The Murder of Tess Richey

Tess Richey

In November 2017, Tess Richey was a young 22-year-old woman lamenting the recent break-up with her boyfriend. Seeking to forget her recent relationship woes, Tess reconnects with an old high school friend, Ryley Simard, who she hadn't seen for a few years.

The pair decide to meet up at a well-known drag bar in the Church and Wellesley area, Toronto's LGBT district. The bar, Crews and Tango, was a popular spot for students and the younger crowd. They made plans to meet up on November 24th.

Earlier in the day, Tess was hanging out at her sister Rachel's house.

"She was my soulmate." Rachel said of her sister Tess. Rachel vividly remembers her sister Tess "running down the front path to the Uber." This would be the last time Rachel would see Tess alive.
At around 11:30pm on November 24th, 2017, Tess leaves her sister's house heading to the Church strip and meets up with Ryley at Crews and Tango. The pair really let loose and their night is filled with drinks, laughter, and dancing.

Tess drank heavily that night, as you would expect for someone getting over a recent breakup. The two friends were so intoxicated that they were asked to leave around 1:30am.

After leaving Crews and Tango, the pair walk down the street to get a hotdog at a street vendor when they meet up with another group of people and spend some time chatting with each other. In the group is a man not knows to the two women, but Ryley remembered seeing him at Crews and Tango. He sticks around with the two women as they continue to walk around in the early morning of Toronto.

They ran laughing to Dundonald street after some drunken mischief. They sprayed mustard all over the hotdog vendor's cart. On Dundonald street, a woman was outside her home having a smoke and she talked with the trio for a while. The woman remembered little about the man with the two women saying, "He blended in with the background."

At 4:00am, Rylei gets a text from her boyfriend asking why she hadn't made it home yet.  So Ryley tells Tess that she has to head home before she leaves, heading to the streetcar.

Tess' sister Rachel texts Tess at 8:45am but doesn't realize till that evening that her messages had been undelivered. Knowing that her sister LIVED with her phone she was immediately concerned, calling friends and family, then hospitals, and after not getting anywhere, she calls the police.

Toronto Police started an investigation, but it wasn't moving fast enough for Tess' family so on November 27th, Tess's mom, Christine Hermeston, and other family members make the 4-hour drive from North Bay to Toronto to help search.

They spent two days organizing searches in the Church and Wellesley district and handing out flyers, searching for any information on where Tess was.

On November 29th, Christine and a friend arrive at a house where Tess was apparently seen the night she disappeared. They had an idea how large of an area to search in. Tess was wearing a Fitbit, and she luckily used her mother's Fitbit account, so they were able to find out that after Ryley left for the night, Tess took about 300 steps and she had 4 notifications from Uber. It looked like she requested an Uber, but she was not there when it arrived. AT 4:02 am Tess ordered the Uber, the driver arrives at 4:14am, but Tess was not there.

In the area where Tess was last seen was a house that was closed for renovations, so Christine decided to take a closer look. While Christine looked in the front, her friend checked out the back of the house.

Shortly after her friend left to check behind the building, Christine heard her friends frantic screaming. Rounding the corner to the rear of the house, she sees a concrete stairway leading to a basement. Lying at the bottom of the stairs was the cold and lifeless body of her daughter Tess.

Stairwell where Tess' body was found

Christine said that it was like looking into an open grave and that the image of her daughter lying at the bottom of that stairwell will forever be stuck in her head. Every time she closes her eyes she can still see Tess' body.

A heartbreaking photo of Tess' mom Christine describing the mental anguish she suffers after finding her daughters body

Toronto Police were heavily criticized for not finding Tess. She was about 50 feet from where she was last seen. In fact, two police officers were brought up on charges for their handling of the investigation.

The two Toronto Police officers had responded to a call to investigate the address. It is alleged that the two officers learned that this address was Tess' last known location, but they failed to properly search the area, search for and question any potential witnesses, or even notify their superior about the discovery.

They were charged at a Police Tribunal with misconduct and neglect of duty under the Police Services Act. The case was put on hold until the case concluded, and both officers remain on active duty.

Initially, there wasn't much to suggest foul play. There weren't any injuries that were apparent to suggest otherwise. Nothing abnormal for something that looked like an unfortunate fall. A post mortem examination on December 1st revealed that Tess died from neck compression; she was strangled.

The investigation was then handed over to the Toronto Police Homicide squad. Two days later they announce that they are looking for the unknown man that was with Tess and Ryley that night.

On December 8th Toronto Police release the events of that night pieced together from security footage and witness statements:

"After leaving Crews and Tango, Tess and her friend went to a hotdog cart at the intersection where they meet a group of people, and incuded the unkown man who is now a suspect. They spent some time speaking with a man and woman on Dundonald Street before Tess and the unknown man left and headed north. Surveillance shows them entering an alley at 582 Church Street and a basement stairwell where Tess' body was later found. The video then shows the suspect leaving the stairwell alone."

They also released pictures of the man, and Tess' family posted flyers in hopes of identifying him.

In January, CBS News interviews the woman on Dundonald Street.  She said that she was outside having a smoke when Tess and her friend, along with the unknown man, walked up and struck up a conversation. She remembers Tess being upset about breaking up with her boyfriend and the unknown man consoling her.

It doesn't take long for Toronto Police to identify the unknown man as Kalen Schlatter, a 21-year-old contract worker. They arrest Kalen on February 4, 2018, and charge him with 2nd-degree murder. On March 21st they upgrade the charge to 1st-degree murder.

Kalen Schlatter

Later it was revealed that Kalen sexually assaulted Tess and strangled her after she refused to have sex with him, making it one of the rare situations where 2nd-degree murder can be upgraded to 1st-degree murder. Until investigations found evidence of sexual assault, the defense team could have said that the sex was consensual and that some rough play got out of hand.

Varina Richey, one of Tess' sisters said of the ungraded charge:

"It's a cold comfort. I'm obviously happy with the upgrade. It doesn't really change the outcome of Tess' and my destroyed lives."

Kalen Schlatter's family was uncooperative with the Police and refused to give a statement, so it was ironic that the police were able to get Kalen's DNA off of a discarded water bottle his parents brought him while he was being questioned.

Initially, they planned on surveilling Kalen and getting more evidence, but when the DNA sample came back as a match to the DNA found on a semen stain on Tess' pants, they decided to arrest Kalen immediately.

Kalen Schlatter in a holding cell

When Kalen was arrested and put into a holding cell, he didn't realize that the two men in the cells on either side of him were undercover police officers, and Kalen just couldn't seem to stop talking.

"He says he's slept with over 40 women and he's only 21 years of age," the officer told the court. "he says that he can teach us his secrets. That's when Mr.Schlatter starts speaking about having foursomes, and sex with more than one woman at a time on college campuses and with random girls, and that girls beg him to have sex with him."

Kalen explained that he was just trying to impress them and hide the fact that he is bisexual.

Kalen said to the officers, "Sometimes you have to push the boundaries with women to see where it goes." Kalen of course denied this in court, saying he said the opposite; that you shouldn't push the boundaries with women, because it only makes things worse.

In 2018, when Kalen was in a Toronto detention center, he confided in a cellmate key details about that night. The cellmate said that he originally felt sorry for Kalen because it was his first time in jail, but eventually, the relationship soured.

The cellmate said that Kalen would cry himself to sleep at night because he didn't want to do time and that he missed his "mommy", yet shoed no remorse about Tess' death. Kalen's cellmate said he didn't really want to talk to the police but said "I'm a criminal. I don't like being a rat," but the knowledge of what happened to Tess drove him "nuts".

The cellmate said Kalen told him that he made out with Tess, but lost control when she didn't want to go further.

"He was sexually aroused, he wanted to keep going, she wanted to stop. He tied a scarf around her neck. She was on the ground and it excited him. He was past the point of no control. He ejaculated on her." From the cellmates statement.

Kalen also ran potential alibis past the cellmate, including that Tess was suicidal and hung herself and that the family blamed him for her suicide, so they planted the body to incriminate him. In another version, Kalen suggested that someone came by after he left and killed Tess.

Kalen denied all of these conversations ever took place, and the defense team called the cellmate "a manipulative, pathological liar."

The jury was able to see through Kalen's feeble attempts to escape justice, and they found him guilty of 1st-degree murder, sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.

Kalen Schlatter and his defense team are planning an appeal.

Tess Richey

Thanks for taking the time to read my stories about the darker side of Canada's past.

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