The news shocked retired Ottawa police detective Randy Wisker.
It came via a courtesy call informing the former serious crime detective sergeant of a break in an unsolved murder he worked on three decades ago.
The victim, 22-year-old Christopher Smith, was fatally stabbed in the early morning hours of April 12, 1996, during an altercation on the Portage Bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau.
At the time, police said Smith was walking home across the bridge with his uncle after a night out when he was attacked by an unknown assailant.
As far as Wisker knew, all leads on the case had dried up long ago.
But now, 29 years later, modern DNA analysis used for the first time by the Ottawa Police Service has identified the suspect as Lawrence Diehl, 73, of Vancouver.
“You hear about cold cases being solved with DNA that go back a long time,” Wisker said, speaking from Ottawa. “So it was always in the back of my mind that there was a possibility that something might come up.”
Diehl was taken into custody by Vancouver police on Dec. 10 and charged with second-degree murder. He was taken to Ottawa and made his first court appearance on December 14.
A former president of BC Soccer suspects
The allegations against Diehl, a retired engineer and former BC Soccer president, have not been tested in court.
According to Wisker, investigators believe an unidentified man who called 911 shortly after Smith was stabbed was also his killer.
The call came from a payphone on Elgin Street in Ottawa, about a kilometer from the bridge. When Wisker arrives at the phone, he finds blood and a hanging handset.
“We knew from the caller and the presence of blood there that it was probably a person involved,” he said. “Because it was a 911 call, it was recorded at the police station. We played that recording to the media so that, even though it might be short, someone might recognize both the voice and the situation.”
Forensic DNA analysis leads to a break in the case
The case went cold until 2020, when Ottawa police reopened it with the hope that new investigative genetic genealogy techniques might provide leads.
Suspicious DNA collected from the 1996 crime scene was sent to Texas-based Othrum Inc., a forensic genome sequencing company. Othram works specifically with law enforcement agencies in cases of unidentified human remains and questionable identities.
“(Crime scene DNA) usually comes to us in the form of a DNA extract in these suspect cases — so a vial of DNA they've already recovered,” said Michael Voggen, Othrum director of case management, speaking generally.
“We look at hundreds of thousands of markers, sometimes up to a million markers of DNA. With this much data we are able to develop these profiles that can trace sixth cousins, sometimes even further away.”
Initial lab work by Othram typically costs $1,500 US, Voggen said.
In the Smith case, the suspect profile created by the company was uploaded to two public ancestry databases – GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA, according to reporting by CBC Ottawa's Christy Neese. Those two sites allow law enforcement access to the DNA profiles of users who have specifically opted in.
From there, genetic genealogists from the Toronto Police Service Cold Case Unit began the painstaking work of piecing together the giant puzzle, using individuals related to the Smith murder suspect to build a family tree.
“It works almost like a tip,” said Ottawa Police Service Sgt. Chris O'Brien. “It helps you focus your investigation on a potential suspect or potential suspects, as the case may be. And then once you have that, we switch to more traditional old-fashioned police work.”
Typically, police will confirm their genetic genealogy research by obtaining a “cast-off” DNA sample from potential suspects. Cast-off DNA comes from cells a person sheds and can be obtained from objects such as used coffee cups or cigarette butts.
In BC, cast-off DNA was used to help identify Ibrahim Ali, the man convicted of first-degree murder in the high-profile case of a 13-year-old Burnaby girl killed in 2017, while genetic genealogy solved the cold case. Saanich couple Tanya Van Kuelenberg and Jay Cook were murdered in Washington state in 1987.
Ottawa police say they know Diehl was in Ottawa for work-related reasons in 1996 and are asking people to contact them to learn more about his timeline and movements.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Diehl worked as a meteorologist at Environment Canada and in various engineering and management positions.
He is a long-time soccer volunteer who served as president of BC Soccer and director of Canada Soccer from 1998 to 2002. Diehl won the Canada Soccer Award of Merit in 2003, the same year he was named a life member of BC Soccer. BC Soccer Hall of Fame website.
BC Soccer said it was aware of Diehl's arrest.
“We take these allegations seriously, and we are monitoring the situation as it unfolds. At this time, we are unable to provide any comment until ongoing legal processes are resolved,” said CEO Gabriel Assis.
Diehl's next court appearance in Ottawa is set for Jan. 8.
