Ross Storrie pleads guilty to sexual assault from 1995

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A 45 year old Niagara Falls man has pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault on a 77 year old woman in 1995. Ross Storrie cut the phone lines, broke into her house, and then viciously sexually assaulted her.

The crime happened 20 years ago, but advancements in DNA technology pointed a finger clearly at Ross Storrie. The 77 year old victim lived alone in her home in the Dunn Street neighbourhood in Niagara Falls. She can’t be identified because of a publication ban that was imposed this morning. It was June 8th 1995, the woman noticed someone removed a screen from her window. She couldn’t get to sleep that night. She didn’t know that Ross Storrie, then 25 years old, had cut the phone cable and was hiding upstairs.

He had been hiding in an upstairs bedroom. He came down the stairs armed with a six inch knife. When he went into her bedroom she yelled out “who the hell are you?”. He demanded her money, she said she didn’t have any money. He said “all old people have money”. He said he was going to cut her if she didn’t shut up, and then he threatened to rape her. The woman was sexually assaulted. She fought back – he pulled the bedsheet out from under her and fled out the back door. She had cuts on her legs, a large gash on her hand, bruises all over her body. The woman had a heart attack in the emergency room, a direct result of the sexual assault. Doctors said her injuries were life threatening.

The evidence was sent to the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto. But DNA testing was primitive 20 years ago. When Ross Storrie was convicted in 2012 of a break and enter in Haldimand, his DNA was matched to the vicious sexual assault of the 77 year old woman in Niagara Falls.

The elderly victim died in 1999, 4 years after the attack. Her family says, before the assault, she was friendly and fiesty. After the attack, she was always frightenend.

Ross Storrie is expected to be sentenced sometime later this year.