Postcard Memories is a new biweekly series on InnisfilToday, where we share stories of the town's past from the Innisfil Historical Society
Back in May 1984, mushroom pickers were out along Highway 400 near Innisfil when they discovered a dead woman's naked body.
The body was later identified as 22-year-old Catherine Ann Little from Mount Hope near Hamilton. An autopsy report showed she had been strangled to death.
A team of Innisfil investigators led by Detective Constable William Money, assisted by the OPP Criminal Investigations Bureau and Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police, investigated the case for almost seven months.
Most of the investigation occurred in the Hamilton area, as it was clear the woman hadn't been murdered at the location where she was found.
In December 1984, Ian Andrew Little, the victim's husband, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. A trial was held in December 1985, with a jury finding Little guilty of the lesser criminal offence of manslaughter, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
A critical piece of evidence in solving the case was a wooden template recovered on the side of Highway 400, about 150 feet away from the body location. The deceased victim had been removed from the trunk of a vehicle and placed in the location where found. At that same time, a wooden template was also inadvertently removed from the trunk.
A witness who had built the wooden template was eventually located in the Hamilton area. The witness disclosed that the wooden template was cut to position the rafters on his new garage roof. The last time this witness saw the template, it was in the trunk of a 1960s Ford Falcon. When the Ford Falcon was sold to another person, the template remained in the car's trunk as it did when the car changed hands once again, this time to Ian Andrew Little, a few months before the body was found.
The wooden template was the lynchpin piece of evidence to arrest and convict Ian Andrew in the death of his wife, Catherine Ann Little.
-Story from the 2020 Innisfil Historical Review, submitted by Doug Lougheed
