Toronto police say investigators used DNA evidence to identify a suspect they believe is a serial killer responsible for the murders of three women in the 1980s and 1990s.

Deputy Chief Robert Johnson said genetic genealogy has linked Kenneth Smith to the decades-old cold case murders of three Toronto women: 25-year-old Christine Prince in 1982; 23-year-old Claire Samson in 1983; and 41-year-old Gracelyn Greenidge in 1997.

The Ontario government’s release of a lengthy report on intimate partner violence is mired in controversy, after the opposition claimed that the study was partly generated by artificial intelligence and that some sources cited in the report do not exist.

Members of the Ontario New Democratic Party said in a news release that AI detection programs “flagged the government’s report as likely being largely AI-generated.” The release also said “multiple sources cited did not exist upon closer inspection.”

The federal government’s plan to name femicide in the Criminal Code and introduce measures to reduce violence against women is being lauded by advocates who have long worked for stricter penalties for these crimes, and for official recognition of their prevalence.

The proposals are contained in Bill C-16, tabled on Tuesday, which would make a wide range of changes to the Criminal Code. Among them would be the introduction of several scenarios that would meet the definition of femicide, including murder of an intimate partner while motivated by hate based on sex and gender. The bill would classify femicide as first-degree murder, even if the killing is not planned and deliberate.

Even when she is watching her 18-month-old granddaughter playing happily, Karen Kulla feels a pang of sadness about a conversation she knows will one day come.

Eventually the little girl is going to grow up and she is going to ask about her parents. But how, and when, do you explain to a child that her mother is dead – and that her father did it?

Thirty-five years after Timothy Rees was found guilty of murdering a 10-year-old girl, the Ontario Court of Appeal has quashed his conviction, ruling that a miscarriage of justice occurred in the case.

In its decision Thursday, the court concluded that Mr. Rees did not get a fair trial back in 1990, because important evidence – a tape recording of a conversation between police and a viable alternate suspect – was withheld from his defence team by police.