Police Seek Public Assistance With 20 Year Old Homicide
Gaetano (Guy) Parise Wednesday May 10, 2006 marked the 20th Anniversary of the Gaetano (Guy) Parise murder in a field behind the Davedi Club on Airport Road. Parise and his wife were attending a wedding at the time, and at about 11 p.m.
Wednesday May 10, 2006 marked the 20th Anniversary of the Gaetano (Guy) Parise murder in a field behind the Davedi Club on Airport Road.
Parise and his wife were attending a wedding at the time, and at about 11 p.m. Parise was spotted exiting the front doors of the club with another guest, but he never returned.
After an extensive overnight search, the family located Parise’s body in the field at 5:34 a.m. May 11, 1986.
The cause of death for the local businessman, confirmed by Police Chief Paul Cook, was due to three shots to head with a .32-calibre revolver.
The international case may be cold, but far from closed, and so on the anniversary of North Bay’s only unsolved murder, Police Chief Paul Cook, went to the media to put out an appeal requesting witnesses to come forward with any information that will help in the investigation.
“The message we’re trying to get out very loud and clear is we’re not here to judge you, if you come forward now, we would appreciate hearing what you have to say.”
“Sometimes people are witnesses, and they don’t know they are witnesses, and they have valuable information they may have heard or seen that would assist with the investigation. Again we are looking for that missing piece to the puzzle,” states the Chief.
The Chief indicated that they have always had one strong suspect in the case, out of all the guests that attended the wedding that night, however, there are elements missing in order for the Crown Attorney to prosecute.
“Obviously anything of evidentiary value is what we’re looking for, certainly we had hundreds of people,” states Cook.
When asked if the murder was linked to organised crime, Cook paused for a long moment and said he would not speculate on the motive.
“Interpol is involved in assisting with some of the interviews taking place outside of Canada. I’m not prepared to say, to comment on any specifics into relation to what may be considered motive for the homicide.”
Cook did say that new technologies such as DNA sampling have been used to help solve the case but did not play a role in the call to the public.
“Other than the fact that this is the twenty year anniversary, no there’s no new recent information that’s come forward.”
Re-focusing the investigation in the public eye has received a mixed response from the family, but Cook says they’ve always been hopeful that the police service would find the missing pieces to the puzzle that would solve Parise’s homicide.
“A very difficult time for the family, they’ve lost a loved one. In some ways they’ve moved on with their lives, so it’s always difficult when you are starting to reopen those old wounds.”
“I can advise that the family is very supportive of the North Bay Police Service and has been throughout this investigation. This is a case that was originally assigned to now retired Chief George Berrigan, who was the original lead investigator on this so, again 20 years, a lot of time has passed but the family has always been supportive of our police service and the manner in which we have conducted ourselves in this investigation,” Cook stated.
