CANADA Canada - Audrey Gleave, 73, Ancaster ON, 30 Dec 2010 #1

Concerning the soup:

http://www.thespec.com/news/crime/article/307949--police-investigating-ancaster-area-homicide

".....LV said she last saw Gleave Dec. 27.

"She was here Boxing Day but was feeling under-the-weather," she said.

"I took some soup out to her on Monday morning and that was the last time I saw her."

more at link


Being that Ms. Gleave was known as a "foodie" and liked to talk recipes, I would guess that her friend made her a small pot of homemade soup or passed along some from the Boxing Day celebration. I would think Ms. Gleave would have canned soup in her own pantry as she shopped frequently at Costco, it's been reported. Being that it was the holidays and a friend was sick, I'd bet it would be a pot of soup. It does sound odd to accept a gift like that at the door.

There have been a number of sporadic comments made about people visiting in her home. I believe her vet said that he visited there (I'll recheck). I just can't understand why she wouldn't welcome her best friend in. Possibly, LV, is a very neat person and Ms. Gleave was embarrassed of her lack of housekeeping.

I've read a number of comments about the dogs being "mean" and a bit on the rowdy side (my words). I wonder if PK, the handyman, was comfortable around them and if they accepted him. After all he worked on the property for 6 years and I'd think would encounter them frequently.

Sillybilly asked about some sort of a shed or covered area in the clump of trees at the end of the driveway. Could that be where gardening tools were stored? In the small glipse of the garage, it looks almost empty. A person could surely hang out in that shed waiting. She kept to a strict routine which was changed due to sickness that week. I keep coming back to that. But if someone merely wanted to rob the house, there would be no reason to kill her and sexually assault her AND leave her purse behind.

I'm never popular with this type of theory but I also can't forget that there's a cemetery abutting her property and this murder occurred about a week following a lunar eclipse, meteor shower and an electromagnetic field "break". I wonder, if being a science teacher, if she didn't spend a good bit of time checking out the sky that week and come across some people with ill intent leaving the cemetery who then returned a few days later.

Missizzy said:

I would think that they'd have to be heavily wrapped. To my eye, as a contractor's wife, the house looks a bit out of place for where it's built. It gets well below 0 in that area and plastic on the windows seems strange to me. That's far more like Texas or elsewhere in the south where they get occasional cold snaps. Most people back east have storm windows if the house is older, don't they?

Click to expand...

I haven't been following this thread really closely, but I can answer this...plastic on the windows is super common here up north--I live in Wisconsin, and have generally winterized every house (or apartment where I paid for heat) with plastic on the windows. It actually makes a huge difference in heating bills, even with storm windows (unless you have new super-efficient windows). I use the indoor plastic kits, which are a thinner plastic that you can use a blow-drying to make very taut and see-through. From the pictures up-thread, it looks like outside plastic, which is thicker. You can see examples of products here: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/WindowInsulatorKits/Products/ . I was lazy this fall and didn't plastic my windows, and I'm kind of regretting it--even with built-in storm windows upstairs, my heating bills are noticeably higher than last year .

I'll also throw in--my parents' house, also in Wisconsin, doesn't have a basement. The area they live in is wetlands, so it's smart--they don't have a basement that floods, unlike all the neighbors. So, depending exactly where the house is located, having a basement may or may not be unusual.

Missizzy said:

I would think that they'd have to be heavily wrapped. To my eye, as a contractor's wife, the house looks a bit out of place for where it's built. It gets well below 0 in that area and plastic on the windows seems strange to me. That's far more like Texas or elsewhere in the south where they get occasional cold snaps. Most people back east have storm windows if the house is older, don't they?

Click to expand...

Plastic on the windows (especially patio doors) are VERY common in homes built before the energy efficient era. Storm windows are used on century old homes.

Thank you for the photos Hazel, very helpful. I thought PK stated that A loved to garden and in fact planted seeds with her. As I look at the photos I don't see one garden bed around her home, not one shrub even. There must be another area on the property that she gardened in, or , as one of the commentors at the funeral site, her legs bothered her so much she had given up gardening.

LilyMacBloom said:

Thank you for the photos Hazel, very helpful. I thought PK stated that A loved to garden and in fact planted seeds with her. As I look at the photos I don't see one garden bed around her home, not one shrub even. There must be another area on the property that she gardened in, or , as one of the commentors at the funeral site, her legs bothered her so much she had given up gardening.

Click to expand...

Interesting observation, Lily. In looking at a Google Earth view of the property (sorry I don't know how to capture it and post it here), there is no evident, visible garden area on it either that I was able to determine. Perhaps someone with more experience with Google Earth than I could post the pic if interested.

PeonyLover said:

Interesting observation, Lily. In looking at a Google Earth view of the property (sorry I don't know how to capture it and post it here), there is no evident, visible garden area on it either that I was able to determine. Perhaps someone with more experience with Google Earth than I could post the pic if interested.

Click to expand...

Perhaps her plants were kept in the room where the windows had plastic on them.Maybe it was herbs used in cooking?

This is an older link that may have been posted already, but I do not recall the autopsy info that was in this clip. Also, the web wage did not allow me the copy and paste function. A similar newspaper article also popped up in my search , but seems to be removed.
http://www.brantnews.com/news.cfm?page=news&section=read&articleId=9566

PeonyLover said:

Interesting observation, Lily. In looking at a Google Earth view of the property (sorry I don't know how to capture it and post it here), there is no evident, visible garden area on it either that I was able to determine. Perhaps someone with more experience with Google Earth than I could post the pic if interested.

Click to expand...

It is winter time in this area and all garden areas would have been cleaned up.

There is also snow on the ground in most of the pictures

I agree with others about the storm insulation plastic. They're pretty popular around here to stop drafts and also save on heating. As for the basement, I'm thinking she probably had at least a cellar? I know next to nothing about houses but I've never been in a house that didn't have a basement or cellar so I guess I just find it odd that there wouldn't be one. There's what appears to be a cellar/basement window visible in a couple of the pictures that Hazel posted (thank you Hazel - very helpful!).

dotr said:

This is an older link that may have been posted already, but I do not recall the autopsy info that was in this clip. Also, the web wage did not allow me the copy and paste function. A similar newspaper article also popped up in my search , but seems to be removed.
http://www.brantnews.com/news.cfm?page=news&section=read&articleId=9566

Click to expand...

can you summarize?

Thank you guys for helping me out on the basement/window issues of the cold north. I do have to plead ignorance here being on the west coast. We freeze our bunnies off when it gets down to 20. I fully realize that things are mighty different up your way.

Being that a pond (not sure if it is manmade and lined or seasonal) is quite close to the house, I wonder if that could have been the reason to skip a basement there. It might have had leakage problems. I noticed that one of Ms. Gleave's students wrote about her pond on the Remembrance page. I thought perhaps that during nice weather, that might be where the bench was placed.

I also wondered about the absolute lack of landscaping, especially after living in the house for so long. I thought perhaps that the flower beds might be covered for the winter and annuals planted in the spring. Maybe the handyman is to thank for the neatness and tidiness of the property.

One thought I had in looking back at the photos is that the house almost looks uninhabited from the outside. Being that so many homes have been foreclosed upon (not sure that this problem has hit Ancaster), could someone have thought that and broken in and Ms. Gleave confronted them? Vacation homes are often tidied up in a similar manner. Being that the garage looked empty, I'm fairly certain that the car would have been parked in the garage. I wonder if the killer attempted to steal the car but couldn't get it started for some reason and that's why they impounded it.

And no, that doesn't explain a sudden explosion from the dogs or why on earth the poor woman was sexually assaulted and murdered.

Having grown up in Ancaster when it was still a tiny village, I am surprised at the interest here on this case from people all over.

Mercyneal--I think it's because this case just makes no sense. There seems to be no clear motive. Ms. Gleave seemed to have no enemies and lived a private, cautious life. No murder makes sense, of course, but this one seems particularly vicious and strange. I'm interested in it as it so closely parallels a recent murder in Oregon--a single woman attacked and killed in her home with a large and protective dog present but no robbery.

Is it a hate crime, sexually motivated, a government hit, a ritual killing by dabblers in the occult, or simply a random killing and assault by a crazy person who's still wandering around Ancaster? Does LE possibly already have the killer in custody--the homeless man who lived in the barn several miles away? It's very frightening.

I've read the thread, but I can't remember if this has been mentioned or not. Police believe that Audrey was murdered 3 days before her body was discovered. Would this be accurate, or is it based on the fact that Audrey's friend last saw her on Monday and had not been heard from/seen since that day?

http://www.simcoereformer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2914595

Missizzy said:

Mercyneal--I think it's because this case just makes no sense. There seems to be no clear motive. Ms. Gleave seemed to have no enemies and lived a private, cautious life. No murder makes sense, of course, but this one seems particularly vicious and strange. I'm interested in it as it so closely parallels a recent murder in Oregon--a single woman attacked and killed in her home with a large and protective dog present but no robbery.

Is it a hate crime, sexually motivated, a government hit, a ritual killing by dabblers in the occult, or simply a random killing and assault by a crazy person who's still wandering around Ancaster? Does LE possibly already have the killer in custody--the homeless man who lived in the barn several miles away? It's very frightening.

Click to expand...

One of the sweetest ladies I have ever known, a widow, living alone on her rural Kansas farm was found brutally murdered; random murder by 2 young creeps on a rampage allegedly after watching a revoltingly violent movie of murder and mayhem. (from personal info not included in this document, I don't think) My friend's dear mother was stabbed 21 times in the back and THEN shot! Mental illness (schizophrenia) involved with at least one of the perps, as per defense.
This link will probably not work; I'm not adept at such things.

http://www.kscourts.org/cases-and-opinions/opinions/supct/1997/19970124/74877.htm

I hope it is ok to post this; I think it is a public document. Please delete and not scold too much if not allowed. ;o)

heartfortruth said:

One of the sweetest ladies I have ever known, a widow, living alone on her rural Kansas farm was found brutally murdered; random murder by 2 young creeps on a rampage allegedly after watching a revoltingly violent movie of murder and mayhem. (from personal info not included in this document, I don't think) My friend's dear mother was stabbed 21 times in the back and THEN shot! Mental illness (schizophrenia) involved with at least one of the perps, as per defense.
This link will probably not work; I'm not adept at such things.

http://www.kscourts.org/cases-and-opinions/opinions/supct/1997/19970124/74877.htm

I hope it is ok to post this; I think it is a public document. Please delete and not scold too much if not allowed. ;o)

Click to expand...

This is the type of scenario I can almost picture (sadly) of AG, except for the sexual assault part...

LadyL said:

can you summarize?

Click to expand...

Sorry,it was just the first time, that I recall anyway,LE openly stating that there was a sex assault (as opposed to a crime with "a sexual component")followed by a stabbing

We surely have seen a number of recent horrible rapes of elderly women. The Texas Serial "Twilight" Rapist was just arrested and linked to rapes of women in their 60's to 90's. There's also Simon Angilda who's held in the KC area for raping a 92 year old in a home invasion robbery. And two unsolved serial rapist cases of elder women in Mississippi and Maryland. It does happen and is horrid.

I wanted to speak to eachandevery's post upthread. You are correct, the facts are really confusing. There's this statement at the link you provided:

http://www.simcoereformer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2914595

"Police believe she was murdered three days earlier, and have ruled out as a suspect the man who discovered her body...."

and

"....Audrey Gleave's body was found last Thursday [Dec. 30th] by a young man who used to do odd jobs for her in her home several kilometres to the east of the abandoned Lynden Road farm..."

That would mean that she was killed on the same day her friend brought soup--the 27th. And yet her Remembrance page states her date of death as Dec. 30th, the day her handyman found her body while he was delivering a cake he'd made. I haven't read other reports that he "used" to work for her. Possibly that just means his work was done in the warmer months. There's also quite a bit of comment in several of the article about more than one assailant being a possibility. I think it also needs to be remembered that the homeless man who stayed in the barn was over 3 miles away. As concerning as he is, I'd have to wonder why he'd walk so far to attack a woman.

I wanted to bring up two things I've wondered about. I didn't even know there was a large pond adjacent to the home until Hazel posted the photos (thanks again!!) and wonder if it has been thoroughly checked for weapons or other evidence. Surely it has. Is it frozen right now? Also, being that the car was towed for inspection, I wonder if Ms. Gleave had allowed someone to drive it or had even driven the assailant in it. Might she have responded to a call to pick someone up or have stopped to give someone a drive if she was out driving--like the man in custody? Was she known to go for drives? Was she known to pick up people who were walking? I realize that she was under the weather but she still could have gone out.

Does anyone remember if LV, the good friend, actually saw Ms. Gleave when she dropped off the soup?

And, I'd have to go back and look, but when is it that Audrey sent that email to her neighbour?

ETA: I went through the thread, and read that Audrey emailed her neighbour on the 27th. Weird. If she emailed her neighbour on the 27th, yet is believed to have been killed on the 27th, then I'm totally lost.

ETA 2: If the timing is correct, then the fact she emailed "Amazing Grace" is kind of . . . eerie. She made sure that very few people had her email address, and I'm not sure why, but - and this is a stretch, I know - if she was murdered on the 27th, was this some sort of message? Is it possible she was not the one who sent it?

ETA 3: If her dogs appeared to have made no fuss, could there be a link to the medication she picked up? I'm in no way accusing anyone of murder, but could it have been sedating?

sillybilly said:

May not be related, but Woodstock is only 42 miles from Ancaster where Audrey lived.



full article at:
http://brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2926181

Click to expand...

From news conference a short while ago

http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2928424

Police want public to search their properties for missing woman
National
By Heather Rivers
Posted 21 minutes ago


Without telling her family a missing Woodstock woman called in sick Tuesday morning before disappearing without a trace.

Brenda Duncan, 57, has been missing since she left her Jack Poole Drive home Tuesday morning around 8 a.m.

Duncan was last seen by her daughter Shawna Ricci, 24, and has not been heard from since.


Police said her disappearance is uncharacteristic of the family-oriented CCAC caseworker.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon Woodstock police Chief Rod Freeman called on Oxford County residents to scour their properties to look for her car, a burgandy 2008 Mazda 5 with Ontario License Plate BCSJ 791.

"I do seriously believe if we find that vehicle, we'll find Mrs. Duncan," Freeman said.