Shock, horror and disbelief: Murder trial witness describes finding Tess Richey's body

Ann Brazeau was part of a makeshift search party on Nov. 29, 2017 when she made a haunting discovery.

There, in an outdoor stairwell at 582 Church St. in downtown Toronto, lay the body of Tess Richey.

"I just saw her lying there and I went into complete shock. Horror. Disbelief. I couldn't process or make sense of what I was seeing," she said. "I was terrified."

She could barely look at Richey's face.

"It was so blue … I didn't want to look at it for very long."

Brazeau's testimony came Friday afternoon as the trial of the man accused of killing Richey and leaving her body that stairwell entered its second day.

Richey, 22, was reported missing in November 2017 after a night out in the Church and Wellesley area. Police say she died of "neck compression."

Investigators later arrested 23-year-old Kalen Schlatter of Toronto. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

In her opening address to the jury, Assistant Crown Attorney Bev Richards said Schlatter's DNA was found on Richey's pants and bra.

She said surveillance video shows Schlatter leading Richey to a stairwell of a building under construction around 4:14 a.m. on Nov. 25 — around the same time she was supposed to get into an Uber.

Richards said the video, which is expected to be presented at trial, will then show Schlatter leaving alone 45 minutes later.

Brazeau choked back tears in the witness box Friday as she described her friendship with Richey's mother, Christine Hermeston. She had enlisted Brazeau's help that day to put up missing posters around the area where Richey was last seen.

Brazeau testified that after finding Richey's body, she backed away in terror toward the street. Hermeston was a little ways away at that point, and Brazeau cried out for her to come back.

It was at that moment that Hermeston ran to the stairwell, Brazeau testified.

"She immediately started screaming, 'Oh dear God, help me.'"

'She was screaming'

Earlier Friday, court heard from Rachel Richey, Tess's sister. She testified that Richey came to her home on Nov. 24, and was dealing with a recent break-up.

Tess Richey later went out with a friend and visited Toronto nightclub Crews and Tangos, her sister testified. 

The next morning, Rachel Richey's text messages to her sister stopped going through, she said. While trembling in the witness box, Richey laid out how her family had started frantically searching for her missing sister in the days that followed.

Rachel Richey told the jury that she got a distraught phone call from her mother on Nov. 29.

"She was screaming. She told me that she found her ... and I said, "Is she alive?' And she said, 'No.'"

Richey then broke down in the witness box, crying with her head in her hands. She said her sister was her best friend and soulmate.

Upon hearing from her mother that day, Richey tore out of her Toronto home clutching her baby but forgetting her shoes, she said. She ran back and grabbed them before getting in a cab.

She arrived at a building under construction in the city's gay village, where a police officer guarded the scene. She was directed to a waiting ambulance and found her mother inside.

"I got into the ambulance with my mom and there's not really much to say," Rachel Richey said.

"The next few minutes, I just cried a lot and hugged my mom."

Brazeau and Hermeston found Richey's body four days after she vanished, just steps from where she was last seen. It was the day before what would have been Richey's 23rd birthday.

Police were heavily criticized for their failure to find Richey in the days following her disappearance. Hermeston had travelled from North Bay, Ont. to find her daughter.

A chance meeting

Michelle Teape also testified in court's afternoon session, and told the jury about meeting Schlatter, Richey and her friend Ryley Simard in the early morning hours of Nov. 25.

Teape was living at 50 Dundonald St. at that time, and struck up a conversation with the trio when Richey apologized for being too loud. The three had been walking in the area after leaving a nearby hot dog cart.

"Your impression of the threesome is that they were all friends?" Schlatter's lawyer Lydia Riva asked during cross-examination.

"Yes," Teape responded.

Teape also testified that Schlatter seemed "really quiet and shy," and said she had no concerns about the way he was acting with Richey.

She said neither Richey nor Schlatter appeared to be drunk.

adam.carter@cbc.ca