When Tess Richey vanished, she was closer than anyone knew…
Seeing the world was something Tess Richey had always dreamed about and she was determined to make it happen one day.
At 22 years old, she was the youngest of five daughters from North Bay, Ontario.
At 19, she moved to Toronto and after completing a flight attendant course at college, she started applying for jobs at different airlines.
In the meantime, she juggled several jobs, including one at a coffee bar.
Fuelled by her desire to travel, she also started studying Italian, hoping to land an au pair role in Italy.
At 5ft 2in, Tess was petite, but she was determined.
On 24 November 2017, Tess spent the afternoon with her sister Rachel, who lived in Toronto.
Tess had just broken up with her boyfriend and Rachel did her best to cheer her up. Tess left around 11.30pm to meet an old high school friend from home.
They went to Crews and Tangos, a well-known drag bar in the gay district of Church and Wellesley, Toronto.
Tess and her friend drank until the early hours, then walked outside, chatting to other people at the party.
When her friend left to go home, Tess called an Uber and carried on chatting to a woman near her home on Dundonald Street as she waited.
There was also a guy who had been in the bar who also chatted with her.
The next morning, Rachel text Tess to see how her night was.
Yet, she didn’t reply, which was unusual and by the end of the day, Rachel phoned the police and was checking with local hospitals – Tess was missing.
When records were checked, it showed she hadn’t turned up for the Uber she’d ordered, so the driver had left.
Tess was nowhere to be seen
Tess’ mum, Christine Hemeston, drove the four hours to Toronto with a family friend to search for Tess.
They put up posters and organised searches.
After four days with no sign of Tess, her mum and friend went to the street where she was last seen.
They looked closer at a house which was closed up for renovation.
It was two doors from where Tess was last seen.
Down at the bottom of a stairwell leading to a basement apartment, they saw a body – it was Tess.
She lay dead next to her pink purse and mobile phone.
Tess’s mum and friend were hysterical. Toronto police were heavily criticised for failing to find the body 15 metres from where she was last seen.
At first, without any obvious signs of trauma, it looked like it had all been an accident.
Perhaps Tess had tripped and died where she’d fallen?
But then a post-mortem revealed that she had in fact died from a neck compression.
She’d been strangled and her death was ruled a murder.
There was DNA on her clothes that suggested she’d engaged in sexual activity.
An investigation began.
