The body of the young girl found this week in a dumpster in Toronto was wrapped in crochet blanket with butterfly patterns, which was inside a plastic bag wrapped in another blanket, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) said Thursday. The girl was about three foot six, with black curly hair tied into four short ponytails.
The police said their first priority is to discover the identity of the girl, whose remains were discovered on May 2 in a construction site dumpster at an unoccupied residential property near the Castle Frank Road and Dale Avenue area.
The TPS’s 53 Division immediately commenced an investigation, enlisting assistance from the service’s homicide and missing persons unit.
“Kids don’t just die.”
The police said while the body was likely left in the area recently—between April 28 and May 2—they believe she died in late summer or fall 2021.
Idsinga said it is “unusual” for the pathologist to have to rely on forensic entomology—the study of insects colonizing a human corpse—to determine the time of a victim’s death.
“I don’t recall, myself personally, any cases where the pathologist has had to rely on the entomology process to age the time of death of a victim and so it’s a very unusual circumstance that we’re dealing with right now that the potential time of death could have been even earlier than last summer,” he said.
He said the police have also looked at several outstanding missing persons cases, and although some “come close,” none seems a definitive match so far.
The TPS released images of the two patterned blankets used to wrap the girl’s body, hoping they will trigger someone’s memory.
Police are also looking through surveillance video from the nearby area. Investigators currently don’t have video from a camera trained on the dumpster, but they are closely examining the cars and people going by within a possibly two-week period in which the remains may have been placed there.
Idsinga said there are several possible ways the remains could have been brought to the area, including being physically carried there. He said there are also many reasons the location was chosen to dispose the body, noting it’s close to the Don Valley Parkway by car and is within walking distance of the dense neighbourhood of St. James Town.
“We will get to the bottom of it … no matter what it takes,” he told reporters.
A small memorial has been built for the girl at the location of the now-removed dumpster, with cards and bouquets of flowers being placed at the end of the driveway.
