In the dense fog of a winter morning, family members stood by the side of Wellington Road and watched as firefighters worked to extinguish a blaze at a farmhouse just north of St. Thomas, Ontario. It was February 2, 1999, and at first, they believed their loved ones, Wendy Haveron, a 45-year-old female, and her common-law partner, Roger Smith, 40, had died in a tragic fire. The truth, however, was far more brutal. The couple had been murdered, and the home they shared had been deliberately set ablaze to hide the crime.
Wendy's family remembers her as a loved one whose violent death left a permanent scar. Her son recalled that his mother was frail and would have been unable to defend herself. In a video released by police years later, Wendy’s sister, Wanda Smith, was shown leafing through a scrapbook of news clippings about the case.
"Probably about six months after it happened, I was going through my scrapbooks and I was reading the stories, and then all of a sudden it hit me," Wanda said. "This is our story. This is us. This isn’t reading about someone else’s murder. This is ours. This impacted us as a family." Roger Smith was remembered by his cousin as a caring person who had dedicated himself to building a top-caliber herd of Jersey cows at the dairy farm he shared with Wendy.
In the early hours of February 2, 1999, the Southwold Fire Department and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) were called to the couple's home at 11553 Wellington Road. Inside the charred ruins, they discovered the bodies of Wendy and Roger. The remains were so badly burned that they could not be immediately identified. Autopsies soon revealed the horrifying reality: both victims had died from blunt force trauma before the fire was set. Investigators believe the killer or killers used an object like a baseball bat and then torched the house to destroy evidence.
The investigation was launched by the Elgin County OPP Crime Unit, under the direction of the OPP’s Criminal Investigation Branch. From the beginning, police and the victims' families pleaded with the public for tips. In the week after the murders, relatives held a news conference to appeal for information. But despite their efforts, the case yielded few leads in the initial years. The OPP has been careful to classify the double homicide not as a "cold case" but as a "historical homicide," emphasizing that the file remains open and active.
Over the decades, police have repeatedly renewed their calls for information, often on the anniversary of the killings. They believe that even a small, seemingly insignificant detail could be the key to breaking the case. "Time changes maturity and where you are in life, and maybe you need to clean the slate," OPP Const. Adam Crewdson said in 2019. "People do come forward." Police and family members are convinced that someone has knowledge about what happened to Wendy and Roger.
The family has never given up hope for justice. "We never thought it would last this long. We thought it was going to be solved fairly quick," Wanda Smith said on the 20th anniversary. "We may never know the why or the where of it, but to know that someone is paying, that would mean a lot to all of us." Their enduring pain is a constant reminder of the unanswered questions surrounding the brutal crime.
As of February 2026, on the 27th anniversary of the murders, the case remains unsolved. The Government of Ontario continues to offer a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible. A separate cash reward of up to $2,000 is available through Crime Stoppers. The Elgin County OPP continues to investigate and urges anyone with information, no matter how minor it may seem, to come forward.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ontario Provincial Police at 1-888-310-1122. To remain anonymous, tips can be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
