TORONTO -- Police arrested and charged a local man Sunday in connection with the recent first degree murder of a model in her downtown apartment and the attempted murder of a young woman living in the same vicinity.
Toronto police reported that Ralph Ernest Power, 28, was arrested Saturday night at his downtown high-rise apartment and charged with the July 2 murder of model Sheryl Gardner and the July 8 attempted murder of Susan Gaudreault. Power was to face charges in provincial court Monday morning.
Police found Gardner's partially nude body in her apartment after they received a phone call from a man identifying himself as the apartment superintendent requesting an ambulance.
Police later suspected the caller was the killer because the superintendent told them he did not make the call. The caller had given the woman's correct apartment number.
Gaudreault received head and leg injuries when a man, identifying himself as a Bell Telephone repair man, atta uly 4 'Day on the Green' concert at the Oakland Coliseum, Gay's battalion of doctors, nurses, paramedics and volunteers have attended three other concerts this summer, one by the country balladeer Willie Nelson in Sacramento and two by the rock group Styx in San Francisco. Before the summer is over, there will be about 35 others, about half of them attracting 20,000 to 40,000 people.
The Willie Nelson concert -- 50-year-old Gay is a Nelson fan -- provided few problems. 'They're an older crowd,' he said. 'They drink a hell of a lot, but they handle it.'
'The kinds of bands are a factor in the problems you get,' said Steve Ewer, a 23-year-old volunteer paramedic who is part of a 'flying squad' that treats emergency cases in the stands. He said the bands on July 4, all heavy metal rock groups, attracted a younger crowd, 'into all the usual drugs, grass, cocaine, even among the high school crowd, angel dust, some acid.'
'The energy that comes from the stage is transferred to the crowd,' he said. 'You see people fight, jump up and down, break bottles.'
As he spoke, there was a deafening rattle of firecrackers, a sound that punctuated the concert all day, causing only one serious injury, a shrapnel-like wound to a teen-age girl's knee.
'The punkers, the punk rockers, are different,' he said. '
