WARNING: This story contains disturbing details involving sexual abuse of a child. A trial is underway for a man who is accused of sexually assaulting multiple children in three different cities. In August 1992, police were called to a wooded area near Idlewood Park in Kitchener, Ont. An 8-year-old boy told officers a man lured him into the woods, tied him to a tree and sexually assaulted him. The investigation, known as “Project Woodland,” eventually used DNA evidence to link the incident to two other similar assaults; one involved a 10-year-old boy in Brampton in 1994, and another involved a 15-year-old girl in Oakville in 1995. The suspect in all three was identified as Richard Neil. He was arrested in British Columbia in March 2024. Neil now faces a long list of charges related to those alleged incidents. “I was scared” Neil’s trial is being held in Brampton, Ont., more than 30 years after the Kitchener incident. On Tuesday, the court was shown video taken in 1995. In it, the boy from the Kitchener case spoke to police about what happened. He said he was approached by a man while he was playing in the park with his friends. The man then invited them into the wood to see some bicycles. The boy said when he went into the wooded area, the man grabbed him and ordered him not to scream. “I was scared,” he told police. The boy said the man tied him to a tree and repeatedly sexually assaulted him in multiple ways. A former forensic identification officer with the Waterloo Regional Police Service, Alan Stauch, testified at the trial on Tuesday. In 1992, he photographed the scene and worked to preserve evidence. The former officer said he had seen yellow rope tied to a tree and also went to the hospital to photograph the boy’s injuries. He will return to the stand on Wednesday. Sister’s testimony The boy’s sister also testified at the trial. Through tears, she described how she was originally the one who was going to go into the forest that day. When she started to get a bad feeling, her brother offered to go instead. She also said she was concerned when her brother didn’t immediately return, so she and their friends walked through the woods, screaming her brother’s name. She told the court her brother came out of the forest “totally distraught, crying.” He allegedly told her, “I was raped.” The sister said she saw a piece of rope that was still tied to her brother’s leg. “I was frantic – ran him home to my mom as fast as I could,” she recalled. After that, her memories were blurry. “Everything just went chaotic,” she explained.
