Toronto police will provide an update Thursday morning on the 2006 homicide of 21‑year‑old Patrick Santos.
Santos was found dead on Sept. 17, 2006, in the backyard of his father’s Scarborough home. His hands and feet were bound, and tape was wrapped around his head. The cause of death was asphyxiation.
Police believe Santos was last heard from around 4:30 a.m., speaking with his girlfriend by phone while returning home from a downtown nightclub. Hours later, a 911 call brought officers to Bridlington Street, where Santos was discovered with severe trauma and pronounced dead at the scene.
For years, investigators have held a DNA profile believed to belong to the killer — but it never matched anyone in the national databank. In 2024, Toronto police confirmed they had begun uploading the profile into genetic genealogy databases, hoping to identify relatives of the unknown suspect.
Santos’s mother, Juliet, has spent 20 years pleading for justice and struggling with the loss of her son, whom she described as kind and helpful.
“I asked God why would someone hurt my son,” she told CityNews in 2024.
Detective Sergeant Stephen Smith of the Homicide and Missing Persons Unit’s Cold Case Section is scheduled to speak at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday at Toronto Police Headquarters.
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