Eight men found dead on Ontario farm

Canadian police were yesterday investigating the murders of eight men whose bodies were left in a remote wooded area on a farmer's property - the worse case of slaughter in Ontario's history.

Photo: Eight men found dead on Ontario farm

Police disclosed few details about the deaths at the farm in the eastern Canadian province, about 20 miles south-west of the city of London, except to say that four vehicles were involved, including a tow-truck, and that the dead were all men. The bodies were found on Saturday morning.

"We are confident that all the victims were known to each other and were from the greater Toronto area," an Ontario police spokesman said. The bodies have been removed from the crime scene and are awaiting postmortems. He said the victims had not been identified and that no details would be released until their next of kin had been informed.

Police went to the scene after a call from the property owner, who is not considered a suspect. They have so far refused to discuss any possible links to organised crime, although the surrounding Elgin County has a history of biker violence.

On Saturday, an aerial view showed the vehicles parked within 200 metres of each other, the bodies still inside. One body was visible, lying curled on its side in the trunk of the sports utility vehicle.

The vehicle was found in a field about 20 metres off a dirt road. About 100 metres away, the tow-truck was parked on the hard shoulder of the road, with a Volkswagen hooked to the back.

Mary and Russell Steele, who own the property where the cars were parked, told Global News that the vehicles were not there when they drove home the night before at around 8.30pm. They called the police on Saturday morning after looking inside one of the vehicles and not being able to see anything because of a blanket covering the back window.

"We didn't see anybody in them, so we just phoned the cops with the licence plate numbers," Mr Steele said, reports Guardian Unlimited.

I.L.