On a Thursday evening in the spring of 1973, 17-year-old Wendy Tedford and her best friend, Donna Stearne, also 17, were planning a sleepover at Wendy’s house. The night was supposed to be a typical one for the inseparable pair, involving shopping and conversation. Instead, it ended in a brutal crime that has haunted their families and investigators for half a century. Wendy, a female described by her sister as a kind-hearted and creative person who loved to draw, paint, write stories, skate, and swim, would never come home again.
Wendy was the third of four sisters. After her father died of cancer in 1971, she had dropped out of school and moved out of her mother’s apartment to live with her older sister, Shirley, and her young son in the Downsview area of North York, Ontario. For the three months prior to her death, she had been working in the business office at the Towers department store.
On the night of April 26, 1973, Wendy and Donna left Shirley’s apartment to go to the Yorkdale Shopping Centre. They later went downtown, where they bought a black sweater for Shirley’s upcoming 25th birthday.
Detectives were able to trace their movements through receipts and witness interviews. After shopping, the girls took public transit back north, spending several hours at Yorkdale. At 10:45 p.m., they boarded a northbound Keele Street bus and got off near Wilson Avenue. Their last known stop was the Sit 'n Eat diner, a popular teenage hangout, where they were seen drinking Coca-Colas around 11:00 p.m. No one recalled seeing them leave. Around midnight, residents near an empty, rubble-strewn industrial field off Wilson Avenue, just east of Keele Street, heard noises. One woman thought she heard four shots, while another recalled dull thuds, like something hitting the ground.
The next morning, April 27, a Grade 10 student taking a shortcut to school discovered the girls’ bodies lying side by side in the field, about two kilometers from the diner. Wendy was found face down, shot twice in the neck at close range. Donna had been shot once in the back of the head. Both were fully clothed, and there were no signs of robbery or sexual assault; their purses, containing small amounts of cash, were found nearby. Investigators from the Metro Toronto Police, now the Toronto Police Service, recovered empty shells from a.38-calibre revolver and a semen sample at the scene.
The investigation quickly stalled, though a $5,000 reward was offered for information. A major break seemed to come months later when the murder weapon, a.38-calibre Colt revolver, was recovered in Windsor during a separate criminal investigation. It had previously been reported stolen from that city. This discovery led police to suspect the killings were connected to members of a motorcycle gang operating out of Windsor at the time. Over the years, police have investigated as many as 70 different men in connection with the double homicide.
Decades later, the case remains an active and open investigation for the Toronto Police Cold Case Unit. In recent years, detectives have focused on advancements in forensic science. Unidentified DNA recovered from the crime scene has been a key focus, with investigators exploring genetic ancestry analysis to generate new leads. As of April 2023, Cold Case Det.-Sgt. Steve Smith confirmed that DNA testing was ongoing, expressing hope that new technology could finally provide a breakthrough and bring closure to the families.
The families of Wendy Tedford and Donna Stearne have never given up their quest for justice. Wendy’s sister, Linda Harris, remembers her as a "very special person" and has vowed to never stop searching for the killer. Donna’s younger sister, Janine Stearne, was just ten when her idol, who dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, was murdered. She has spoken of the lifelong impact of the loss, which shattered her family. Both families have been encouraged by recent progress in other historical cases solved through genetic genealogy, holding onto hope that science will finally answer the question of who committed this execution-style murder and why.
