The following is a list of unsolved homicides in Canada. Hundreds of homicides occur across Canada each year, many of which end up as cold cases. In 2021, the country's intentional homicide rate stood at around 2.06 per 100,000 individuals, increasing for the third consecutive year. Violent crime continued to increase in Canada during the following year, with the homicide rate reaching 2.25 per 100,000 people in 2022, the highest rate in the past three decades.
Individual victims 20th century Year Victim(s) Age LocationProvince Notes1924Janet Smith22VancouverBritish ColumbiaJanet Kennedy Smith, a Scottish immigrant who worked as a nursemaid, was found dead in the cellar of her residency in 1924. She had been discovered by a fellow suitemate with a gunshot wound through her temple and a .45-caliber revolver near her right hand. The fellow suitemate was a Chinese immigrant named Wong Foon Sing. He also worked as a domestic worker alongside Smith. On the night of the murder, Sing claims to have heard what sounded like a car backfiring, and then went down to the cellar of the house where he found Smith's body. Although authorities and the coroner who examined her body both initially thought that Smith killed herself, many believe that she had actually been the victim of murder. 1926Agapit Leblanc39Bouctouche BayNew BrunswickCanadian Fishery officer. He was 39 years old when he died on October 20, 1926, while investigating illegal smelt fishing. He was the first Canadian Fishery officer to be murdered while on duty. His body was found underwater, weighted down with rocks. His murderers were never found.1933George Anthony Lenhard28ReginaSaskatchewanIn 1933, Constable George Lenhard was gunned down in Regina's warehouse district by an unknown individual(s). The very first Regina police officer to die in the line of duty, Lenhard was serving his third year on the police force when his death occurred. To this day, the murder remains unsolved.1953David and Derek D'Alton6 & 7VancouverBritish ColumbiaThe bodies of two boys were found concealed at Stanley Park in 1953, six years after the time they were actually murdered. The police had thought the boys to be between the ages of 7 and 10; both were wearing aviation helmets.In 2022, upon DNA testing, the boys were identified as the brothers David and Derek D'Alton, aged 6 and 7.1956Susan Cadieux5LondonOntarioSusan Cadieux had been playing with her brothers and a friend at St. Mary's Church across the street from her home. A male stranger approached, claiming that he was to meet with the priest. When one of the other children fell on the ice, everyone was distracted, and Susan and the man vanished. At 10:08 am the next morning, a father-son search team found Susan's body just over a mile away. Her autopsy said that she had been dead for less than three hours. She had been found fully clothed, but she had been sexually assaulted.1959Lynne Harper12ClintonOntarioLynne Harper disappeared near a Canadian Air Force Base, before her body was found two days later on a nearby farm. Lynne's classmate Steven Truscott was convicted of the murder, later having the conviction overturned.1962Alexandra Wiwcharuk23SaskatoonSaskatchewanNursing student and beauty queen Alexandra Wiwcharuk was found brutally murdered in a shallow grave beside the South Saskatchewan River in City Park, on May 31, 1962, nearly two weeks after she went missing.1962Julian "Julie" Wolanski16TorontoOntarioJulian Wolanski was found in a roadside ditch by the Humber River in northwest Toronto on August 12, 1962, wearing only silk stockings. Her autopsy revealed that she had been raped and beaten, and then her killer shot her in the heart with a .32-calibre bullet fired at close range.1963-1964Margaret Sheeler (née Butterman)20LondonOntarioMargaret Sheeler was found in a field just west of the townhouse where she lived by two boys on January 23, 1964. She was last seen alive on December 27, 1963, when she left her home after an argument with her husband. Her husband reported her missing to London Police the following day. The cause of her death was a skull fracture and her clothes had been taken off and strewn around her. She was five to six months pregnant at the time of her death. London Police initially sought an ex-boyfriend of Sheeler's but later decided against questioning this man.1967Salvatore "Sammy" Triumbari34TorontoOntarioOne of Toronto's oldest unsolved mob murders. Salvatore "Sammy" Triumbari was an extortionist who belonged to the Siderno Group. On January 6, 1967, he was gunned down in the driveway of his residence in North Toronto by multiple shooters. Police say that Triumbari was killed out of revenge for disfiguring a rival gang member, a crime he carried out with fellow mobster Filippe Vendemini. Vendemini would be assassinated two years later in another unsolved homicide.1968Newton Harold Boutilier81French VillageNova ScotiaNewton Boutilier was found deceased in his residence, which also served as a small general store, which he owned and operated on Highway 33. Foul play was not originally suspected. Traces of blood were found on a door and an ice cream cooler, and an autopsy was later ordered.1969Teresa Martin14MontrealQuebecOn September 12, 1969, the body of Teresa Martin was found in the parking lot of the Vieux Cyprès Tavern. Her body had been positioned deliberately to make her appear as she was sitting up against a wall. She was last seen leaving the Galeries d'Anjou cinema with her friends.1970Claire Gagnon16DieppeNew BrunswickClaire Gagnon's body was found in a field 300 yards from her home on May 25. She had a wire or a rope around her neck and a towel in her mouth. In 1993, charges were filed against a man who confessed to killing Claire. However, it was later confirmed that he had been in a psychiatric hospital when she had been murdered, and the charges were dropped.1971Alice Paré14Sainte-Clotilde-de-HortonQuebecAlice Paré disappeared on her way home from a music lesson in Drummondville. On the morning of April 26, 1971, her body was found about 60 feet from a gravel road, still in her school uniform.1971Mary Anne Plett29EdmontonAlbertaAn Edmonton real estate agent, Mary Anne Plett disappeared on September 15, 1971, while showing property to a prospective client. Plett's car was found abandoned two days later; her briefcase was found in October near Fort Assiniboine, 160 kilometres north of Edmonton. Plett's body was found in the same area the following April.1972Ursula Schulze 19Saint-PhilippeQuebecUrsula's body was found on July 14, 1972, behind a former soap warehouse on rang Saint-Claude. She had been shot. On July 13, 1972, while Ursula had been waiting for a bus, witnesses saw an individual get out of a burgundy red or red-brown Buick Skylark or Toyota, grab Ursula by the arm, and force her into the car.1972Suzanne Aldworth16WaterlooOntarioSuzanne Aldworth disappeared after celebrating her sixteenth birthday with two girlfriends and her boyfriend at the Kent Hotel (now the Huether) on King Street North in uptown Waterloo on Friday, November 17, 1972. Her boyfriend left at 1 a.m. because he had to work the next morning. Suzanne and her friends proceeded to a nearby Chinese restaurant around 1:15 a.m. She left the restaurant just before 2 a.m. to make a call from a payphone across the street, probably to let her parents know she was going to sleep at a friend's house. One of her brothers heard the phone ring, but didn't get to it in time.
Two days later, on November 19, 1972, two girls riding on horseback found Suzanne in a ditch by a country road near St. Agatha, about 11 kilometres west of Waterloo. She was naked and had been badly beaten, dying of a fractured skull. According to Ontario Provincial Police, she had not been sexually assaulted. Police have long suspected two members of the Henchmen biker gang (one of whom died by suicide in 1979), but said they had no witness or DNA evidence.1973Pauline Ivy Dudley17MiltonOntarioPauline is said to have left Oakville at about 10 pm on August 20, 1973. Her decomposed body was found by a farmer near Highway 25 and Lower Base Line a week later on August 28. She was fully clothed, with a hairline fracture in her jaw and her wallet nearby. Police believe there were efforts made by the perpetrator to conceal her body.1973-1974Carole Dupont18Sainte-ThérèseQuebecOn April 13, 1974, police were notified of a pair of human legs sticking out of a snow bank near the parking lot of Foyer Drapeau, a nursing care residence in Sainte-Thérèse. They discovered the body of Claudette Dupont alongside clothes and a knife. The victim had suffered multiple stab wounds to her torso and back, was diagonally slashed at the thighs, and had a cut on her left breast. She had last been seen on the night of December 22 leaving the Hôtel Blainville bar with three men after having drinks with a female friend, and was subsequently reported missing.1974Suzanne Miller25LondonOntarioOn October 12, 1974, Suzanne Miller was found in a wooded area near the Thames River in Thorndale, northwest of London. She was last seen on September 16, 1974, when she left her London apartment in her blue Datsun car. Miller was supposed to have met her sister at her sister's apartment, but did not show up. Her car was found a week later in the parking lot of the Argyle Mall in London. Miller's body, still clothed, was badly decomposed and she had died of blunt force trauma to the head.1974Beverly Lynn Smith22RaglanOntarioOn December 9, 1974, Beverly was found dead in the kitchen by a neighbour's wife when Beverly's husband Doug had called to check up on her as she wasn't answering his calls. Doug and Beverly's infant daughter, 10-month-old Rebecca, was found in the next room. An autopsy showed that Beverly had been killed by a .22 bullet to the back of the head and the case was ruled a homicide.