Dimitre Dimitrov

Photo Credit: The Toronto Star

In the early morning of February 21, 1996, Hristo Veltchev was murdered in the garage attached to his home. Dimitre Dimitrov and Dimitre Tzenev, refugees from Bulgaria, were tenants living in the house with the murder victim and his wife. It was rumoured that the victim married his wife, Faith Veltchev, to secure Canadian citizenship, and that he was having extra-marital affairs, including with Tzenev’s estranged wife. Veltchev once told Faith that he would consider having sex with her, if she lost weight.¹

The body of the deceased was found in the trunk of his grey car, in a shopping mall parking lot, approximately five kilometres away from his home. About a month after the murder, the running shoes that the victim wore to work every day were discovered in the basement of his home, shoved behind the staircase. A pair of Eagle Rock winter boots were found inside the front hall closet of the house, spattered with the victim's blood. They also contained blood from another person but DNA testing in 1999 excluded Dimitrov, Tzenev, and the victim’s wife.

Both Dimitrov and Tzenev were both arrested shortly after the murder. The victim’s wife was also arrested after she tried to collect a $50,000 life insurance policy on her husband. However, she was never charged despite failing a lie detector test she volunteered to take.² In 1997, a judge found that there was not enough evidence to proceed to trial against Tzenev, but that there was enough evidence to commit Dimitrov to trial.

Dimitrov was tried by a jury in a 1999 trial. After 2.5 days of deliberation, he was found guilty of murder.³ The judge admitted expert evidence from an RCMP forensic expert who testified that it was “likely” that the foot impressions in the bloody Eagle Rock boots matched Dimitrov but also that the impression was "not clear enough to do a high probability or high likelihood." The expert also testified that the impressions in the boots were not those of the victim, Tzenev or the victim’s wife.⁴

There was reason to doubt the impartiality of the jury at trial. When Dimitrov did not testify, a press report stated: “It's a rule of thumb in legal circles that juries like to hear an accused person express his or her innocence before the jury can feel comfortable voting for acquittal.”⁵ The jury was also asked to disregard hearsay testimony offered by Tzenev that there had been a conflict between the victim and Dimitrov.⁶

After he was convicted, Dimtrov told Judge Roydon Kealey: “I didn’t do that. I am innocent.” However, the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment and ineligibility for parole for 12 years for “a cowardly and brutal attack on Hristo Veltchev." The judge said: "There is no explanation (motive) available... for Hristo Veltchev's horrendous death."⁷

The Ontario Court of Appeal allowed Dimitrov’s appeal on the basis that the RCMP foot impression expert should not have been allowed to testify. The Court of Appeal stated: “the fact… that an accused person's footprint is ‘similar to’ the barefoot impression in a boot or shoe ought not to be admissible as positive identification. As Sergeant Kennedy himself acknowledges, his research has not reached the stage where he can make a categorical identification from barefoot impressions.”⁸ The Court of Appeal also noted that there was no evidence that Dimitrov owned or wore the boots.

Dimitrov was released on bail after a successful appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal. He had served four and half years in jail, including at Kingston Penitentiary. The Crown sought to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada but the Court denied leave to appeal.

At his second trial, Dimitrov testified and claimed he was innocent. His defence also argued that both Tzenev and the victim’s wife had more of a motive to kill Veltchev, that there was no forensic evidence linking Dimitrov to the killing, and he had no motive to commit the murder. On October 29, 2005, a jury acquitted Dimitrov after 12 hours of deliberation.⁹