Toronto police have laid charges in the Nov. 25 death of 22-year-old Tess Richey of North Bay.
Homicide Detective Sergeant Graham Gibson made the announcement at a news conference this morning.
The charges come more than two months after her lifeless body was found by her mother and a friend five days later. Tess was the youngest of five daughters.
See: Missing North Bay woman found dead
Kalen Schlatter, 21, was arrested last night in Toronto, close to his west-end home, and has been charged with second-degree murder.
He has been remanded in custody.
"We believe they were together alone in that area and they were together for some time and that Mr. Schlatter left the area and by the time he left Tess was already, unfortunately, deceased," said Gibson.
The pair did not know each other previously but met that night.
Police say Schlatter is the man in pictures police released in December.
See: Police release photos of Richey murder suspect
"We became aware of him fairly early on in our investigation," Gibson told reporters. "There was quite a bit of work involved to bring this to the point where we placed him under arrest for the homicide. It's the appropriate charge in this case."
The cause of death was strangulation.
Gibson described the suspect as someone who "does some contract work, not renovation but doing exterior work."
Police say they have no motive at this time.
"This is the kind of case where obviously you want to make an arrest because it's very high profile and Tess was a young innocent girl," added Gibson. "Obviously, this is something that should never happen to anybody. It took a lot of work. We were lucky to have it come to this successful conclusion."
See the news conference here. (Also video posted at the bottom of this story)
This morning, her sister Varina posted on Facebook:
"I’m not quite sure how to make an announcement such as this, as no matter what I learnt in law school nothing could quite prepare me for any of this.
"At approximately 11:25 pm last night we received the call we have all been waiting for yet we never imagined we’d have to ever receive. The person who allegedly took our Tessie’s precious life has been arrested on 2nd degree murder charges and wasn’t even at the station yet as the detective called to tell us the news.
"We knew they were onto the suspect as we had been strongly advised that postering was not necessary many weeks ago as well as other information that led to us repeatedly stating that we were happy with the progress of the investigation. We obviously have a long road ahead of us and in the interest of not doing anything to prejudice any stage of the judicial process we don’t have anything to say or any information we wish to share with anyone.
"Please understand. I would advise you to wait for the facts at trial and to rely on our endorsement of CTV, CBC and CP24 as (at the time of this writing) they really cared about Tess and the other victims of homicide in the Church and Wellesley area and not just the ‘story’.
"This is not a celebration for us but it is a victory of sorts and we would now like to finally focus our energy and attention on honouring and remembering the best and zaniest little sister any of us Richey girls ever could have asked for.
"I would also like to thank all those who shared Tess’ missing persons post and the photo of the POI as well as all those who postered, sent in tips, offered use of resources, given us and continue to give us (which will go on legal fees) monetary aid and of course, the kind words of support and love we’ve been shown.
"This morning we have an arraignment to attend where we will have to use all the strength and energy we can muster to be dignified while staring at the alleged evil who destroyed our family. There will be a big press release this afternoon/evening which will give you some information as we prepare for the next step as unwilling participants in this unfolding nightmare.
"I know it’s been difficult watching our pain, fear and grief from the fringes and for that we can only apologise but we know if the roles were reversed we would be your biggest champions for justice too.
"With all the love in the world,"
Varina Richey
