WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Richard Neil, who was arrested a month ago in connection with a series of child sexual assaults that set off an Ontario manhunt in the 1990s, has been granted bail.
Neil, 64, is charged with 20 counts, including kidnapping, sexual assault with a weapon and making child pornography. The allegations against him have not been proven in court.
The charges stem from three separate attacks on two boys and one girl between 1992 and 1995 in Kitchener, Brampton and Oakville.
The accused appeared in a Brampton courtroom prisoner box on Wednesday for the second time in two days, wearing an olive green buttoned shirt, a navy blue puffer vest and black pants. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Ontario Court Justice Bruce Duncan agreed to a release plan proposed jointly by Neil’s defence lawyer, Leo Adler, and the Crown.
Neil will live with family members in British Columbia and wear an electronic monitoring device, among other conditions.
“This is a proper decision,” Adler said following the bail hearing.
“He’s under very strict bail conditions and the public can be assured that it’s properly done,” he said.
Neil is represented by Adler and Kevin Gray. Gray recently told CBC News his client maintains his innocence and “has no knowledge of these crimes.”
Late last week, police released two pictures of Neil — a recent photo and one from 1996 — and said investigators suspect there may be more victims.
Police from Peel, Halton and Waterloo regions launched the Project Woodland task force in 1995 after they said DNA evidence had linked three unsolved sexual assaults. Each time, investigators said a child had been lured into a wooded area, tied to a tree and attacked.
At the time, officers canvassed neighbourhoods and reportedly looked at more than 1,000 persons of interest. Media outlets dubbed the unidentified attacker the “woodland rapist.”
A composite sketch of a man was distributed to law enforcement agencies across the province and nearby U.S. states. At one point, Ontario investigators said they’d received 1,300 tips.
The task force was disbanded in 1996, and the investigation was reopened in 2009. Police never made an arrest, until March 3, 2024.
High-profile cold case
Investigators have declined to say what led them to Neil. And any evidence presented at this stage in court proceedings is covered by a publication ban.
A growing number of high-profile cold cases across North America have been solved in recent years with the help of genetic genealogy. The technique often involves the analysis of relatives’ DNA samples voluntarily submitted to ancestry websites.
Court records show the charges laid against Neil last month match the dates of the assaults at the centre of the sprawling manhunt: Aug. 21, 1992, in Kitchener; Sep. 29, 1994, in Brampton; and Aug. 31, 1995, in Oakville.
Neil is believed to have been living in Ontario in the 1990s, but split his time between Toronto and B.C. in recent years. An acquaintance who knew Neil in the 1990s said Neil had worked as a driver for a parcel delivery service, and later as a Toronto apartment building superintendent.
Public records show he had family ties to the Kitchener-Waterloo area and Vancouver Island.
A former lead investigator was so convinced the attacker lived outside southern Ontario, he recently told CBC News his team at one point traced rented cars coming and going from Toronto Pearson Airport.
WATCH | Accused ‘woodland rapist’ appears in court 30 years after attacks:
WARNING: This story contains disturbing details | A man charged with the notorious ‘woodland rapist’ attacks has appeared in court. Richard Neil maintains his innocence, and while the police haven’t disclosed how they found him, a CBC News investigation shows he has links to the southern Ontario region where the attacks occurred.
The attacker caused victims “tremendous mental anguish,” retired Halton police detective Graham Barnes said in an interview.
According to court records, in each of three attacks Neil is charged with administering a noxious substance, specifically urine.
In the Aug. 1995 incident in Oakville, the charge sheet says Neil sexually assaulted a girl while carrying an imitation firearm. He’s also alleged to have given her “a stupefying drug” during the attack.
According to media reports at the time, police said a man had forced a 15-year-old girl to consume cocaine, and raped her at different locations in Oakville’s Wildwood Park over a five-hour period.
The girl later provided investigators with a description of her attacker that allowed police to produce the composite sketch.
“I was reasonably confident that an arrest would be made,” Barnes said. “I’m surprised it took this long.”
Neil is scheduled to make his next court appearance on May 6 in Brampton.