Ever since I was a child, I had a fascination with death. It was most likely not the healthiest thing for a six year old to obsess over, but nonetheless I scoured the newspapers for articles relating to death, I read the obituaries and clipped certain ones out to hang around my bed, I began researching about murder online when I was about ten and from there my obsession took off. To this day I say I am the walking encyclopedia of murders simply because I read every single murder on the Murderpedia page, absorbing so much detail that the names and faces of these people and their victims are imprinted on my mind. Murders that were unsolved always held my attention longer - I really did consider myself some type of Nancy Drew - scouring pages upon pages of information relating to the case, hoping to come across something that someone else had missed, send in that tip, solve that case. A big part for me was the cases that no one knows about, the ones no one remembers. The people that no one really knows are missing or gone, the ones who aren't featured on an episode of Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries; that never made it to national television, the people no one remembers.
It was a secret obsession of mine for a long time, never really knowing if I would end up with any sort of career in the field. September 2017 was a turning point though. Eighteen-year-old Rori Hache went missing from my city. I knew this girl, she was an acquaintance of mine. We'd been in the same room together, shared a cigarette, had the same favourite song and the same sense of humour. When she disappeared, I started looking for her; messaging people she may have been with, asking when they last saw her, where she last was. Eventually it turned to ground searches, walking the paths hoping to come across some sort of clue. On the eleventh of that month, her dismembered, disembowelled torso was discovered just off the pier, floating in the water. The fishermen who found her believed it was a turkey.
So it became official then - a friend of mine had been murdered, because your torso doesn't end up in the lake by accident. The reality of it shocked me, especially considering how truly brutal her death was. I couldn't help but continue to search for her, hope to come across her killer. If it was just her torso in the lake then the rest of her body had to be somewhere.
December came and I was proven right. Forty-five-year-old Adam Jeffrey Strong was arrested after the discovery of human remains in his plumbing. The remains were Rori's flesh, the rest of her body in his freezer. The man had lived at the 19 McMillian Drive address since 2007, and in a twist of fate, he had lived at the same apartment building I did before that. I played with his son with my siblings while he talked with my parents. His wife and my mom had the same name. I knew there were plenty of young women who escaped his self-proclaimed "sex dungeon" but I was interested in the few who didn't.
One of the young girls who was missing in my city I came across early on. Kandis Fitzpatrick. I'll never forget because when I saw her photo, how much she resembled Rori, I had this deep feeling in my chest that she was a victim of Strong too. So I started to dig - she had similar life issues as Rori, she was distant from her family, she looked like her, he went missing from an area he was known to be around, there was a photo on her Facebook of a man who appeared to be Adam Strong.
July 2018, the Durham Regional Police held a press conference where they revealed that the DNA of Kandis Fitzpatrick had been found in the address of Adam Strong following the extensive forensic testing that was done. They asked for any information regarding the case to be brought forward. I sent in the information I had but nothing ever came of it; when the trial happened, Kandis' name was hardly mentioned. Strong received a charge of manslaughter for Kandis, when the evidence was there to prove that it was premeditated.
After the trial, I continued to uncover a third possible victim, I believe to be the first one of Adam Strong. Throughout his interviews he alludes to the fact that he is a serial killer and "checks all the boxes," one of which is three or more victims. I believe he got to three to check that box, and was willing to give himself up at that point because he had finished his game and checked all the boxes while remaining right under the radar of the Durham Regional Police. Jami Furnandiz went missing in 1997. She disappeared from an area that Strong was known to frequent, he alludes to Port Perry - Jami's destination on her way home - throughout the interviews. Strong had three rings, one he describes in detail, "Small, brown, kind of amber oval ring," the same type of ring Jami was wearing the day she went missing. No one spoke to Jami's mother following the investigation into Adam Strong. they assumed because her DNA wasn't found there wasn't anything they could do, however the issue with that was Strong didn't live at the McMillian address in 1997 - he lived elsewhere in the city.
There are other options for what happened to Jami Furnandiz that are being thoroughly explored, however Adam Strong does seem to be a big suspect. To this day, my best friend and I are working on #projectjusticeforjami - I have a board with maps, suspects, theories pinned up on the wall in my room. However, while we work towards her ending, there are so many others who's endings aren't as close.
A Case A Day is a blog dedicated not only to the unsolved cases, but the solved cases as well. If nothing else, having their story out there, not forgotten when the people who loved them are gone.