Tina Fontaine investigator asks Winnipeggers for help solving 4 homicides

Winnipeg police Sgt. John O'Donovan leapt into headlines with a moment of unscripted, raw emotion that reporters don't often see during police news conferences.

And it spoke to an issue O'Donovan feels passionate about to this day.

He was answering "the usual questions" about the homicide of Tina Fontaine, the 15-year-old girl whose fate attracted worldwide attention after her body was found dumped in the Red River eight days after she went missing.

• Tina Fontaine's body was wrapped in duvet cover, police reveal

"In society, we'd be horrified if we found a litter of pups or kittens in the river in this condition. This is a child," O'Donovan said to the television cameras and reporters in the briefing room on Aug. 18, 2014.

"Society should be horrified, and that's why we're asking for people to help us and to come forward with anything that they know about this child."

Tips started to pour in.

 "I just felt that this needed to be said," O'Donovan told CBC News as he recalled that day. "It was an outrageous thing to find this kid the way she was, and I know it outraged us as a unit working together. I felt I needed to say this and just get people's attention. It wasn't scripted, it wasn't prepared — it's just the way it came out."

It took a year, but Raymond Cormier, 53, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 9 and is charged with second-degree murder.

• Accused in Tina Fontaine homicide has at least 92 past convictions
• Raymond Cormier to fight Tina Fontaine murder charge, lawyer says

Without the public's help, there wouldn't have been an arrest in the case, O'Donovan said. 

He hopes what started that day will continue and lead to the arrest of more suspects in more unsolved homicides.

"We can solve all the homicides if people come to us with what they know," he said.

There are four unsolved homicides that continue to haunt O'Donovan.

The body of Fonassa Lynn Bruyere, 17, was discovered on Aug. 30, 2007, at Mollard Road and Ritchie Street. The cause of death was never released. No one has been charged. 

Patrick (Corey) Chief-Courchene, 29, was shot behind a Manitoba Avenue house on Sept. 15, 2007.

Ronald Wayne Lacey, a 49-year-old paraplegic, was beaten and dumped in the Red River near the Louise Bridge in August 2008.

And Justin Latinecz, 22, was shot outside his house on Essex Avenue near St. Mary's Road on Sept. 29, 2013.

"There are a variety of different types of homicides, but at the end of the day, they're all senseless killings," said O'Donovan. "We need that help. We need people, witnesses, people who will give us information — something we can substantiate and work on."  

O'Donovan, who moved to Canada from Ireland with his wife and then three young children in 1989, became a police officer after he saw a newspaper ad seeking new recruits to the Winnipeg Police Service.

"I was 33 years old. They thought I was too old, and I wasn't, and it's been really really good," he said.

Like all new constables, O'Donovan started his career on the streets of Winnipeg. Over the next 23 years, he would work his way through a number of investigative squads, from property crimes to major crimes and the Integrated Warrant Apprehension Unit.

Seven years ago, O'Donovan joined the homicide unit. Today, he's one of two sergeants in charge.

"It was something that I always would have wanted to do, I never thought I would, and it just ended up working out that way," said O'Donovan.

He spoke at the 2014 news conference because people who might normally have spoken were on holidays.

The response to his appeal rekindled his hope that more people will find the courage to speak to police and help victims' families achieve closure.

"I think one of the things that certainly renewed my faith in people, is the amount of people that just wanted to help."