A 50-year-old London man sought by police for more than a week in connection with the 2020 homicide of Grant Edward Norton has been taken into custody, yet a 24-year-old woman wanted for manslaughter in the case remains at large, police said Wednesday.
Police issued a call for information on the whereabouts of the pair, Joseph Hodgkin, 50, and Zaida Amelia Collin, 24, on June 18. They are the fourth and fifth people charged in relation to Norton’s death last July.
Hodgkin was arrested on Tuesday and charged with accessory after the fact to murder and improper/indecent interference with a dead body. He remains in custody and was expected to appear in court Wednesday.
Collin, however, remains at large, and has a warrant out for her arrest on a charge of manslaughter and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, police said.
London police located the remains of Norton, 59, of Ingersoll, Ont., in a wooded area near Ada and Jacqueline streets in southeast London on July 19, 2020.
A week earlier, on July 12, Norton had been reported missing to police in Waterloo. Six days before that, July 6, was the last time police say he was seen alive. Investigators in London joined the probe on July 13, and it was later determined his last known whereabouts were in London.
Earlier this month, police announced several arrests in connection with the nearly year-old case, including two — Wesley Joseph Peters, 29, and Ashley Morgan Bourget, 37, both of London — for first-degree murder. Peters is also facing a charge of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.
Police say a 37-year-old man, Adam Alexander Wade, is also charged in the case with manslaughter.
Investigators have released few details, including how or whether the accused knew Norton.
A cause and date of death have also not been released, however court documents obtained by 980 CFPL show Bourguet, Hodgkin, and Wade are alleged to have committed the offences they’re accused of “on or about” July 6, the day Norton was last reported seen.
The court documents allege Hodgkin transported Norton’s body in a plastic barrel, disposed the body in a wooded area, and assisted Bourget to escape.
At the time police discovered Norton’s remains, they said the remains had been found in such a condition that confirming whether they were human was not possible without a forensic autopsy.
Police also conducted a search and forensic examination of a nearby Adelaide Street building soon after the discovery.
Court documents list Bourguet’s address as being the same Adelaide Street property. At the time, police asked members of the public who had witnessed suspicious activity at or near the address in the two weeks prior to contact them.
In May, police released several surveillance images of two people believed to be involved in Norton’s death who were seen leaving the 59-year-old’s Audi in a parking lot on Oliver Street on July 6.
Police have not said whether the two pictured are among the five charged.
At the time of his death, Norton was facing charges laid a year earlier in connection with a Niagara-area probe into alleged fraud and theft of construction equipment from Havana Group Inc.
Hamilton mobster Pat Musitano, who was shot to death in Burlington on July 10, four days after Norton was last seen and two days before he was first reported missing to Waterloo police, was a minor partner in the company, according to a report in the Hamilton Spectator.
Police have not commented publicly on whether their deaths are connected, or if they are investigating a link.
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