14 - The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday September 26, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com Who killed Delia Adriano? Twenty-five years later, her murder remains a mystery By Krissie Rutherford OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF It has been 25 years. Twenty-five years since Delia Adriano was dropped off at her Oakville home and never made it in the door. Twenty-five years of wondering what the young woman, engaged to be married and just days from her 26th birthday, would have made of her life. Twenty-five years, and still, what happened to Adriano on this day in 1982 is shrouded in mystery. It was a Sunday night. Adriano's fiancé dropped her off at her parents' home on Wildwood Drive at about 9:30 p.m. The pair had just watched a soccer game. Danny Dutra drove away as his fiancée walked to the side door. Composite sketch of murder suspect. Description: White male, 5foot-7 to 5-foot-9, medium build with brown hair, feathered back to the neck. She never made it in the house. Several witnesses in the Wildwood and Slade Crescent area told Halton Regional Police they saw a woman fitting Adriano's description slight, about 5-foot-1 with short, brown, curly hair being forced into a vehicle later that night. The man and woman were arguing, according to witness reports, and then the car drove off. Six weeks later, Adriano's naked, partly-decomposed body was found in a forested area in Milton, more than 20 miles from her home. Retired Chief of Halton Police Ean Algar was the lead investigator at the time, in charge of 10 detectives assigned to the case. Say the name Delia and Algar immediately remembers the details of 25 years ago. "It's one you don't forget," Algar said. "It's really disturbing to see a young lady abducted, murdered, found in a wooded area. Really disturbing." Adriano's murder case 67034-82 is the only homicide Algar worked on and didn't solve. "I always hope somewhere along the line, something comes forward," he said. "When you don't solve it, it always haunts you. You know, you always think, did I miss something? "It weighs heavily on you. It's on your mind." Del Parchem knows exactly what that's like. Saturday, Nov. 6, 1982 is a day he'll never forget. The moment he came across Adriano's body is still vivid. Still fresh. "I've tried to put it out my mind," Parchem, 59, said quietly. "You never forget something like that. "Just every now and again, it comes back like it happened yesterday." The Campbellville handyman, then 35 years old, was cutting lumber for firewood when he tripped and dropped his chainsaw in the wooded area known as Lover's Lane, at the intersection of Third Side Road and Second Line. "She was there. I was laying right at her feet, where I fell," Parchem said. "I thought somebody had shot a deer and skinned it at first. Then I looked up and I (saw) it wasn't a deer, that's for Delia Adriano sure. "You could hardly tell it was a body," he continued. "She was just laying there with no clothes on." Through dental records, Halton Regional Police identified the body as Delia Adriano, the Oakville woman who went missing six weeks earlier. A graduate of Gordon E. Perdue High School, Adriano was working as a secretary for WearCheck International of Toronto, a laboratory specializing in fuel, before she disappeared. She had been employed there for four years. An autopsy failed to determine the cause of her death. Halton's homicide Detective Keith Woudstra, now the lead investigator on the Adriano case, would not say whether a cause of death has since been determined. Woudstra took over the case in 2005. "There's a lot of information," he said. "But information and "I always hope somewhere along the line, something comes forward. When you don't solve it, it always haunts you. You know, you always think, did I miss something?" Retired Police Chief Ean Algar, original lead investigator of Delia Adriano's murder evidence are two entirely different things." Eight or nine banker's boxes are filled with details on the Adriano murder. Woudstra reviewed the file when he took over the case two years ago. The detective also sent in samples to forensics for reexamination forensic studies have come a long way in 25 years and conducted re-interviews of family members and those closest to the case. "It's pretty well impossible to review everyone, just for the fact that it has been 25 years now, and people are difficult to find," Woudstra said. "During the initial investigation, there were hundreds of people interviewed. They did a lot of work when she disappeared in September and when the body surfaced in November." Police determined several suspects, or ""persons of interest," the detective said, but after inves See Case page 15