Why the Infinity Convention Centre homicides remain unsolved two years later

The party was in full swing and guests were having the time of their lives when gunfire rang out at a wedding held at the Infinity Convention Centre on Sept. 2, 2023.

The incident on Gibford Drive near Hunt Club unfolded around 10:20 p.m. People took shelter where they could, many hiding under tables. The shooting took the lives of two Toronto residents: Said Mohamed Ali, 26, and Abdishakur Abdi-Dahir, 29, who were shot and killed in the parking lot. Six others were treated for wounds, and some were seriously injured, according to police.  

With the party at an abrupt end, police began their investigation, but information was hard to come by. 

Many of the 300 wedding-guest witnesses scrambled to leave before officers arrived on scene. While there is some security camera footage outside of the convention centre, it does not show the angles police would have liked. An investigator told the Ottawa Citizen that members of the wedding party, including the bride and groom, declined to speak with investigators. 

About 10 months after that incident unfolded, shoppers were out getting last-minute grocery shopping done or beverages for the weekend at the LCBO when daylight gunfire broke out at a Westboro-area strip mall.

At about 6:09 p.m. on July 5, 29-year-old Adam Abdullahi Elmi was fatally shot outside of Fat Bastard Burrito near Carling and Kirkwood Avenues. Shoppers in the area reported hearing two bangs — similar to a knock on the door — then saw a man lying on the ground. They tried to perform CPR. Police later said it was a targeted homicide. 

Abdullahi Elmi was the groom at the Infinity Convention Centre wedding. His new wife was pregnant when he was killed and had the baby after his death. 

Both homicides have yet to be solved. 

After Abdullahi Elmi’s death, police issued a Canada-wide warrant for two suspects: Soubere Yusuf Akli,  28, and Kennedid Atteyeh, 23. Both were believed to have left the country, say police. 

Police have said the wedding guests shot in September 2023 were not the intended targets. It is believed that 50 bullets in total were fired, perhaps by at least two gunmen, and at least one person shot back.

The Ottawa Citizen reported the gunfight was likely supposed to be between one of the guests inside the wedding venue and two suspects who had arrived in a dark SUV earlier, but sped away after the gunfire. 

Police will not comment on what the shooters looked like or how many people were in the SUV.

Fast forward to Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, and police put out a renewed appeal for information on the Gibford Drive homicides and said "despite an extensive investigation, community assistance remains essential to advancing the case.”

Over the years there have been a few dozen homicide cases which have been left unsolved. Here are a few where police are still seeking information. Much of the historical data was collected from Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Journal archives on newspapers.com.

Carrie Mancuso, 32, was found in bed strangled to death with her own cross necklace at her apartment on Lafontaine Street in Vanier. 

About two weeks after her death, approximately 35 people attended a vigil in her name. While headlines at the time focused on the fact she was a sex worker, friends and family wanted people to know she was also a daughter who wrote poetry and loved sculpting.  

Speaking to the Ottawa Citizen three months later, Carol Johnson, Mancuso’s mother, said she believed police had probably already talked with her daughter's killer, and said “the answer lies down there with the drug dealers and pimps.”

Investigators admitted the lifestyle of Mancuso and the people she hung out with made it difficult to find information. They said most people are scared to come forward because drugs are involved. 

The only details they were willing to share publicly is Mancuso allegedly made a drug purchase near Rideau and Nelson Streets on Sept. 6, left in a taxi, and then returned to the area that evening. She was last seen with a man dressed in a kilt who she spent the night with at her apartment before he left through a window when an unknown man rang the bell. 

The kilted man was a suspect and was interviewed by police. 

Looking back, Johnson said her daughter seemed on edge before the killing and may have felt like her life was in danger. 

Melinda Sheppit was 16-years-old and pregnant, and she had been involved in prostitution for three weeks when her body was found in a ByWard Market school parking lot. It was early in the morning, as churchgoers packed pews and bells rang out over the downtown area. 

Family and friends described the St. Patrick High School student as someone who rejected love and was on a path of self-destruction before her killing. 

A friend who saw Sheppit only 30 minutes before she was killed told police she was in a black car that headed south on Dalhousie Street. Beside her was a “John,” who she recognized and knew worked at a bar in Hull a month prior. 

It took police a while to identify the body because she carried no identification. They had to flip through mugshot photos at the scene and showed her picture to other sex workers. 

In the first month, over 200 people were interviewed. A $10,000 CrimeStoppers reward was soon established. 

In 1999, police were investigating André Rouleau, charged with 14 various sex offences, but it went nowhere. 

Peter Sheppit, the victim's father, had his doubts. But he always hoped police would one day catch the killer. 

“The police told me they were once 90 per cent sure they knew who killed Melinda, but they couldn’t prove it in court,” said Mr. Sheppit in 1999. “Now I’m reading about this Rouleau guy, and he’s definitely not the one cops were talking to me about. Maybe they were wrong back then. Or maybe Rouleau has nothing to do with it.”  

When Lori Zwicker went missing in July 1979, there were well over 100 leads handed over to police. 

Two CN rail employees thought they spotted the 15-year-old girl from Nepean at the train station. An Air Canada teller thought she had seen Zwicker board a flight to Edmonton. 

Zwicker was last seen at a bus stop on Merivale Road near her Brookdale Street home on July 25. Weeks later, police held a press conference and stated that they were growing concerned because this case was unlike other runaways; typically, at least one person should have heard from the missing person by that time.

On Nov. 18, 1979, the body of a young girl was found in a water-filled gulley off Pineglen Crescent near St. Monica’s church. The remains were found by four young children who were playing nearby. 

It was Zwicker. Her skull and jaw had been broken. The official cause of death was drowning. 

Around 400 friends and classmates attended an emotional memorial service at Bethany Baptist Church. Rev. Donald Fraser said, “We are confused. We are angry. We loathe for answers that are not there.”

Police said the death was similar to two other unsolved murders where the victims also had their jaws and skulls fractured. 

Six years earlier, on Aug. 15, 1971, hikers near North Gower discovered the decomposing body of 16-year-old Christine Walkowiak, who had been reported missing three months prior. 

Two years later, on Aug. 8, 1973, Betsy Lancaster, also 16, was found at a landfill in Hull. In that case, drugs were believed to be at play. 

In all three incidents, the girls were known to hitchhike, said police. 

In Zwicker’s case, police said they could not rule out the possibility of her falling in and drowning. It’s believed she was talking to a man when she was last seen. They still don't know who that person was. 

After failing to answer his phone calls, the brother of Orma Casselman entered his sister's unit 704 apartment at 1401 Prince of Wales Drive and found her naked body on the bedroom floor. 

The 50-year-old woman had been sexually assaulted and stabbed, but died from strangulation. 

A neighbour who spoke to the brother and entered the apartment with him said it appeared the apartment had been ransacked, with cupboard doors open and articles strewn everywhere. 

Casselman worked as a clerical worker at the RCMP headquarters on Alta Vista Drive and held part-time work in the classified advertising department of the Ottawa Citizen. 

At the beginning of the investigation, Staff Insp. Lester Thompson expected an “early arrest,” according to the Ottawa Journal, and that multiple people had been questioned over the incident. 

Police also said a motive had been established but did not say what it was. There have been no arrests and no charges laid. 

Wayne Roushorn, 26, was sitting in his cab outside of the Fisher Estates apartments on Jan. 11, 1977, when he was suddenly stabbed to death around 3:15 p.m. that afternoon. 

Roushorn, who lived at 9 Walgate Ave in Parkwood Hills, allegedly attempted to ward off his attack and received several slashes to his hands in the process. It was a fatal stab to the heart which killed him. 

Police were able to find out the description of a man Roushorn picked up at the Bayshore Shopping Centre about 45 minutes prior to the incident, and recovered the murder weapon but were unable to trace it. While the motive was unclear, authorities said it was not a robbery. 

In a 1979 interview with the Ottawa Citizen, a detective said they bump into the suspected killer from time to time on the streets. 

“Every time I see that guy, I don't know what goes through his mind," said the  detective. “Our investigation was very thorough, the interrogation, what involvement he had, everything. 

In the late 1990s, Roushorn’s family put forward a $20,000 reward, but in the decades since, no more leads have been brought forward. 

It was early in the morning on May 17, 1974 when a man was taking his two children to school near the Ottawa Airport. In the corner of his eye, he spotted the body of a young woman floating in a ditch. 

The victim was 18-year-old Lenore Harding, who had been stabbed repeatedly, hit on the head with an axe, and sexually assaulted. She was engaged to be married in only 10 days. 

Gloucester Police had very little luck finding the killer. A $200 reward put forward by Harding’s father and another $500 posted by an anonymous benefactor led nowhere. 

Larry Harding, the victim's sister, told the Ottawa Citizen in 1993 that it was difficult to heal with no answers. Family members brought some of Lenore’s rings to a psychic medium in Barbados. They even hired a private detective who claimed in his investigation found there were people who tried to push Lenore into prostitution and drugs, but the family never believed that story. 

Julia Gubin and her 23-year-old daughter Elizabeth were still all smiles from their trip to California when they walked into their Bank Street shoe repair store and found their husband and father dead. 

William Gubin, who lived at 1406 Bank Street near Randal Avenue, South of Kilborn Avenue, had two calibre bullets in his body and died instantly. He had been shot through the heart and left lung. The other bullet was found in the hip. 

Gubin showed signs of putting up a struggle, said police, and was found in the bathroom. A fair amount of money was stolen from the shop; a follow-up report said it was around $2,000. 

Susan Scott, who operated a hair dressing salon at 1402 Bank Street, said she got a strange phone call a week prior to Christmas from a man who wanted the name, number and address of “the shoemaker.”

Gubin was born in Ukraine and came to Canada with his wife, who was Hungarian, after the war. Once here, he set up shop in the Glebe, but moved to his Bank Street shop a decade before the murder after a fire destroyed his business. 

Police reported very few leads regarding what happened to the shoemaker, other than footprints found in the snow. The killers were believed to have found entry through the basement window. 

A senior police source at the time told the Ottawa Journal it was probably a local “punk” rather than an out-of-town criminal. Because Gubin was found in his pajamas, it’s suspected he was sleeping and heard someone breaking into the shop.  

It was a frigid December day in Ottawa when the body of 53-year-old Rose Balliargeon was found hanging unclothed on two metal coat hangers from a pipe in the basement below her Frank Street apartment. It’s believed she was killed about 36 hours prior. 

During a court case, the Ottawa Journal reported that jury members were told by witnesses that it could not have been suicide. 

Leona Blair, who lived next door to Balliargeon, testified that Balliargeon looked healthy before the murder and was not drinking. 

“She told me she had an appointment for a job,” said Blair. 

Patricia Bell of Island Lodge said Balliargeon never showed up for that job interview. 

During an inquest held in 1967, Jacques Lacombe of Eastview stated that a man known to the police as “Gros Louis” frequently visited the Balliargeon household. He was described as a “big, husky fellow about 200 pounds with black hair.”

“He used to act as her bouncer when some of the men that visited her started any trouble,” said Lacombe. “He used to go there quite often and ask for money for booze… for wine, I think.”

A five-man jury concluded the incident was a homicide. Dr. Donald Hill, a pathologist with the Ottawa General Hospital, said bruises on Balliargeon’s head and face showed she may have been knocked unconscious and then hanged to make it look like suicide.