Homeless man found beaten to death posed as officer in 1995 Loomis heist
With a report from Josh Wingrove
August 30, 2008
In life, Andre Pelliccione was known for his role in one of the biggest armoured car heists in Toronto history, a $3.1-million score in which he posed as a police officer and ordered a Loomis driver out of his vehicle.
Mr. Pelliccione will now be known as the homeless man whose corpse was pulled from a trash bin this week after what police described as a beating by five drifters and drug addicts in a forlorn and forgettable storage lot near the east-end waterfront. An autopsy found he died from blunt-force trauma to the head.
It was a violent and anonymous end to a notorious life, the last days of which Mr. Pelliccione, 42, spent drifting between the Italian enclave of Woodbridge north of the city, where his family lives, and the urban wilds of Toronto, where he died on a ragged patch known to attract drug users. Members of his family declined comment.
Mr. Pelliccione was one of four men convicted in the 1995 armoured truck heist, for which he donned a police uniform. His compatriots included a previous Loomis employee and a Toronto police officer.
Yesterday, a third person accused in the slaying, 24-year-old Michelle Sterling of Toronto, appeared in court on a charge of first-degree murder. Jennifer Dunsford, 30, who is pregnant, and Richard Alex Sheridan, 46, were charged with the same offence earlier this week. Also yesterday, an arrest warrant was issued for Chad Noureddine, 28, also for first-degree murder. In 2000, Mr. Noureddine was convicted in a pair of incidents involving sexual assault and forcible confinement of teenage girls in Kitchener-Water
A fifth suspect, known only as Brian, is also being sought. Known to spend time at Dundas and Sherbourne Streets, a blighted corner east of downtown known for crack cocaine use and dealing, he has tanned skin and a prominent scar that runs from his left ear to the corner of his mouth.
"I think there's a subworld in the drifter department of life that many of us don't know about," said Toronto police Detective Sergeant Gary Grinton.
That subworld, police say, is where Mr. Pelliccione and his five alleged attackers came into conflict some time between the night of Thursday, Aug. 21, and last Saturday morning, a dispute seemingly incongruous with Mr. Pelliccione's fate.
"There doesn't appear to be a great underlying motive. There seems to be a very minor dispute of some nature, certainly unwarranted," added Detective John Biggerstaff.
All of the accused had been staying on the site with permission from the man who leases it. The man was having trouble with squatters damaging the disposal bins, film trailers and other vehicles, Det. Sgt. Grinton said.
It was an unofficial housing arrangement in a part of the city well known for them; the site, at Lake Shore Boulevard and Cherry Street, sits in the shadow of the Gardiner Expressway, a stone's throw from where a tent city of homeless people thrived earlier this decade before they were evicted.
"The cops do patrol it, but you don't see them very much down here," Greg Burns, 42, and once homeless himself, said yesterday after crime-scene tape halted his bicycle ride along an adjacent trail.
" ... This area is pretty well-known for drug users; people shooting needles, smoking crack, drinking."
Yesterday, forensic investigators were focusing on what appeared to be a makeup trailer used for film shoots.
