Williams waives preliminary hearing, awaits trial

Col. Russell Williams is set appear in court Oct. 7 after waiving his right to a preliminary hearing.

Timeline

Spring 1986
Russell Williams graduates from the University of Toronto Scarborough.

Spring 1987
Paul Bernardo graduates from the University of Toronto Scarborough.

May 4, 1987
Bernardo commits his first rape in Scarborough.

Spring 1987 – Summer 1990
Scarborough women are victimized by a repeat attacker known in the press as the Scarborough Rapist.

Feb. 1, 1991
Bernardo moves permanently to St. Catharine’s. The reign of the Scarborough Rapist comes to an end.

Sept. 1, 1995
Bernardo is convicted after committing more sex assaults and murdering two girls in St. Catharine’s.

Nov. 25, 2009
Cpl. Marie-France Comeau is found dead in her Brighton, Ont. home.

July, 2009
Now a colonel, Williams becomes base commander at CFB Trenton. He is described as a “bright, shining star of the military”.

Jan. 28, 2010
Belleville police declare 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd missing and ask the public for help

Feb. 7, 2010
Williams is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Feb. 8, 2010
Williams leads investigators to Lloyd’s body, minutes from his Tweed, Ont. home.

Feb. 18, 2010
Police sources tell the Toronto Observer that unsolved cases around the time of the Scarborough Rapist are being reviewed for connections to Williams.

Aug. 26, 2010
Williams waives his right to a preliminary hearing. In addition to the two counts of first-degree murder, he is charged with two sexual assaults and over 80 cases in connection to break-ins involving lingerie thefts.

The 47-year-old Williams, a University of Toronto Scarborough graduate, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 38-year-old Cpl. Marie-France Comeau and 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd, along with two counts of forcible confinement, and two counts of sexual assault in Williams’ cottage town of Tweed, Ont.

Williams’ lawyer, Ottawa-based Michael Edelson, could not be reached for comment.

In February, The Toronto Observer reported Toronto police were digging deeper into Williams’ history in Scarborough.

Williams attended the same university in Scarborough during the same period as convicted killer and rapist Paul Bernardo, which led to speculation the two might have been connected.

“Everything’s on the table,” Det. Doug Sansom said in February. “There’s nothing that is specifically jumping out, but any reasonable cases will be looked at.”

A Toronto police source, wishing not to be named, said that likely “nothing new is up.”

Bernardo was arrested in 1993 on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of sex assault.

At that point, Williams was rising through the military ranks in Halifax. He embarked on his 23-year military career shortly after graduating from UTSC in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics.

Bernardo graduated the following year with a degree in commerce and economics.

About this article

By: Billy Courtice
Posted: Sep 24 2010 1:14 pm
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