Tom Gill was working the desk at Guelph Police headquarters the night Gus Fourtounes died 13 years ago.
He was a sergeant then and he knew Fourtounes from his days on the street as a constable. The two were similar in age and would occasionally chat.
Now the Det. Staff. Sgt. with the Guelph Police Service serious crimes unit, the killing still weighs heavy on his mind.
It is the only unsolved homicide on the books of Guelph Police for which no one has ever been charged.
One other murder, that of Patsy Lewis, remains before the courts with her son facing a second-degree murder charge.
“It’s one of those cases that’s been hanging like a dark cloud over our heads,” says Gill. “It’s always there. We’re always thinking about it.”
Fourtounes, a 40-year-old father of two, was no saint. He ran with a rough crowd and had his brushes with the law.
But a life is a life.
“My brother wasn’t an angel, but he didn’t deserve to die the way he did,” his brother George Fourtounes told Scott Tracey of the now defunct Guelph Mercury three years after Gus was killed.
The family no longer speaks to media.
It happened at 4:40 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005.
Fourtounes, who lived a few doors down the street, was screaming for help outside 112 Elizabeth St., just east of Downtown Guelph. He had been stabbed and his shirt was soaked in blood.
Police and other emergency services were on the scene within minutes. But Fourtounes died a short time later at Guelph General hospital.
In the 13 and a half years since the murder, over 100 people have been interviewed and re-interviewed. Tips followed. Police have gone over the case countless times. Fresh eyes routinely go through the file and the evidence collected.
“We’ve had the odd bit of information, but nothing terribly fruitful we can take to the bank,” Gill says.
“We remain hopeful of new information,” the inspector says, adding that anyone coming forward, or reaching out through Crime Stoppers, would not be in trouble for not having come forward earlier.
But time is an enemy to criminal investigations. People move. People die. People forget.
But the Guelph Police don’t forget. The term "cold case" is for television and movies. It’s not a term police ever use.
“This was a violent death and someone thinks they got away with taking someone’s life,” Gill says.
“Beside the poor choices Gus made in life, he didn’t deserve this. He was somebody’s son, somebody’s brother and somebody’s father and somebody’s friend."
Someone, says Gill, knows something.
“If it’s a dark cloud over our head, there are people out there that this is the last thing they think about before their head hits the pillow and it’s the first thing they think about when their feet hit the floor.”
Anyone with any information is asked to call Det. Cst. Brian Welsh at [email protected] or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or submitted online.
