More than two years after a 23-year-old man was found dead in a Grey Highlands home, police have arrested and charged two Toronto residents with manslaughter and drug trafficking offences.
Grey Bruce Ontario Provincial Police were called to a home on West Back Line in Markdale on March 28, 2022 where Corey Sutherland had been found dead.
Since then, an investigation has been ongoing and has now resulted in the arrests of Malik Messado and Leabert Antonio Shaw, both from Toronto.
Messado, 21, and Shaw, 25, both now face the charges of manslaughter, trafficking fentanyl, and trafficking isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid. The charges have not been proven in court.
Derek Rogers, the regional media relations coordinator for the OPP's west region, said the two-year gap between the death and arrests is not unique.
"It's not like it is on TV and in the movies where there's a resolution within half an hour," explained Rogers. "There is a lot of investigative work that needs to happen prior to laying charges."
While he couldn't speak directly to the investigation of Sutherland's death, he noted that, in general, there's a wait for test results and it takes time to bring a case to the Crown Attorney to get their support for charges.
"You want to make sure that your case is airtight before you bring it to the Crown," said Rogers. "That kind of thing is an exacting practice and it takes time to achieve."
He said toxicology reports, specifically, are done by the Centre for Forensic Science in Toronto, which is "quite a busy place," serving the entire province.
"Certainly waiting for that kind of testing is one of the challenges that investigators face in terms of trying to bring [an investigation] to a resolution," said Rogers.
According to a news release sent by the OPP, the two-year investigation involved the work of the Grey Bruce Crime Unit under the direction of the OPP's criminal investigations branch and the Office of the Chief Coroner and the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service.
