Steve Ryan - The Ghosts That Haunt Me: Memories of a Homicide Detective

MEMORIES OF A HOMICIDE DETECTIVE

Steve Ryan

Copyright Steve Ryan, 2022

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Publisher and acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Michael Carroll

Cover designer: Matthew Maaskant

Cover image: hallway: unsplash.com/Kamil Feczko; hand: unsplash.com/De an Sun

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The ghosts that haunt me : memories of a homicide detective / Steve Ryan.

Names: Ryan, Steve (Homicide detective), author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220236798 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220236895 | ISBN 9781459749733 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459749740 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459749757 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Ryan, Steve (Homicide detective) | LCSH: DetectivesOntarioTorontoBiography. | LCSH: HomicideOntarioToronto. | LCSH: Homicide investigationOntarioToronto.

Classification: LCC HV6535.C3 T67 2022 | DDC 364.152092dc23

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

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Printed and bound in Canada.

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I would like to dedicate this book to the victims of homicide in the City of Toronto that I investigated throughout my career. Every one of you has a place in my heart, and I will carry you, your families, and your stories with me forever.

I would also like to dedicate this book to all the police officers I worked with, in a team, to solve these cases, as well as the pathologists and their assistants and the people at the Centre of Forensic Sciences. And finally, I also dedicate this book to the Crown attorneys and defence lawyers, judges, and juries who keep our justice system fair and impartial. Each successful investigation was a group effort informed by the work of many brilliant contributors. Without the efforts of a multitude of individuals, these cases would remain unsolved to this day.

TIMES CHANGE, BUT CRIME SCENES DONT .

Theres a coroner on scene. A grieving family, too. Youll often see blood, markers next to shell casings, emergency vehicles, television cameras, and yellow police tape.

For more than three decades in the Greater Toronto Area, another constant at such scenes has been Steve Ryan. Reporters who cover tragedies would see Steve behind that yellow tape talking to a young cop or a witness and surveying every inch of what was in front of him and behind him.

As a detective, he always took a gumshoe approach. The more time at the scene, the more time talking to witnesses, the stronger the case when it got to a courtroom. This cop was all about solving crimes and putting away those who committed them. If it meant partaking in a long stakeout, so be it.

We never forget the victims of crime, Ryan would tell reporters. We do everything we can to get justice for them and their families.

The technology might have changed, but when you go to a crime scene, one thing that remains the same is youll see Steve Ryan. But now hes on the other side of the yellow tape.

When Ryan hung up his Toronto Police Service badge and gun, he replaced it with a microphone and camera as a reporter and crime specialist for CP24. However, hes still all cop, all the time. While covering a crime or tragedy as a media member, he cant help but be there to help solve it.

Once a detective, always a detective. Its an edge reporters who havent been police officers dont have. However, when you get to know this man off screen, its clear that what drives him isnt just the quest to solve a riddle or break a story but to honour the victims. The human aspect of the harsh realities of this world followed Ryan from his years in Toronto Polices Homicide unit to the street as a television personality. Every case seems personal to him.

The Ghosts That Haunt Me highlights six of Ryans police cases and reveals a man who from an early age was driven to serve and protect. He always had the respect of the reporters, but in covering some of these cases as a reporter myself, what I didnt realize was the personal toll it took on him. When he writes about cases such as the brutal murders of Holly Jones, Stefanie Rengel, and Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji, he brings the reader inside both the investigations and the personal turmoil that went with them.

Ryans vulnerability is on full display. This fascinating book goes a long way to explain something about this fine man who could be golfing instead of being around body bags and bullet holes.

However, Ryan knows that on the golf course he cant help families in need or assist the community in dealing with the ugly side of life. But still, whenever I see him out there shivering in his car in the heart of winter, I cant help but wonder why. This very personal memoir delves into that very question while paying tribute to the victims he doesnt want the world to forget.

Some things never change.

Joe Warmington

Reporter and Columnist, Toronto Sun

AS I WROTE THIS BOOK and looked back on a thirty-year career and more than fifty years of life, I realized something: I feel most defined by my career as a homicide detective. Sure, Ive been involved in other things in my professional and personal lives and have gone by other titles. But theres something about investigating homicides that weaves itself into the fabric of an identity. Its unlike anything else.

Homicide sticks to your skin. It follows you home when you arrive back from work late at night. It hangs in the air like a dark cloud, travelling with you wherever you go. You cant wash it away, cant sleep it off, can never erase it from your memory. Theres no way to escape it, not even if you tried to its always there. Some days I wish that wasnt the case. I often wish I could forget about the deaths Ive seen. I wish I could switch off the part of me that knows too much about the darkness lurking within my city. But that can never be. Even now after having moved on to a new career with Bell Medias news station CP24, Ill always be a homicide detective. No matter how much time passes, no matter what I do, or where I go, its who I am.