Shirley Ryan was stunned to see the email from a cousin she had never met.
Shirley and Arline Vincent’s moms had been close for a time when they were younger, but the cousins didn’t know each other. Arline wanted to talk about Shirley’s older sister Gail.
But nobody wanted to talk about Gail, Shirley thought.
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Shirley was 14 years old in 1973 when Gail moved from Hampton, N.B., to Hamilton, Ont., in search of a job, independence and a better life. The sisters were “attached at the hip,” and to this day Shirley says Gail is the person she has loved the most in her life.
“I’ll never love like that again,” Shirley says about her relationship with her big sister.
Gail Ryan.
Courtesy of Hamilton police
In September 1973, nine months after moving to Hamilton, Gail was murdered in her Jackson Street apartment. The 20-year-old had been hit in the head, stabbed in the neck and chest and sexually assaulted. Her nearly naked body was found by her landlord several days later after she failed to show for work or collect her mail.
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Gail had promised her little sister that she would send for her one day, to escape their difficult home where both of their parents struggled with health issues. With Gail’s death Shirley lost both her loving sister, but also hope for a different life.
And for 50 years Shirley believed no one cared about her sister. For 50 years Gail’s killer, never captured, has been a ghost over her shoulder.
No one acknowledged Gail’s birthday or the anniversary of her murder. Gail’s former boyfriend never reached out. When police called she just cried, forever stuck in a private grief as if not a day had passed.
“Nobody here ever says how are you?” Shirley says, adding that she has a lot of anger.
On the day Gail’s body was found Shirley answered the phone when police called. She had already called the doctor to come see her parents that day; she had to call her grandmother to speak with police.
Someone offered to gather some of Gail’s belongings and Shirley still has an orange cape of her sister’s.
In the months after her sister was killed, their mom says someone called the house saying Shirley would be killed. RCMP followed her to school, but nothing ever came of it. Shirley thinks maybe police thought her mom was delusional.
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One time on the bus she had a strange encounter where a man sat next to her and asked her name. She told him Sarah — the name her dad often called her. Feeling uneasy she got off the bus early and the man called her Shirley and said he thought this wasn’t her stop.
She got off the bus and broke down. A mix of grief for her sister and terror. She ended up moving in with a boyfriend’s family for a time afterwards.
Over the years Shirley built a life for herself. She is a successful realtor. Well-read. Polished appearance. But it’s a veneer that masks her broken heart.
This grief has stopped her from fully living. She never married, never had children, has no passion, she says.
This is why the message from Arline stunned her. Arline thinks she met Gail when she was about 10, but didn’t know what happened to her. Over the years Arline felt a pull to find out.
Around 2017, Arline started to look for information and what she found was minimal. A couple of old newspaper clippings. What had police done to try and find her killer? Were they even still working on the case? She started calling Hamilton police.
The more she learned, the more questions she had, including whether there could be an increased reward. There is still a $2,000 reward on file for anyone who helps solve the case. She also wanted to see a sketch of the suspect who rode in a cab with Gail back to her apartment the night she was killed republished and shared online.
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A true-crime podcast featured the unsolved case in 2020. Before that, the last time The Hamilton Spectator reported on the case was in 1998. The story quotes now-retired Det. Sgt. Steve Hrab who questioned whether Gail’s murder was tied to another unsolved slaying, including whether this could be the work of a serial killer.
Composite sketch of a suspect in the unsolved 1973 slaying of Gail Ryan.
The other case was the murder of McMaster University student Adele Komorowski, which police now know conclusively is not connected to the Gail Ryan case, or a serial killer.
Det. Nesreen Shawihat says there is no information to suggest Gail’s murder is connected to any other murders or unsolved cases. Shawihat, along with case manager Det. Sgt. Jason Cattle, took over Gail’s case earlier this year and are trying to reinvigorate the investigation.
Back in the 1990s, when Hrab was in charge of the case and Mary Sullivan the lead detective, police looked at DNA for the first time.
Evidence “from Gail’s person” had been secured for two decades and was tested and police found DNA. But at the time police could only test the DNA against a person of interest to see if they were a match.
Hrab and Sullivan re-interviewed a number of the original witnesses from the case. One of the witnesses, the cab driver, changed his story and police became suspicious of him. But he provided a DNA sample and was cleared.
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Three other people’s DNA was tested: one of Gail’s neighbours in her building, a driving school instructor who saw Gail that night and a friend of Gail’s. All were negative.
Once again, the case was at a standstill, until Cattle and Shawihat took it over this year.
The front of 203 Jackson St. E. where Gail Ryan was murdered in September 1973.
Courtesy of Hamilton police
There have been advancements in DNA since that initial testing. Through forensics, they were able to sequence the DNA and it shows they have two DNA profiles: Gail’s and an unknown man.
For the first time, the DNA was uploaded to a national databank, which tests it against the DNA of anyone ordered to submit a sample through court. But there were no matches, says Cattle.
But he believes the DNA is the strongest investigative lead they have.
In recent years, police have begun to have some success with genealogical testing, but it’s not yet clear if that’s possible in this case.
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Arline and Shirley believe there is more that could have been done over the years, including better communication with family and also more widely sharing the suspect sketch.
There was a moment of hope late this summer when someone thought they recognized the sketch. But it turned out the person named couldn’t be the killer because he was too young at the time of the murder.
Police are wary of sketches because they are never as a good as a picture or video and can sometimes lead to misidentification. But they can lead to helpful tips at times.
Cattle says he believes there were no “missed opportunities” over the years. Looking through the files, he says the officers interviewed everyone they could, documented the scene well and collected evidence. He believes DNA advancements are their best shot at solving the case now.
If there is a silver lining in any of this, it is Shirley and Arline finding each other. The cousins now routinely meet on Saturdays. And, for the first time, Shirley has someone to talk about Gail with.
Arline recalls that the more she dug into the unsolved case she realized she couldn’t do it alone.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into, so I finally broke down and emailed her,” Arline says, adding that it “opened the floodgates.”
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Each of the cousins knew different pieces of information, Shirley from what she heard as a teen and Arline from her research. Together they have fit some pieces together, but more than anything they can rely on each other.
Over the years Shirley has felt frustrated with police and confused. Were they really working on her sister’s case? Other family have told her to let it go, but she cannot.
When she spoke with Cattle, Shirley says she renewed hope that one day she would know who killed her sister.
But even if that happened, it doesn’t bring Gail back. Nothing can undo the pain of the last five decades or repair relationships lost.
“My suffering has never ended and it never will,” she says.
Anyone with information can call Det. Nesreen Shawihat at 905-546-4863 or Det. Sgt. Jason Cattle at 905-546-2458.
Nicole O’Reilly is a reporter with The Hamilton Spectator specializing in covering police, crime and the justice system. Reach her at noreilly@thespec.com.
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