On September 14, 1994 around 5:00 p.m., two masked men entered the Gagnon Sporting Goods store on Simcoe Street South in Oshawa and demanded all staff and customers get on the ground.
One of the men, who was armed with a handgun fired several shots. Store owner, Roger Pardy suffered a fatal gunshot wound and three others were also shot. A customer who had pulled into the parking lot saw the masked men enter the store and quickly went to a nearby house to call 911.
Officers arrived to find the suspects had already fled the scene in a vehicle, after smashing a glass gun cabinet, stealing numerous guns from the store. Officers cordoned off the area with police tape and an extensive search of the area was conducted for the suspects and any evidence they could have left behind. Canine units were brought in to search the ravine area behind the store, and the painstaking process of evidence collection that would take seven days began.
Identification officers were assigned to the scene and spent days processing the crime scene. The day following the shooting, officers were called to an address on Bloor Street in Oshawa where they located the getaway vehicle. The vehicle was registered to Kenneth Thomas, a Pickering resident who had been reported missing the previous evening. Bloodstains in the vehicle indicated that one of the suspects had been injured during in the robbery. The identification officers carefully inspected every piece of glass from the gun cabinet for traces of blood and found three pieces of glass with blood on them – which would prove as vital evidence in identifying a suspect.
After several months and the completion of DNA analysis of the blood in the getaway vehicle and the glass from the gun case, investigators determined the blood came from the same person – one of the suspects could now be identified by their DNA.
The body of Ken Thomas was located on January 21, 1995. The search of this scene and evidence collection took seven days to complete. Bullets collected at the scene were compared with the bullets that killed Roger Pardy and were identified as being fired by the same weapon. This linked the Pardy and Thomas murders.
The DNA evidence placed one of the suspects at the Gagnon robbery and in the Thomas vehicle. Unlike fingerprints, no data base comparing DNA had been established. Investigators needed to find a suspect, collect his DNA and send it for comparison.
On March 10, 1995, three men were arrested in St. Thomas, Ontario after robbing a grocery store and shooting the manager. The suspects were in possession of three guns – two of them were the same make and model of guns that were stolen in the Gagnon robbery but the serial numbers had been filed off. Learning that two of these suspects were believed to have been responsible for a series of robberies that began September 19, 1994 was the break investigators needed.
The suspects were asked to provide samples for DNA testing. Deryck Thompson provided a sample that eliminated him as the bleeding suspect at Gagnon’s. Suspects Ronald Woodcock and Roshan Norouzali declined. Investigators were able to examine clothing they were wearing at the time of their arrest and both had suffered minor cuts during their arrest. The clothing was sent for analysis and Roshan Norouzali’s DNA matched the blood found in both the gun cabinet and the Thomas car. He was now positively identified as one of the participants in the double homicide. Evidence to link Ron Woodcock to the murders was still needed.
Two of the guns were submitted to restore the serial numbers and using a Magna Flux solution process was successful. The serial numbers proved the guns were taken from Gagnon Sports – linking Woodcock to the Gagnon robbery.
Both men were charged with the murders of Roger Pardy and Ken Thomas. On March 12, 1998, the jury found both men guilty of two counts of first degree murder, in large part as a result of the evidence found and examined by the identification officers who processed the scene, DRPS Csts. Jim Goodwin and Greg McAllister.
This case was profiled on the Discovery Channel as part of a series that examines actual criminal cases where forensic sciences are instrumental in bringing justice to those who are responsible.
Stay tuned for part II of this story – Woodcock’s appeal and subsequent retrial.