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‘She was my soulmate,’ Tess Richey’s sister says through tears at murder trial
Tess Richey’s sister gave a tearful account of the last time she saw her sister alive Friday, as the trial of the man accused of killing Richey and leaving her body in a stairwell entered its second day.Tess Richey is seen in this undated photo provided by her sister. Rachel Richey testified in court Friday.…
Tess Richey's sister gave a tearful account of the last time she saw her sister alive Friday, as the trial of the man accused of killing Richey and leaving her body in a stairwell entered its second day.
Tess Richey's sister gave a tearful account of the last time she saw her sister alive Friday, as the trial of the man accused of killing Richey and leaving her body in a stairwell entered its second day.
Rachel Richey began her testimony by telling the court about her relationship with her younger sister.
“She was my sister, my best friend. She was my soulmate,” Richey said, while wiping away tears in the witness box.
Richey, 22, was reported missing in November 2017 after a night out in the Church and Wellesley area. Police say she died of “neck compression.”
Investigators later arrested 23-year-old Kalen Schlatter of Toronto. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Rachel Richey testified that her sister had come to her home on Nov. 24. Tess Richey was dealing with a recent break up at the time, she said.
Tess Richey later went out with a friend and visited Toronto nightclub Crews and Tangos, her sister testified.
The next morning, Rachel Richey's text messages to her sister stopped going through, she said. While trembling in the witness box, Richey laid out how her family had started frantically searching for her missing sister in the days that followed.
By Monday afternoon, Richey's mother, Christine Hermeston, had travelled to Toronto from North Bay, Ont. to help with the search. On the afternoon of Nov. 29, Richey testified, she got a text message from her mother. She had sent her an image of 582 Church Street.
“Within a few short minutes … I got a phone call,” Richey testified. “She was screaming. She told me that she found her … and I said, “Is she alive?' And she said no.”
Richey then broke down in the witness box, crying with her head in her hands.
Hermeston found Richey's body four days after she vanished — in a stairwell at the back of an alley, just steps from where she was last seen. Her body was found the day before what would have been her 23rd birthday.
Police were heavily criticized for their failure to find Richey in the days following her disappearance.
The trial continues Friday afternoon.
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