As first reported here, Caledon OPP now say a woman found dead after a minor collision in Caledon was a homicide and the man charged with second-degree murder in her death are mother and son.

Krystina Armstrong 45 years old, was found dead in the passenger side of one of the vehicles involved in the two-car collision on Friday is a victim of homicide and did not die as a result of the crash, police said. The Ontario Provincial Police identified the man behind the wheel of that vehicle as Luke Armstrong, the victim’s 18-year-old son. He was arrested at the scene Friday and remanded into custody on Sunday. He is set to appear in an Orangeville court on Thursday for the continuation of his bail hearing, said Caledon OPP Constable Jonathan Beckett.

“This case is very complex and this investigation will be ongoing for some time to cover off all the details of what happened before, during and after the event,” Constable Beckett said, declining to share specifics since the matter is before the courts.

Police were called to the scene of the minor crash on Simpson Road, at 9:40 p.m. Friday night, he said. “Once our officers arrived on scene, it quickly became apparent we were dealing with a much more serious incident. Quite often when police officers are dispatched to calls for service, sometimes the initial details we’re given do not turn out to be what we end up investigating.”

Josh Stevenson, who knows Mr. Armstrong from high school, was surprised by news of the young man’s arrest. He remembered him as a “pretty good kid,” but also troubled.

And Mr. Armstrong’s relationship with his mother was strained, he said.

“I know was his parents were divorced and that he didn’t see his mom,” Mr. Stevenson, 18, said.

Marital problems had torn apart the family. Krystina Armstrong a former travel agent had been split from her husband, George, for more than a year and had found a home on Rolling Hills Lane in Bolton’s south end, a few kilometres away from her old life.

Luke was to continue living with his father on Old King Rd. His younger sister, Hayley, was moving in with her mother.

Mr. Armstrong began his high school career at Robert F. Hall Secondary School in Caledon, Ont., before transferring to Humberview Secondary School in Bolton where his father, George, lives.

Luke’s Facebook page which was still active as of Monday night.

Anyone with information about the case was asked to contact Det.-Const. Matt Noble at 519-927-3041 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

The Caledon resident was a passenger in a vehicle that was involved in a “minor collision” on Simpson Rd. on Friday evening, Ontario Provincial Police said in a statement released Sunday night.

Const. Jonathan Beckett would not identify the woman or comment on how she died, except to say it was not as a result of the collision.

Nor would he release the name of the 18-year-old driver who was arrested at the scene and charged with second-degree murder, citing the need to notify the victim’s next-of-kin before any names could be released.

However, a family friend said the victim was Krystina Armstrong and the young man charged with murder as her son, Luke.

Armstrong was legally separated from Luke’s father, George, and was in the process of divorce. She moved into her new home on Station Rd. in Bolton the day she was killed, according to the friend.

Luke, a student at Humberview Secondary School in Bolton, lived with his father, said the friend.

Anyone with information about the case was asked to contact Det.-Const. Matt Noble at 519-927-3041 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

Former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer has been much in the news the past several months for drunk driving and possession of cocaine charges yet receiving basically a slap on the wrist for the events that occurred that late Sept. 10 night last year. The Toronto Star has an excellent article in Thursday’s paper detailing the events of the night and how he eventually ended up getting busted by Caledon OPP during a routine ride check. The above photo is the spot where Rahim Jaffer was busted in Palgrave.

An excerpt of the article:

Constable Kim Stapleton was going off shift and left her fellow officers at the RIDE program in Palgrave at 12:45 am. A diligent officer, she activated her mobile radar detector as she drove south through Palgrave on Highway 50. The speed limit in the small town was 50 kph. The detector beeped and clocked the approaching Ford Escape SUV at 93 kph.

“I’ve got a high miler here,” Stapleton said into her radio, turning on her lights. She told Sgt. Mike Garant back at the RIDE program that she was pulling over an SUV.

Walking up to the car, the female officer shone her flashlight in at the driver. Rahim Jaffer looked back. Stapleton smelled alcohol and asked Jaffer several questions.

“I smell alcohol, I am doing an alc test,” Stapleton radioed to Garant.

Pulling a roadside breathalyzer unit from her cruiser she administered the test, which showed positive for alcohol. Stapleton radioed for a male officer to join her because she was arresting Jaffer. Stapleton called for a tow truck to take away the Ford.

Sgt. Garant sent an officer down to Stapleton’s position. The officer searched Jaffer and found a bag in his pocket, which turned out to be cocaine.

The police officers looked inside Jaffer’s car and found a stack of Helena Guergis’ business cards. They drove Jaffer to the Caledon East OPP detachment and administered a blood alcohol test, which showed a level above the legal .08 level (police have not released the level or amount of cocaine). In Ontario, the penalty for being found guilty of driving above the legal level is a one year licence suspension, a $1,000 fine and a requirement to install an ignition lock that prevents a vehicle from starting unless the driver provides a sober breath sample.

Officers at the OPP detachment conducted a strip search of Jaffer, which police say is standard protocol when drugs are found on a person.

Stapleton charged Jaffer, 38, with driving over the legal blood alcohol limit, speeding 93 kph in a 50 kph zone; and possession of cocaine. He was released from the station around 6 am on Friday, Sept. 11.

Caledon OPP has released the results from Operation Impact which ran from Friday Oct. 9 to 12 Thanksgiving weekend. During the long weekend crackdown, Caledon officers handed out three licence suspensions for having alcohol levels in the warn range, 7 charges for failing to yield, 3 careless driving charges, 349 speeding tickets, 3 stunt driving charges, 16 seatbelt charges, and 42 charges for other hazardous moving violations. The OPP also conducted 8 hours of RIDE spot checks stopping 819 vehicles.

Since I reported on this blog on the tragic murder-suicide in Orangeville/Mono some new information has come to light about this very sad story.

The young son Connor, 14 of Heidi & Hugh Ferguson has disputed some of the published accounts of what happened that fateful day defending his father.

“My father was a wonderful man and was not the crazy man that shot at cops during the event as you stated,” wrote the couple’s son in an e-mail.

“You would never understand the full story behind the … situation between my mother and father,” he stated.

Connor wrote the e-mail to Sun Media objecting to a published account from a neighbour who told a reporter the man shot the tires of an Ontario Provincial Police van. Police have now confirmed that no shots were fired at police and said the van had driven over a spike belt police laid out on a roadway.

The full details of what initially sparked the tragic chain of events may never be known but according to OPP Constable Peter Leon the police received an initial call about an hour before the shooting involving a domestic dispute at the Orangeville address. There was no weapon involved in the initial incident, but police wouldn’t say if Heidi Ferguson was threatened or assaulted. Orangeville police were “actively investigating the original call and they were called back to the residence,” Leon said.

The whole incident has shocked many friends, neighbours and the community.

“It was such an amicable breakup,” said Bridget Wilson, a neighbour who knew the Fergusons for 19 years. “I never heard a bitter or a nasty word from either of them. I get a headache thinking what could have gone so horribly wrong.”

“Everything was fine,” said Wilson, who recalls they hosted a party two weeks ago for the lacrosse team their teenaged son, Connor, plays for. Their daughter, Courtney, is 19.

“This is completely out of character,” Penny Bogner (Heidi Ferguson’s mother) says of the allegations against Hugh Ferguson. “They were really remarkable people. They were friendly even though they separated.”

Todd, a teen who worked with Courtney at Boston Pizza, said he remembers her saying a few months ago: “My parents are still good friends – thank God for that.”

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit continues the investigation.

Tragedy has struck a family in Mono Township just north of Orangeville. A mother of two teens apparently wanted to cut ties with her estranged husband and move on with her life but her plans ended when he instead went to her rented home in Orangeville and shot her. As she fought for her life in hospital, the man 42-year-old Hugh Ferguson faced off against police before turning a gun on himself.

Just before midnight Saturday police were called to a domestic disturbance at an Orangeville house. Police later were called back to the house and found that a woman had been shot. She died after being airlifted to Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, says a statement issued by the SIU (Special Investigations Unit).

The 39-year-old woman, identified by friends and neighbours as Heidi Ferguson, ran to her neighbour’s home on Westdale Ave. to get help after being shot late Friday. Her ex-husband, identified by neighbours as Hugh, 42, then fled to his home in Mono Twp. north of the town where he barricaded himself in the house for several hours in a tense standoff with the OPP tactical team before killing himself.

Hugh Ferguson a hunter had about 10 firearms in his home and ended up shooting out the tires of an OPP van during the standoff , neighbours said. The standoff ended just before 6 a.m. when police confirmed Hugh was dead.

Friends and neighbours said the couple had been separated since about last fall, but maintained an amicable relationship.

Neighbours of the couple’s Mono home on Madill Dr., which is up for private sale, say the couple hosted a party two weeks ago for the lacrosse team their high school son, 13-year-old Connor, plays on. The couple also have another teen, daughter Courtney, now at university.

“It’s kind of hard to believe,” said a friend who didn’t want to be named. “There were no signs.” He said he last saw Hugh Thursday night, and “he seemed a little bit cooler, which is unlike him,” adding the man was usually upbeat emotionally.

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New Articles about the story:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/09/13/10867271-sun.html
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090912/Orangeville_Deaths_090912/
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/694880