Gen. Walter Natynczyk, the Chief of Defence Staff, said he is proud of Canadian Forces members at CFB Trenton as they continue their work following the arrest of former base commander Col. Russell Williams, who is accused of murdering two women and sexually assaulting two others.
"We all have to step up. We have a duty, we have a responsibility to Canadians," Natynczyk said at a press conference at CFB Trenton Wednesday afternoon. "I told them to stand tall, and I told them to stand proud. We have to move forward."
"At the same time, we have to recognize that all of the victims need support," he added.
Natynczyk, who was visiting the base with a number of other senior military leaders, said he felt as if he had been hit by a "body blow" when he learned that Williams had been arrested on Sunday.
Williams is accused of murdering Jessica Lloyd, 27, who was found dead Monday, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, a 38-year-old Air Force flight attendant who was murdered in November.
The 46-year-old is also charged with forcible confinement, break and enter and sexual assault after two other women were allegedly attacked in their Tweed, Ont., homes last September.
Williams was interviewed Sunday by members of the Ontario Provincial Police's criminal behavioural analysis section, the Globe and Mail reported in its Wednesday edition, which led to police laying charges against him.
According to sources cited by the newspaper, Williams led detectives to Lloyd's body and provided police with a statement concerning four-dozen so-called "lingerie" break-ins and two sexual assaults.
Newspaper sources also say Williams photographed the women and stored the images on his computer.
Since the charges against Williams were made public, police have acknowledged they are looking at his prior postings with the military.
Williams has previously been stationed in Shearwater, N.S., in Ottawa, in the Middle East, and at the Canadian Forces language school in Gatineau, Que. Before joining the military in 1987, he studied at the University of Toronto.
Halifax Police have confirmed that three young women were murdered while Williams was stationed in Shearwater, N.S., in 1992. Investigators are now re-examining those case.
Police have also been fielding calls from the relatives of victims of unsolved crimes, who are looking for information.
None of the allegations against Williams has been proven in court.
Cold cases
Halifax police said they had spoken with officers in Ontario, but "so far those discussions haven't provided any information that impacts any of our investigations," Const. Brian Palmeter said Tuesday.
While Halifax has three unsolved homicides from the time period Williams was stationed in Shearwater, Palmeter said "nothing so far has been provided to us to suggest any link to those files."
In Ottawa, police Insp. Al Tario said Williams is not named as a suspect or person of interest in any unsolved cases.
Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond said her organization had not been asked by provincial police to reopen specific cases, nor has it been provided with new evidence or information with regards to anything unsolved at this point.
Glenn Woods, a behavioural science expert and crime analyst, told CTV's Canada AM that it would be unusual for a 46-year-old sex crime suspect to lack a criminal background.
"I find it a little unusual to have someone in this age range with no previous contact with the police, so that's a little bit interesting. But, I'm watching with very little information at this point," Woods said during an interview from Ottawa on Wednesday morning.
Woods said suspects in this age range typically develop criminal behaviours at a much earlier point in their lives.
"My experience has been that someone who commits this kind of crime starts thinking about it very early in life and I would be very surprised if there weren't victims from long before this," Woods said.
Mark Safarik, a former senior profiler in the FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit, said police will be looking for any precursor-type crimes that Williams could be linked to.
"There's typically an escalation of behaviour that has occurred over a long period of time, and it's this precursor types of crimes that they'll be looking for," he said yesterday.
Safarik said as an investigator he would focus on burglary cases.
"Burglary cases at night where nothing is taken where victims are saying things like, 'I felt like there was somebody in the house but I didn't find anything missing, I heard somebody, I thought I saw somebody at my window, prowling, peeping,' " he said.
Safarik said the many postings Williams has held during his career will make the investigation more difficult.
"The other complicating piece is that those (military) communities themselves tend to be on the move all the time. So that people that were living there in a community two years ago aren't going to be living there now," he said.
Local investigations
Police searched two properties Williams shared with his wife, Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, who works as an associate executive director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
Investigators pulled evidence from a house in Ottawa that the couple had moved into only recently.
Michael Gennis, who lives next door to the house being searched in Ottawa, was shocked to learn of the allegations against Williams.
"It's shocking, you know, any time you hear about a situation like this, or a crime that has been committed such as this one," he told CTV's Canada AM during an interview from Ottawa.
"So, it was quite unsettling, in that we had just started to become neighbours and friends."
Gennis said his interactions with the couple were limited, but he found both Williams and his wife to be pleasant.
Police also were combing the couple's lake-front, cottage property in Tweed, the small town north of Trenton.
With files from The Canadian Press
