OPP suspend search for remains

OPP News Release

*********************

Kirkland Lake – The Ontario Provincial Police has suspended the search for the remains of Katherine May Wilson, the 12-year-old Kirkland Lake girl who was abducted and murdered in 1970.

Although no conclusive evidence was found to indicate the presence of human remains, the searchers did locate some unidentifiable bone fragments which will be submitted to a forensic anthropologist for a decision on further DNA testing. Small pieces of fabric were also uncovered.

Since May 23, 2009, the Ontario Provincial Police with the assistance of senior students from the Forensic Anthropology and Archeology programs at the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University, under the professorial supervision, has been meticulously searching the wooded area on Goodfish Road, Morrisette Township, just north of Kirkland Lake.

In January 2009, Barry Vincent Manion, 60, London Ontario, was charged with non-capital murder. Manion pled guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2009; he died a few days later in his cell at the Monteith Correctional Complex. Information obtained during the course of the investigation and Manion’s subsequent plea, enabled police to establish the search area.

The investigation is under the direction of Detective Inspector Ken Leppert, OPP Criminal Investigation Branch, Orillia.

*********************