CANADA Canada - Sharin Morningstar Keenan, 9, Toronto, 23 Jan 1983

A very interesting article from 1983.

A nine-year-old Toronto girl, whose sexually abused body was...

A nine-year-old Toronto girl, whose sexually abused body was...
By
STEVEN PETRANIK
TORONTO -- A nine-year-old Toronto girl, whose sexually abused body was found in a rooming house refrigerator, was lured from a west-end park by a man who offered to buy tickets to support a school function, police believe.

Police have issued a nation-wide warrant for the arrest of a 39-year-old man using the name Michael Burns, whom they described as being white, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-9, 150 pounds and muscular with gray-streaked dark hair, a tanned complexion, decayed teeth and a sloppy appearance.

Police said Wednesday they think Sharin Morningstar Keenan was lured from Jan Sibelius Park, just 100 meters from the rooming house where her body was found, by a man who promised to buy tickets to support her school.

Sharin had earlier canvassed the neighborhood with her mother but had not sold any tickets.

Her clothed body was found late Tuesday in a still-running refrigerator in a vacant room of the rooming house, nine days after she vanished.

An autopsy Wednesday showed the murderer used his hands to strangle the girl, a police spokesman said. 'There is evidence to indicate she had been sexually molested.'

Regional coroner Dr. James Young said it was impossible to tell how long Sharin had been dead or how long she had been in the refrigerator.

Teams of detectives spent more than 20 hours in the room where the body was found, searching for evidence.

Police are convinced Burns is an alias and fingerprint experts have been examining the room, looking for clues to his real identity.

The suspect was last seen wearing a black, waist-length nylon windbreaker, gray pants and a white, star-patterned dress shirt.

A resident of the area told police he had seen the 80-pound, brown-haired youngster the day she disappeared, talking to a man in Jan Sibelius Park and later leaving with him.

The rooming house was one of hundreds visited by investigators during the initial stages of the search, police said.

Hundreds of policemen and volunteers searched for the Grade 4 pupil and 10,000 photos were circulated across the city.

After identifying the body, Sharin's father, Brendan Caron, said 'my worst fears have come true.'

Caron said he opposed capital punishment but said anyone convicted in the case 'should never be free to walk the streets again. If people were locked up for the rest of their lives, that would be deterrent enough.'

A funeral will be held Friday at a Toronto Buddhist church.
 
We now know that a dollar bill was found in her coat pocket, so I'm surprised this was buried for so long. It's possible that Howe had had his eye on her for a while and approached her with the line of buying tickets for her school function.

Her mother may have forgotten all about selling tickets.
 
Thanks and it would be useful to attach all articles around the time...I did do the research but did not take careful notes mea culpa......

1. the ticket thing is interesting. I don't see how her mother would forget this and in the Ridgen film she gets very upset at the idea that Sharin went anywhere for a dollar. Also note they say they had tried to sell tickets without success.... well this has to come from the parents surely probably the mother...it is actually also strange that they couldn't sell any tickets.....though that would lead to the idea that Sharin was desperate to get a sale...actually I doubt that story of the one dollar bill but for other reasons

2. Caron says his worse fears have come true as I said before in another early media report he had said she will probably be found in fridge somewhere...incredibly strange intuition

3. IMPORTANT...does anyone know which Buddhist church....the address?

4. still running refrigerator is a strange detail also vacant room.....he would only have been behind a week on rent at worst....the room was not really vacant

5. why could the coroner not determine how long she had been in the refrigerator....my guess is that his finding did not fit with the police idea and he just threw up his hands....said he didn't know
6. can someone help? luckily I have never come across a dead child in a refrigerator....but surely it would be necessary to remove the internal racks to get her in there but there is no indication in the photos or in text that they saw the racks outside the fridge.....she was a reasonably big child....the whole thing with the cop seeing the garbage bag and thinking it is laundry and then her "shiny" hair falling out ("when I think about Sharin I think about how shiny her hair was") is bizarre.......early reports in media said the autopsy could not be done for two days because she was frozen solid..which to me means she was somewhere else first in an actual freezer
7. the person who saw her in the park talking to a man. Is that the same person who in the Ridgen film saw them and who according to his own story would have had to see them walk into Howe's house 3 or 4 doors down? There was another early report that she was seen talking to a young man not Howe and that they left in a taxi to an address which police refused to name....since the case is so strange I can add (from taxi research only) that I believe that address was around the American consulate near 52 division Queen and University....
 
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1. The ticket theory is interesting. I'd like to know if they found a ticket booklet in her pocket with the remaining tickets.

2. Extremely eerie.

3. I searched for the exact address but couldn't find anything. An image search found this: Only a few hundred yards from where she died; hundreds of mourners attend funeral for murdered 9-year-old Sharin' Morningstar Keenan. : Virtual Reference Library

"Only a few hundred yards from where she died; hundreds of mourners attend funeral for murdered 9-year-old Sharin' Morningstar Keenan"

My personal guess would be that it was held here: Kadampa Meditation Centre Canada / 631 Crawford St, Toronto, ON M6G 3K1

4. Strange.

5. You'd think he could have said days or a week

6. Again, strange that it's not seen in the photos or reports. The fridge is an older model, even for the early 80's, it looks like it's from the 1960's, not sure what the insides would have looked like, but there definitely would have been racks. Seems to me she must have been in a cubed freezer or maybe even outside hidden in the snow and ice.

7. Not sure

My own question:

Howe's brother made several trips to the USA that stopped when the police started asking questions. Did anyone do a follow-up? Look for John Does in those cities that were the right fit for Howe? I know his fingerprints are in the system, but still, the police could have gone in, even 20 years later and asked questions.
 
1. It seems like poor police work that they simply didn't just follow him on one of his trips to possibly see his brother rather than alerting him. I know there are always budget constraints. I wonder if they checked credit card slips bank statements etc.

2. See 5 minutes four seconds of the Ridgen film a pic of the house Howe was living in. I believe his room was second floor on the right. Who was living on the left the room or rooms with the bay window so next door to Howe? I understand it that O.H. was living on the third floor and the guy who was illegal on the first.







1. The ticket theory is interesting. I'd like to know if they found a ticket booklet in her pocket with the remaining tickets.

2. Extremely eerie.

3. I searched for the exact address but couldn't find anything. An image search found this: Only a few hundred yards from where she died; hundreds of mourners attend funeral for murdered 9-year-old Sharin' Morningstar Keenan. : Virtual Reference Library

"Only a few hundred yards from where she died; hundreds of mourners attend funeral for murdered 9-year-old Sharin' Morningstar Keenan"

My personal guess would be that it was held here: Kadampa Meditation Centre Canada / 631 Crawford St, Toronto, ON M6G 3K1

4. Strange.

5. You'd think he could have said days or a week

6. Again, strange that it's not seen in the photos or reports. The fridge is an older model, even for the early 80's, it looks like it's from the 1960's, not sure what the insides would have looked like, but there definitely would have been racks. Seems to me she must have been in a cubed freezer or maybe even outside hidden in the snow and ice.

7. Not sure

My own question:

Howe's brother made several trips to the USA that stopped when the police started asking questions. Did anyone do a follow-up? Look for John Does in those cities that were the right fit for Howe? I know his fingerprints are in the system, but still, the police could have gone in, even 20 years later and asked questions.
 
Sharin Morningstar Keenan. This sure takes me back. I can still see her photo in my mind. I’ll go back and read the pages on this thread.
Seeing Sharin’s name made me think back to Emanuel Jaques also known as the shoeshine boy in 1977. Emanuel’s murder was solved but it was such a horrible end to this young boys life.
After all these years, their names still haunt me.
 
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Sorry everyone, will look a little further...for one closer lol
 
Regarding the fridge and all the banging apparently heard in the rooming house where SMK was found..
Wondered if the noises heard by the other tenants was the sound of fridges getting relocated from one place (room/ house) to another?
complete speculation.
 
Information on a cold case murder back in 1983 of a 9-year-old, Sharin Morningstar Keenan.

Information on a cold case murder back in 1983 of a 9-year-old, Sharin Morningstar Keenan.
9-year-old Sharin Morningstar Keenan
July 3, 1973 - Jan. 23, 1983
Toronto, ON Canada
"Be home by five" was the last thing Lynda Keenan ever said to her daughter. It was just before she left to play with friends on the square. Sharin never made it home. Ten days later her lifeless body was found stuffed into a refrigerator after she had been sexual assaulted and murdered.
Dennis Howe was found guilty of the murder but escaped from police and has been on the run ever since. He is on the most wanted list for Canada. Going by names Michael Burns, Wayne King, Ralph Ferguson and Jim Myers.

The murder of Sharin' Morningstar Keenan
Sharin' Morningstar Keenan was nine years old when she disappeared at around 4 p.m. from Sibelius Park in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood on January 23, 1983.
Sharin' was in grade four and had gone to the park to play that Sunday afternoon. City-wide searches were conducted, however her body was found nine days later, on February 1, very close to the park - in a rooming house on Brunswick Avenue. A man eventually identified as Dennis Melvin Howe was named the perpetrator by police. Howe lived under several aliases and fled the area the day after the murder after receiving an advance on his pay cheque.
Since then, Howe has been on the run. Some believe he may still be alive in Canada, the United States, or Mexico. In this program Sharin's mother Lynda comes forward publicly for the first time in nearly 20 years to work with David Ridgen on the case to explore the evidence and help memorialize Sharin' as the young artist that she was.


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Murder victim Sharin' Morningstar Keenan

25 years hunting child's killer
In the quiet corners of in his mind, Brian Lawrie still waits. Now and then, reviewing the testimony of a very bad day he's saved, in detail, for a quarter of a century.

The former policeman struggled with the fact that he, and fellow officers, weren't in time to save a young girl. Now, so long after, he wonders whether he'll ever get the chance to give his first-hand account, which could send her suspected killer, Dennis Melvyn Howe, to prison.

It was 25 years ago today that a Toronto murder, and the manhunt that followed, captivated a nation. And like any true bogeyman, Howe - alive or now dead - has managed to stay out of the light ever since.

The Jan. 23, 1983, abduction, and killing, of Sharin' Morningstar Keenan, is still recalled as one of the city's most notorious slayings.

Sharin', a pretty nine-year-old, was last seen playing in Toronto's Jean Sibelius Park. More than a week later, Lawrie - once a seasoned police officer in the U.K. and then in Canada - would pry open a fridge in Howe's former low-rent flat. A garbage bag with a shirt sticking out could be seen.

"Who keeps clothes in the fridge," he wondered.

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Then, after another tug to free the jammed door, and Sharin's remains would spill out. Her nightmare was over. But for many, who lived hoping she'd be found alive, the torture and torment were just beginning.

Const. Lawrie's close friend and partner that day, Det. Mike Pedley - a sensitive cop, Lawrie recalls - would later commit suicide.

Who knows why any man chooses that as a solution, Lawrie says, when asked how much the grim discovery of Sharin' had to do with a good cop taking his own life. But Lawrie recalls the moment the weight of the discovery began to crush him - or, at least, his future plans as a police officer. It wasn't at the moment he noticed the fridge, with its racks removed. Or even when it opened wide, and Sharin's hair tumbling out of the bag.

"I said, 'Mike, she's in the fridge,' " he now recalls, having to rush up to Pedley, who was in the flat's doorway. At first, Pedley didn't hear - or couldn't comprehend - what he was being told.

"The last thing you imagine (during a massive search) is finding the person.

"But that doesn't stop you from looking at all the details."

It was Pedley - as he and Lawrie were armed with a vague composite - who put the pieces together, to find the room where Sharin' was found.

That was after investigators - including detectives Wayne Oldham and David Boothby, who later became Toronto's chief of police - decided to do a second sweep of homes around Sharin's residence.

For hours after their discovery of the body, tipped off by a landlady who hadn't seen one of her roomers for days, Lawrie and Pedley were pushed forward by the momentum of training and adrenaline. Even by the urgent need to find a phone, since they didn't have radios.

"A lot of deep breaths," he recalls.

But the next morning, as he sat eating toast and drinking coffee, Lawrie says the clash between that routine pleasure and having found a dead child hours before began a rush to question his future. The fact he would be called to an unrelated suicide the day after Sharin's discovery simply set things in concrete.

He told Pedley: "I don't know if I want to do this anymore."

Hardest for the pair, he recalls, was the frustration over not being there in time to save Sharin'. Pedley would often mention the day afterward. For awhile, Lawrie would have flashbacks to Sharin's hair falling down. He would think of her when he would see a little girl looking back at him from a car window.

"What would she be now … a 34-year-old woman?" he considers. "Until you called, I didn't think it was a quarter of a century.

"I don't dwell on it as much as I did, but I do think of it … every time I hear of a child going missing or assaulted or of a pedophile on the loose."

The search for Howe - an early note in his police file says it would only be a short while before he was caught - has been a frustrating marathon.

He was tracked to Winnipeg, then nothing.

It's led to hundreds of sightings across North America, the exhumation of a body in Sudbury - which turned out not to be him - and a dentist figuring he had the suspect in his chair.

The man had teeth that were almost as bad as Howe's. And like Howe, he was, by his bad luck, also wanted by the police.

"A ghost … that's a good way to put it," says Det. Sgt. Reg Pitts, of the Toronto police homicide squad.

He believes there's a good chance Howe couldn't have stayed out of trouble for 25 years, and that he may well be dead.

"We still get ten to 12 calls a year," Pitts says of the notorious case. "No one has ever completely forgotten it."

Legendary crime writer Max Haines - who's retired from Sun Media, and has taken up a consulting position with the Toronto force - says Howe's legend was born from the vision of a child in a refrigerator, and the fact he's remained out there, somewhere. Haines, for years, kept Howe's picture in his wallet. He took it out, only because he thought the exhumed body was arguably Canada's most wanted man.

"It would be a happy day to see the headline that he's been found," says Haines.

For Lawrie - who went on to establish POINTTS, a successful traffic court representation firm - he routinely goes over the details, preparing testimony he may never give.

"I go over all the evidence … what I would have to say," he explains.

That, he finally adds, would be a very good day. One too long in coming.

If you have information on Howe, please phone Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or Toronto Police Homicide Squad at 416-808-7400.
 
So the racks from the fridge had been removed.

I still find it very odd that nothing was said about her being frozen solid.
 
Interesting case which is now 35 years old. I suspect that Howe is long dead, since he has not been found. He could not have changed his ways and become a model citizen.
 
But that wouldn't have been a hundred yards from where she was found, google maps says it's 12 km away.

That's because the Toronto Buddhist Church used to be on Bathurst Street, near Sharin's neighbourhood. They have moved in the intervening years to Sheppard Ave West.

Here is a picture from Sharin's funeral. I was in her class, but for some reason that my parents can't recall, I wasn't able to attend. I'm still really upset about that. I never got a chance to say good-bye. I do remember drawing a picture of Sharin' as an angel, for her family.

Sharins-Funeral-Toronto-Buddhist-Church.jpg


I just found this picture of Sharin's gravestone. Her birthday was July 3rd. She would be 46 today, same as me. I wish I knew where she is buried, so I can go visit her and bring her flowers... Does anybody know?

Keenan-Sharin-Morningstar-gravestone.jpg
 
That's because the Toronto Buddhist Church used to be on Bathurst Street, near Sharin's neighbourhood. They have moved in the intervening years to Sheppard Ave West.

Here is a picture from Sharin's funeral. I was in her class, but for some reason that my parents can't recall, I wasn't able to attend. I'm still really upset about that. I never got a chance to say good-bye. I do remember drawing a picture of Sharin' as an angel, for her family.

Sharins-Funeral-Toronto-Buddhist-Church.jpg


I just found this picture of Sharin's gravestone. Her birthday was July 3rd. She would be 46 today, same as me. I wish I knew where she is buried, so I can go visit her and bring her flowers... Does anybody know?

Keenan-Sharin-Morningstar-gravestone.jpg
Welcome to Ws!
So sorry about your classmate, children should not have to worry about such things.
Sharin' Morningstar Keenan (1973-1983) - Find...
 
Hi dotr, thank you. I did find Sharin' on FindAGrave.com only a minute before I came back here and saw your post. But I appreciate it. I am glad she is at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. It is a very beautiful, peaceful place. Also, thank you for the picture of her artwork. I was also hugely into drawing, painting, writing stories, and singing. If only I'd had the chance to get to know her better, we would have been best friends! Sadly, I only knew her for a brief time in Grade 4. I want everyone to know that Sharin' lived up to her given name, for she literally shared half her sandwich with me, one time when I forgot my lunch at home. *cry* I miss her, and I am sad and angry that she never got to grow up, and I never had a chance to really get to know her, and to love her.
 
Re. comments following video, wondering what type of cigs. DMH smoked, PalMal?
 

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