Arrest made in 30-year-old case
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Sep 27, 1999
Arrest made in 30-year-old case
LONDON, Ont. (CP) - A man has been charged with first-degree murder in
the case
of a southwestern Ontario teenager who disappeared on Halloween more
than 30
years ago.
Glenda Tedball was 16 years old in 1967 when she went missing from her
home
near Thedford, about 45 kilometres northwest of London, on Oct. 31.
A body was never found but police are continuing to search for one.
The arrest of 66-year-old Edward Gratton, of London, on Friday is the
result of
an ongoing joint investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police and
London city
police known as Project Angel.
Project Angel is looking into 20 unsolved murders in southwestern
Ontario
dating between to 1956 and 1983.
The arrest of Gratton for the 1967 murder is the ``first significant
development'' for the police task force since its formation three years
ago,
said London police Chief Al Gramolini.
He said he is ``very pleased we've been able to successfully conclude
one of
those cases, not only for the community, but the families involved.''
Tedball went missing from her family farm home after going out for a
walk in
the morning. She had been home sick from classes at North Middlesex
District
High School in Parkhill, near Thedford, and was last seen walking toward
the
woods on the 50-hectare farm.
Despite exhaustive searches and pleas from her family, no trace of the
teen was
ever found.
Neighbours reported police were digging Sunday at part of the old
foundation of
the farmhouse near Parkhill, once owned by Tedball's family.
The farmhouse burned down some time after Glenda's disappearance and was
never
replaced.
After the house fire, the family sold the farm and it has since been
used only
for crops.
Project Angel went public with its investigations two years ago when it
announced it was starting to gather DNA and other forensic evidence from
the
Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto.
Since then, officers have interviewed families and witnesses and made
public
appeals for tips.
Gratton, who recently moved to London from Belleville, grew up in
Thedford,
about 10 kilometres from where Glenda Tedball lived, his brother Louis
Gratton
of Stratford said last night.
Gratton was to appear in a London court today. (London Free Press)
----------------------------------------------------------
The following four news articles all appear courtesy of the London
Free Press
newspaper:
Tuesday, September 28, 1999
A list of cases under review in Project Angel police effort
By ROXANNE BEAUBIEN, Free Press Crime Reporter
The list of cases being reviewed by Project Angel, a joint effort by
OPP and
London police examining unsolved murders in the London region:
- 1956 -- Susan Cadieux, 5, of London, was playing with friends when a
man who
appeared to be going to visit St. Mary's school stopped to talk to her
on Jan.
6. She vanished a few minutes later. After a search, her body was found
the
next morning on the CP Rail tracks near William Street. She had been
sexually
assaulted.
- 1959 -- Real Tessier, 33, was last seen alive March 31 at the Empire
Hotel in
St. Thomas. He was found shot dead beside a vehicle outside the city
less than
an hour later .
- 196 * -- Margaret Sheeler, 20, left her London home in December 1963.
Her
partially clothed body was found nearly a month later in a field beside
Kipps
Lane. Killed by head injuries, she showed signs of being sexually
assaulted.
- 1964 -- Victoria Mayo, 32, was found dead of multiple stab wounds on
Aug. 6
in her basement apartment on London's Sydenham Street. Entry to the
apartment
had been forced.
- 1967 -- Glenda Tedball, 16, was last seen walking into a bush on
Halloween
day near her RR 4, Thedford, home. She has never been found but police
have
charged Edward Gratton, 66, with first-degree murder in her case.
- 1968 -- Jacqueline Dunleavy, 16, of Byron, was a Grade 10 student at
Westminster secondary school when she was killed in January. She was
strangled
with either her scarf or a belt and struck on the head. Her partially
clothed
body was found in the driveway of what was then Katherine Harley school,
near
the London Hunt and Country Club. There is evidence she was sexually
assaulted.
- 1968 -- Frankie Jensen, 9, of London, disappeared on his way to
Westdale
public school on Feb. 9. His body was found two months later in the
Thames
River near Thorndale. He had a fractured skull and was partially
clothed. It is
unclear if he was sexually assaulted.
- 1968 -- Scott Leishman, 16, of RR 1, Thorndale, was missing for three
months
before his body was found in Port Burwell harbour on May 15. There were
no
signs of violence but some of his clothing was disturbed. It is unclear
if he
was sexually assaulted.
- 1968 -- Helga Beer, 31, of London, was found in the rear seat of her
car in a
parking lot off Carling Street near Dundas Street. She had been beaten,
strangled and sexually assaulted. She was last seen alive leaving a
friend's
downtown apartment Aug. 6 with an unknown man.
- 1968 -- Lynda White, 19, of Burlington, was a student at the
University of
Western Ontario who disappeared after writing a French exam on Nov. 13.
Her
remains were found five years later in a shallow grave near St. Williams
in
Norfolk County. Police were unable to determine the cause of death.
- 1969 -- Jane Wooley, 62, of London, was found partially clothed Feb. 3
in her
apartment on York Street three days after she was killed. She had been
brutally
beaten. She was last seen leaving the London House on Dundas Street
where she
was a chambermaid. There was no evidence of sexual assault.
- 1969 -- Patricia Anne Bovin, 22, of London, was found stabbed and
strangled
April 24 on the second floor of the King Street apartment where she
lived with
her two young sons.
- 1969 -- Robert Bruce Stapylton, 11, of London, disappeared from his
Piccadilly Street home June 7. His body was found in a woodlot in London
Township, six kilometres from his home. Police could not determine the
cause of
death and there was no evidence of sexual assault.
- 1969 -- Jacqueline English, 15, of London, was last seen getting into
a car
Oct. 4 at the cafeteria of a store at a shopping plaza on Wellington
Road, near
the London Ice House. Her nude body was found five days later in Big
Otter
Creek near Tillsonburg. She had been sexually assaulted and killed by a
blow to
the head.
- 1970 -- Soraya O'Connell, 15, of London, vanished after telling
friends she
was hitchhiking from a camp at the Fanshawe Youth Centre in northeast
London on
Aug. 14. Her body was found four years later in an old dump south of
Stratford.
Little clothing was recovered but it is unknown if she was sexually
assaulted.
- 1970 -- Edith Authier, 57, of Merlin in Kent County, was found
stabbed,
beaten and sexually assaulted in her home Sept. 5.
- 1972 -- Priscilla Merle, 21, of London, was last seen getting into a
car
outside her sister's home in London on March 4. Her left arm was found
two
weeks later in Kettle Creek, north of Port Stanley. Her upper torso was
found
beside a Kettle Creek marina a month later. For the next several months,
police
continued to recover pieces of her body in the area.
- 1975 -- Irene Francis Gibbons, 66, of Strathroy, was found dead in the
bedroom of the bungalow where she lived alone. She was strangled but not
sexually assaulted and no valuables were stolen.
- 1978 -- Irene MacDonald, 36, of London, was last seen in September.
She was
reported missing five months later and has never been found.
- 198 * -- Donna Jean Awcock, 17, of London, was last seen leaving a
convenience store near her Cheyenne Avenue housing complex. Her
strangled,
partly clad body was found about 15 metres down an embankment
overlooking
Fanshawe Dam. She had been sexually assaulted.
------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, September 28, 1999
Abortion tied to Glenda's death
The 1967 search for missing teen
By JONATHAN SHER, JOHN HERBERT AND ROXANNE BEAUBIEN, Free Press
Reporters
A home abortion gone terribly wrong is how police described the death
32
years ago of Glenda Tedball, says the sister of a London man charged
with
murder.
Edward Lee Gratton, 66, of Kipps Lane, spoke in court yesterday through
a video
link from the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre and is expected to do the
same
tomorrow. He's charged with culpable murder, a since-replaced offence
that in
1967 included planned and unplanned murders.
His sister, who asked not to be identified, told The Free Press an
investigator
with Project Angel told her Tedball had been pregnant and had died after
an
abortion at home.
But Project Angel's lead investigator, Ontario Provincial Police
Det-Insp. Mike
Coughlin, refused to discuss the abortion scenario.
"Anything in relation to what transpired and how the death occurred is
left to
the court of law and is not in a public domain and that's my position,"
he
said.
"I'm not going to try this case in the media."
Gratton, a frail man who struggled to hear questions asked of him in
court, was
the first person arrested in Project Angel, a joint effort by OPP and
London
police investigating 20 unsolved murders in the London region.
Dressed in standard-issue orange jumpsuit at his video remand in court
yesterday, Gratton appeared a tiny man, shrivelled with age. His
thinning, grey
hair was combed straight back and his black, bushy eyebrows formed a
ridge
above his wire-framed glasses.
"I'm a little hard of hearing here," Gratton said loudly into the camera
at a
guard's urging.
Justice of the peace Len Obokota raised his voice for the proceedings,
but
Gratton still struggled to catch the words.
After the hearing, Gratton's defence lawyer, Michael Barry, said he'd
seek bail
for his client.
"This is such an unusual case," said Barry, who didn't elaborate.
But Barry did suggest the murder charge might change.
Coughlin refused to discuss details of the case, including why or when
the
probe turned to Gratton, who lived about 10 kilometres from the farm
where
Tedball shared a home with her mother and stepfather, Norma and Charles
Poore.
Gratton only arrived back in London three months ago -- his second stint
in the
city -- after a handful of years in Belleville in eastern Ontario. He
and his
wife moved into an apartment next to his sister, who looked after the
frail
couple.
Norma Poore died in July. Charles Poore died in the late 1960s. But
Norma
Poore's ex-husband -- and Glenda's biological father -- still lives in
Thedford.
For 32 years, Glen Tedball didn't know what had become of his daughter.
Yesterday, he struggled to speak, his eyes glossy and red.
Tedball last saw his daughter on her 16th birthday April 12, 1967. Later
that
year, she disappeared Oct 30.
Asked about the abortion scenario, Tedball said: "That's still to come .
. .
that's going to come out.
"I'm just too shook up now to say anything."
Gratton, Tedball said, was a frequent visitor to his ex-wife's home
around "He
was over there quite often," he said.
Now 73, Tedball said he was relieved OPP had finally made an arrest.
Police descended on Gratton's apartment Friday, taking him to London
police
headquarters where he was questioned and arrested.
Investigators spent the weekend excavating the foundation of the Poore
house on
Boot Hill Road between Thedford and Parkhill.
The house burned to the ground in a fire in the years after Tedball
disappeared
and the home's remains were buried under what has become a farmer's
field.
Coughlin said several items were seized and are to be sent to the Centre
of
Forensic Sciences in Toronto for testing.
He refused yesterday to say what was found or how it was found more than
30
years after Tedball disappeared.
"Evidence can be found by a variety of different methods that weren't
available
then," he said.
He refused to say if project investigators had planned to dig up the
site
before the Friday interview with Gratton.
Gratton, who has no criminal record, had met with investigators "a few
times"
before Friday's arrest but Coughlin refused to say when the man became a
suspect.
The original investigation was for a missing person and there were no
suspects
identified in the case, he said.
---------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, September 28, 1999
Glenda's story just gets sadder
By Julie Carl, Free Press Columnist
PARKHILL< -- The 300 or so kids walked at arm's length from each other,
fanning out from the Tedball home.
Across the fields the students walked. Among the woodlots, through the
tall
grass, along the river, they searched.
All day long, they looked and looked and found not a sign.
For 32 years, no one found a single sign of 16-year-old Glenda Tedball.
The students' search will forever be etched in schoolmate Joyce Van
Ryn's
memory.
She remembers so clearly walking the fields around this tiny town in
search of
the young girl, an acquaintance at North Middlesex District high school,
who
disappeared Oct. 31, 1967.
Hundreds of searchers retraced the students' steps in the weeks after
Glenda
disappeared.
And still they found no sign of her.
Tomorrow, Edward Lee Gratton, 66, makes his second court appearance,
charged
with Glenda's murder.
Over the weekend, after questioning Gratton on Friday, police looked for
Glenda
somewhere the students never searched: the family home. Police used a
backhoe
to excavate the foundations of the farmhouse, destroyed by fire two
years after
Glenda disappeared.
"Some articles" were found and sent for analysis, but it's still not
clear if
there was any sign of Glenda.
Townsfolk's surprise at an arrest in the long-ago disappearance pales
compared
with their shock at whispers Glenda disappeared after a botched abortion
in her
family home.
"That's so sad," Van Ryn said when told.
Van Ryn, two years ahead of Glenda and in a different program at school,
didn't
know her well.
Glenda suffered from asthma and epilepsy. She also suffered from
shyness, Van
Ryn remembers. She was a bit of a loner.
There were no close girlfriends to giggle with in the halls. No one to
share
secrets with after school.
No one remembers the girl having a boyfriend.
At first, some thought Glenda had run away from a less-than-perfect home
life.
When she didn't return, some expected her body would be found close to
home.
But it wasn't. And the mystery continued.
Over at the Parkhill Gazette, staffer Joyce Hayter looks at the front
page from
Nov. 9, 1967, the week after Glenda disappeared.
Glenda smiles from the top of the page. She looks pretty in a school
photo, a
chain holding a heart-shaped locket frames her face.
The stark reality of her story shows in a picture at the bottom of the
page.
It's of police officers pumping out a drainage pond, scuba divers
standing by
to recover her body.
Customers at the Parkhill Variety yesterday talked of nothing but
Glenda's
disappearance, said manager Charlie Shin. They came in whispering her
sad
story.
Yesterday, a driveway full of cars at Glenda's brother Mike's house
belied
friends and family gathering at his home.
A haggard-looking man answered the front door. His eyes looked haunted
as he
politely told reporters he had no comment.
All in this town are grieving again for the girl no one knew who
disappeared
from their midst so long ago.
Van Ryn, a nurse in Detroit, said 30-plus years ago school support
services
that might have helped Glenda simply weren't available in the rural
area.
"I know there'd have been help for her today," she said adamantly.
And that makes Glenda's story even more tragic.
The mother of one of Glenda's schoolmates said she's never forgotten the
girl.
Every time the woman, who asked to not be identified, drove by the site
of the
Tedball home she'd think of her.
It's a cruel thing when a young girl just disappears with no trace.
"We've all lived with that mystery all these years," the woman said.
It seems, as Glenda's story unfolds, her story, her mystery, will just
get
sadder.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, September 28, 1999
Family worries about suspect's health
The death of Glenda Tedball
By JONATHAN SHER, Free Press Reporter
Edward Gratton may meet his maker before he gets his day in court, his
family
worries.
The 66-year-old Londoner, who has endured a decade of decline and a
brush with
death, lacks the physical, emotional or mental strength to survive
incarceration or a murder trial, they said.
"Ed is a sick, sick man. This is going to kill him. He's 66 and you'd
think
he's 86," said his sister, who spoke to The Free Press from her modest
Kipps
Lane apartment in London.
Gratton and his wife had just returned to London three months ago after
years
in Belleville caring for his wife's mother. They moved into the
apartment next
to his sister, who performed chores and shopping the older couple can't
handle
for themselves.
All three were there Friday when police arrived at Gratton's apartment,
whisking him to London police headquarters. They returned that afternoon
and
took in the women for questioning.
"The cop stood up to tell his wife that her husband had been charged
with
murder," said the sister, who asked not to be identified. "You might as
well
have used a knife to cut my heart out," she said.
Gratton has always been a gentle man, his sister said. "If he took a fly
swatter and killed a fly on the wall, that would eat his heart out," she
said.
Twenty-two years into his second marriage, Gratton hasn't had a cross
word for
his wife, his sister said. During that time, he has fought a losing
battle with
his body, almost dying in a Kingston hospital.
Since his arrest, Gratton has phoned his wife and sister several times
from the
Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre.
His sobs haunt them. "The emotional stress that man is under is just
pitiful,"
the sister said.
His sister -- who prides herself as the strong one in the family -- is
afraid
to go, for fear she might break down and cry.
She bit her lip to hold back tears when her husband phoned yesterday
from the
Montreal area where he'd just learned of the murder charge.
A truck driver, he had been unaware until a daughter phoned with the
horrible
news.
"I'm fine. What can I do?" the sister told him. She hung up the phone
and broke
down, admitting she had put on a show of strength because she worried
about her
husband, who at 69 still drives a truck.
Gratton was on the move much of his life, but not on a truck.
He worked five years as a building superintendent at an apartment in
Cranbrook,
B.C., before arriving in London in the 1980s. After three stints with
security
companies, he retired because of poor health and has survived since on
disability payments.
That's a far step from the early 1950s, when a young Gratton served in
the
Canadian military's Royal Canadian Artillery, according to a resume he
left
with employers.
Days of health are now a distant memory.