he met with hookers, Greenidge "emphatically rejected" any notion that he liked hurting others.

"But then you went on to explain how you engaged in violence because you would build up anger, hatred and rage and then take it out on someone you viewed as lower on society's hierarchy," the parole board wrote.

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