An arrest has been made in the cold case murder of 24-year-old Donna Oglive, who was strangled to death in a parking lot in Toronto’s downtown core back in 1998.
At a news conference on Friday morning, Det.-Sgt. Steve Smith said 50-year-old Ronald Gordon Ackerman, of Gander, Newfoundland, was arrested at Toronto Pearson International Airport at around midnight on Wednesday night.
Ackerman has been charged with first-degree murder and is currently in custody.
“It looks like it may have been a sex trade transaction and it ended in the death of Ms. Oglive,” Smith told reporters about the homicide, which occurred in March of 1998.
Oglive was found in a parking lot located at 130 Carlton Street on the morning of March 8 suffering from what police described as obvious trauma. She was subsequently pronounced dead and Smith said the cause of death was later determined to be strangulation.
Oglive was pregnant with her second child at the time of the homicide, Smith confirmed.
“For 26 years, investigators have remained committed to seeking justice for Donna and her loved ones. Advances in forensic technology, along with the unwavering dedication of our team and investigative partners, have led us to this arrest,” Smith said in a written statement.
“Our thoughts remain with Donna’s family and friends, who have endured decades of grief and unanswered questions. No matter how much time passes, we do not give up on victims of homicide.”
The accused, police said, was 25 years old at the time of the incident and living in Scarborough.
Oglive had only been in Toronto for about five weeks at the time of her murder after relocating to the city from British Columbia.
Smith said police had retrieved offender DNA from the scene at the time of the homicide, but they were unable to find a match in the national DNA database.
With the help of Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG), police said, officers were able to trace the homicide back to the accused.
“We’ve had the DNA for a number of years but obviously there was no hit,” Smith said.
“We had to employ IGG and it has been about the last year that we’ve really narrowed it down.”
It was decided that the arrest would take place at the airport as investigators knew that Ackerman would be flying through Toronto on his way home to Newfoundland from the oil fields in northern Alberta, Smith said.
Smith added that police are now working to piece together the movements of the accused over the past two decades.
“We need to find out what he has been doing over the past 25 years and make sure there are no other victims, whether sexually motivated or homicides that he could be involved in,” Smith said.
