It came as a shock to many when the name ‘Randy Rankin’ reappeared in the mainstream media early in 2017. Now the name of the murdered Standardbred horseman has been mentioned in the mainstream press yet again.

Rankin, 47, was killed while in the basement of his Morewood, Ont. home during the early-morning hours of February 12, 2007. He was sitting in front of his computer at the time. The assailant, who was outside, shot Rankin through a window. Rankin passed away after the bullet hit him in the back of the head. The killer has never been caught.

Early in 2017, multiple stories appeared in the mainstream media which brought the senseless killing back to light.

Late last week (Thursday, May 31), a 75-year-old retired mechanic by the name of Jimmy Wise was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Raymond Collison. In 2009, Collison was 59 when he was last seen outside the McCloskey Hotel in Chesterville, Ont. His remains were found in a Morewood drainage ditch in 2014.

According to an article by the Cornwall Standard Freeholder, the Ontario Provincial Police’s investigation into Collison’s death ‘triggered a detailed re-examination of the county’s large archive of cold cases.’

Among those cold cases was the Rankin file. As it turns out, Rankin lived less than two kilometres from the location where Collison’s remains were found.

In its investigation, the OPP created a map which pinpointed the locations of unsolved crimes in the area. That map ended up producing a cluster of incidents in and around Morewood. The cluster included five unsolved murders and more than 50 fires that have been classified as ‘arson’ or ‘suspicious.’

The Cornwall Standard Freeholder piece has shed the light on three other unsolved Morewood-area homicides that appear to have some of the same trademarks of the Rankin killing.

• In November 1983, Harold Davidson was sitting at the kitchen table of his remote farmhouse, near Brinston, when he was shot three times with a .38-calibre handgun

• In May 1987, a single shot was fired through the dining room window of an Avonmore farmhouse, killing Wallace Johnston, a 48-year-old dairy farmer, as he ate his supper

• In July 1987, a nighttime fire engulfed the Morewood home of John King, 59, a reclusive bachelor; forensic tests showed he had been shot in the head

According to the Cornwall Standard Freeholder, the name ‘Jimmy Wise’ is well known to both local law enforcement and the OPP. In his younger years, Wise’s criminal record was in relation to robbery, theft and weapons possession, but that changed in 1987 when the OPP publicly investigated him in relation to a string of homicides. Wise was never charged with murder, but he would later face unrelated mischief charges, which ended up being vacated on appeals and ultimately stayed.

Due to Wise having been publicly identified as a murder suspect, he sued the OPP for defamation and civil right abuses. The parties reached an undisclosed, out-of-court settlement in 2002.

In 2016, the OPP executed a search warrant on Wise’s residence in Winchester, Ont. The warrant was based on information that had been collected during the Collison investigation.

Wise, who has suffered a stroke in recent years, has indicated that he will plead not guilty to the first-degree murder charge.

(With files from the Cornwall Standard Freeholder)