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Prisoner on unescorted release in Oshawa strangled 14-year-old Toronto student to death in 1986


Warning: The article contains details that some readers might find disturbing.

Forty years ago, he was convicted of raping and strangling a 14-year-old Toronto boy to death.

Today, he’s free, somewhere in Oshawa.

On Monday, Durham Regional Police issued a community safety alert, warning the public that convicted child killer, Darren Scott Ray, was granted an Unescorted Temporary Absence Permit (UTA) and was released into the community under “strict conditions.”

Police said Ray, who is currently serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, is a high‑risk offender with a history of serious violent crime who “poses a significant risk to the community.”

Other than that, though, no details about the 65-year-old’s past crimes or his nameless victim were released.

An archival Toronto Star story from Oct. 27, 1987, however, gives that victim a name—and a face.

Prisoner on unescorted release in Oshawa strangled 14-year-old Toronto student to death in 1986

Darren Pepin, 14, was murdered by Darren Scott Ray. Toronto Star archive

The article, by Toronto Star reporter Wendy Darroch, reported Ray’s conviction in the sex slaying of Darren Pepin, a Bendale Secondary School student who met his eventual killer after running away from home following an argument about chores with his father.

The court heard that Pepin left the following note to his dad before leaving their Kennedy Road apartment for the last time.

“Dad: Have gone away because everyone accuses me of doing stuff that I did not do, and I’ve had enough of it. Well, goodbye; talk to you later. P.S. You said, ‘If you don’t like it, get out,’ so I did. I still love you.”

Staff Sergeant Edward Stewart told the court at the time that evidence showed Pepin slept in an abandoned warehouse on his first night as a homeless youth. The next morning, he had an ill-fated run-in with Ray at a bus stop.

“At Ray’s invitation, according to the Crown, Pepin got a set of keys to Ray’s 10th-floor apartment on McCowan Road so he could stay there until the rift with his father healed,” the article explained.

The next day, on March 25, 1986, a tenant testified that she heard an “eerie scream” in the complex, and a neighbour later discovered Pepin’s body wrapped in a comforter and stashed in the complex’s garbage room.

Ray unsuccessfully pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

He admitted to killing the boy, but argued that he had been drinking heavily and taking painkillers for a medical condition and was too intoxicated to form the intent to kill.

“Don’t let him fool you; please don’t let him fool you,” Crown attorney Kenneth Anthony pleaded with the jury.

After about three hours of deliberation, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.