— II —

“Horrendous,” said the plainclothes staff sergeant. “Savage.”

Steve Hrab had recently turned 59, and was nearing the end of a high-profile and sometimes controversial career with Hamilton Police. Hrab had helped send cold-blooded killers to jail. Sometimes his investigative techniques and aggressive approach had also landed him in hot water with supervisors, judges, and defence lawyers. He had seen it all, investigating homicide cases for 25 years, longer than any active Hamilton police officer. Yet he spoke to the media with pronounced gravity about the murder of the 73-year-old woman on Indian Trail. He said it was the worst thing he had ever seen. The attack had had a “sexual component,” he added.

Homicide investigators typically speak to the media about an open case in the interest of public safety — he urged residents in the area to “be vigilant,” since a killer was at large — and in the hopes of encouraging tips, and, on occasion, to spark a reaction from the perpetrator.

Audrey Gleave’s body was found mid-morning on Thursday, December 30. Hrab said they suspected a random attack by a stranger. Police did not reveal the exact time of death, if they were aware of it. The last time she was known to be alive was the early evening of December 27. Her body was found in her garage, which was attached to the house. Audrey’s two German shepherds had been inside the house, apparently unable to save her.

Hrab did not reveal additional pieces of the picture, details only the killer would know, what investigators call “holdback evidence.” He spoke of a vicious stabbing but did not talk about other weapons (at least one other had been used), or the nature of the “sexual component” — it had included a perverse act that went beyond a conventional assault; the killer had taken something from the victim, as though making off with a souvenir.

Hrab stood in a topcoat against a cold wind, addressing reporters on Indian Trail, yellow crime scene tape hanging from Audrey Gleave’s new mailbox.

“Have you been in contact with a man neighbours say has been doing odd jobs for Ms. Gleave?” asked a reporter from the local television station. The reporter was talking about Audrey’s friend, Phil Kinsman. He lived in west Hamilton, about a 20-minute drive away. Neighbours called him her handyman.

“Yes, we have spoken with that individual,” Hrab said. “He is actually the individual that discovered her. He has been ruled out as a suspect in this, absolutely.”

“Neighbours say they have seen a homeless man in an abandoned barn down the road,” the reporter continued, “sometimes with his shirt off, carrying an axe, and that he’s been arrested and is in Brantford. What can you confirm about those reports?”

“I am aware of a homeless man that has taken residence up there,” Hrab said. “We are aware he has been arrested in Brantford on a totally unrelated matter. On a weapons charge, I believe.”

Hamilton police officers executed search warrants on Audrey’s home and the barn six kilometres away. They did not report finding any items stolen from the house.

The sexual assault and murder of an older woman in her home was a story in the media across the country. Soon after the news broke, the phone rang at the home of David Gleave in British Columbia. It was his brother, Allan, on the line. Allan Gleave was Audrey’s ex-husband. To David, Allan did not sound upset; the voice was matter-of-fact. But then Allan had not been in touch with her for many years.

“Did you hear the news about Audrey?” Allan asked.

Allan had not been contacted by Hamilton detectives about the murder. Police would not call Audrey’s ex-husband for five months. Instead, he had heard the news when a Hamilton Spectator reporter had called him. Unlike his brother, David had been in touch with Audrey in recent years. He remembered something she had once told him. Audrey had said she feared that she would one day be raped and murdered in her home.

When her life began, she was Otte Wilma Doveika, born in Hamilton on February 6, 1937. Her parents were from the Baltics, Latvia and Lithuania; their anglicized names in Canada became Antanas (Tony) and Marie Doveika. Tony Doveika worked in Hamilton as an engineer for Greening Wire Company. He married Marie and they moved to 179 Locke Street North, and then to 19 Mulberry Street, downtown. Otte changed her name to Audrey as a teenager. She did not get along with her mother; they barely talked.

By 1960 Tony had moved the family to 11 Beulah Avenue, off Aberdeen Avenue, near Dundurn Street. By the time she was 23, Audrey was working as a clerk at Bell, and in 1964 was enrolled in science at McMaster University. In first year at McMaster, she met Allan Gleave, who was six years her junior and studying engineering. Allan had attended Hill Park Secondary School; his father was a purchasing agent for Firestone, and his uncle, also named Allan, was a Hamilton police officer.

Allan found Audrey attractive. She was full-figured and in good shape, with long hair she usually coloured red. Most appealingly, she had a sharp wit fuelled by her intelligence.

“She read only two magazines,” quipped Allan. “One was Scientific American and the other MAD magazine.”

She was also a private woman, who volunteered little about her past. Maybe that was because she was older than her peers, or perhaps something had happened to her as a young woman that inspired such caution. Whatever it was that led Audrey to form a protective shell, it would remain for the rest of her life.

One day Allan spotted an old elementary school science textbook of Audrey’s. He opened the front cover. There it was, handwritten: Otte Wilma. She had never told him her original name. He made a mental note about that textbook. It had been an old book, all right — had to be, he reflected, because the element tungsten was still referred to by its old name: wolfram.

Young Audrey Doveika before she was Audrey Gleave.
Hamilton Spectator.

They seemed a good match, Allan and Audrey. They decided to get married, but Allan was Anglican and his church would not perform the service. The reason? His fiancée had been married before. Twice. Audrey confirmed the two previous marriages, but would tell Allan little about them. Allan never asked her much about it. He knew better than to try; she was too private. She did not tell him she had been just 16 when she first married. That one had not lasted long. The second, which took place when she was in her twenties, was to Larry Blake, who worked at Stelco.

Even with the secrecy, Allan loved being with Audrey; she was fun and smart. They were married in 1969 in the Salvation Army chapel on James Street North. Only a couple of people attended; Allan’s mom, Marjorie, threw a party for them afterward. They lived for a time with Allan’s parents. Marjorie got along well with Audrey, although she dreaded family gatherings with Audrey’s parents. Tony Doveika liked his booze, especially when socializing, and insisted on getting Marjorie’s husband drunk every time they got together.

Before getting married Audrey had been on track for a career in nuclear physics — an uncommon vocation for a woman in the 1960s. She graduated with a bachelor of science in 1966 from McMaster and began work on a master’s degree in physics. She worked two summers for Atomic Energy of Canada at the nuclear laboratories in Chalk River, 180 kilometres west of Ottawa. A densely academic article published in 1967 lists “A. Doveika” as one of the authors. The title: “Compendium of Thermal Neutron Capture Ray Measurements.”

In August 1967 she was featured in a Hamilton Spectator article headlined COLOUR TV SET EASY TO BUILD. It was in the early days of colour television, when a new one cost a small fortune — $1,200, or about $8,000 in today’s dollars. Audrey had sent away for parts and put it together over the course of a month, following a manual. She was described in the article as a “cheerful blonde brandishing her soldering iron … glibly reeling off technical terms” as her Siamese cat, Ming, watched. She was quoted as saying that anyone could put a TV together: “Anyone who has the courage to pick up a screwdriver. That’s the beauty of it. Just read the instructions.”

She added that she had a practical reason for building her own TV: “Now I can make my own repairs.” A photo with the story showed Audrey working on her invention in a striped dress, a ring on her wedding finger. She used to wear one, even though she was single at the time. Sometimes she wore a gold snake ring. Why she did that, Allan was never sure.

Her career as a nuclear physicist did not pan out, either by choice or necessity. One family member said she was denied a permanent job at Chalk River because of management’s concerns about the consequences of her working in a nuclear energy environment if she were to become pregnant. She did not complete her master’s program. Instead, she announced to Allan one day she would teach high-school science. There was no discussion about her reasons. Her first school was Hill Park; later she moved to Barton Secondary, and then Westdale.

Her parents moved to 93 South Oval in Westdale. Audrey continued to be estranged from her mother, even as she worked just around the corner from her parents’ house. Early in their marriage, Allan and Audrey lived on Alma Lane in Ancaster, then built a big home on Indian Trail, which Allan designed.

There were good times. Allan’s brother, David, was a pilot, and flew the two of them up north into the bush to camp for a week. They travelled to Europe for three weeks. She talked about having kids. In 1974, when Allan was 31 and Audrey 38, the marriage started to fall apart. Allan had met a younger woman at his karate class. Allan’s mother, Marjorie, who is now 95 and lives in a Hamilton nursing home, lamented the end of the marriage: “Men don’t like women who are smarter than they are.”

Allan left Audrey, but on occasion he still dropped by Indian Trail to help with things. Despite the fact that they seemed to have maintained a friendship, Audrey started referring to him in conversation as Fartface, a nickname that would have resonated with Maxine, the crusty cartoon character she had come to admire. Allan moved 400 kilometres away with the woman he had met in karate class and would marry. He settled up north, taking a chemical engineering job for a paper company in Sturgeon Falls. He never had kids and retired in 2001.

In the divorce settlement, Allan signed the house over to Audrey. The house was important to both of them, and he didn’t want anyone else to live there. “I’ll never sell it,” she told him.

Audrey remained on Indian Trail, alone. Allan made trips back to Hamilton each year to visit his parents. When his father died in 1976, Audrey attended the funeral and chatted briefly with Allan. It was the last time they ever spoke.