A suspect has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 21-year-old Patrick Santos, whose lifeless body was found bound and beaten in the backyard of his Scarborough home nearly 20 years ago.
Police previously said that Santos’ father discovered his son’s body on the back patio of his home on Bridlington Street, in the area of Ellesmere and Bellamy roads, at around 7:20 a.m. on Sept. 17, 2006.
His feet and hands were bound, police said, and there was tape wrapped around his head.
Police said they believe the suspect or suspects were lying in wait for Santos to return home and ambushed him when he was trying to enter his house through a back door.
The last known contact anyone had with Santos, police said, was at 4:30 a.m. when he spoke to his girlfriend over the phone.
A DNA profile of one suspect was developed but police were unable to identify the perpetrator.
“In 2020, investigators submitted the offender DNA profile for Investigative Genetic Genealogy with the assistance of OTHRAM Inc. While the forensic process did not lead to a suspect, it opened further investigative leads,” police said in the news release.
“Using investigative process, investigators from the Cold Case unit were able to identify a person of interest in 2025. DNA was collected from the suspect and confirmed a match to the DNA evidence left at the scene of the homicide in 2006.”
Pierre O’Connor, 43, of Hamilton, has now been arrested and charged with the murder. The charges have not yet been tested in court.
“Patrick was a young man. He had a job, a future ahead of him, and plans to move in with his girlfriend. For nearly two decades, Patrick’s family has lived with the pain of this loss while searching for answers,” Det.- Sgt. Steve Smith said in a written statement.
“While nothing will ever bring Patrick back to his family, today we can say that the person alleged to be responsible for taking his life has been identified, arrested, and will now have to answer for this crime before the courts.”
Police have not identified a motive for the killing.
“At this time we are still trying to determine the events that led to this murder and the relationship between the accused and the victim,” Smith said at a news conference on Thursday morning.
“We believe there was a dispute between two different people, or two different groups, not gangs, but just groups of friends, but we are not sure exactly why this occurred.”
He did not say how many suspects may have been involved.
“Patrick was a grown man. For him to come home and be physically overtaken by one person without being able to call for help, his family was asleep in the house at the time, if he had screamed out, somebody would have heard,” Smith said.
“So we believe there was possibly more than one person there in order to take physical control of him and not let him alert anybody else that he was being abducted.”
Speaking on a Toronto Police Service podcast regarding cold cases in 2021, Smith had previously suggested that the suspect or suspects who abducted Santos may have simply been trying to scare him and may not have intended to kill him.
He indicated that the tape that had been wrapped around his head caused Santos to suffocate.
When asked Thursday if police still believe it is possible that those responsible for his death had not planned to murder Santos, Smith said he now believes the suspect or suspects likely intended to kill him.
“They abducted him. They zipped-tied his hands and his feet, and then they taped his entire head with duct tape so, I’m leaning toward the fact they probably intended to kill him,” he told reporters.
“And if they didn’t, they should probably understand that taping someone’s entire head would probably kill them when they can’t breathe.”
