John Francis Alquiros, a 31-year-old White/Caucasian man, was found shot to death in Timberlea, Nova Scotia, on April 19, 2002. At approximately 11:00 that morning, police were called after three youths walking near the Greenhead Road extension, off Highway 103, came upon his body. What had begun as an ordinary walk through the rural area suddenly became the discovery of a homicide victim.
The Greenhead Road extension was an isolated setting, roughly one kilometre from the nearest
residential housing. Although rural, the area was not entirely deserted; it was regularly used by hikers and people riding all-terrain vehicles. Investigators determined that Alquiros had not simply been killed somewhere else and left there. The location where his body was discovered was identified as the actual scene of the homicide.
The investigation established that Alquiros died from gunshot wounds. Publicly released information has not disclosed how many times he was shot, the type or calibre of firearm used, or whether investigators recovered a weapon or other significant physical evidence from the scene. Authorities have also not publicly explained what brought Alquiros to the Greenhead Road area, whether he arrived alone or with another person, or how long he had been there before the three youths discovered him.
Police continued investigating the killing as a cold case. By the fifteenth anniversary of the homicide in April 2017, investigators were again appealing for information from the public, emphasizing that the shooting remained under investigation. The case was assigned to the Cold Case Unit of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division and was also placed in Nova Scotia's Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program.
The provincial reward program currently offers as much as $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Alquiros's murder. His case also continues to appear among the Halifax region's major unsolved cases, indicating that investigators have not publicly announced a resolution.
No suspect has been publicly identified in connection with the homicide, and available official information does not report an arrest or criminal charge arising from Alquiros's killing. There consequently has been no publicly reported trial or conviction. Investigators have not disclosed a motive or publicly stated whether they believe he was deliberately targeted, knew his killer, or encountered the person responsible by chance. More than two decades after the shooting, the central questions surrounding why Alquiros was taken to or met someone on the Greenhead Road extension and who shot him there remain unanswered.
