CHAPTER ONE
July 16, 2016 — Chapleau, Ontario · while camping
Raffi Ceylan, age 42, dies in a bedroom with his girlfriend.
Chapleau, Ontario · ten hours north of Windsor
On July 16, 2016, Raffi Ceylan and a small group of friends drove from Windsor, Ontario to Chapleau, Ontario — roughly ten hours by road to the north — for a camping and four-wheeling trip. The Chapleau property was not his. He was visiting with friends.
The property Raffi did own — a residential property in Windsor, Ontario — was held in 50/50 co-ownership with his grade-school friend Daryl Lauzon, per the 2013 Transfer Tax Statement. Lauzon never paid his share of the taxes or carrying costs on the Windsor property, but his name was on the title.
On July 16, 2016, Raffi was at the property with his girlfriend Julie Triferis. They had been together. They had been jumping around in bed. They had been joking. They had been having fun.
Then Raffi got out of bed to close the curtains.
JULY 16, 2016 · THE BEDROOM
What Julie Triferis saw in the seconds it took for Raffi to die.
Raffi turned around to face Julie.
He was still smiling. But he could not move.
Julie thought he was joking. She said,
“Stop goofing around. Stop messing around.”
She went up to him.
“What's the matter? Just stop. It's not funny anymore.”
He could see her. He could hear her. He could not respond.
Then he fell to his knees and threw up.
Julie started yelling for help.
He knew he was dying.
He just didn't know why or how.
The clinical signature of strychnine
This is the textbook clinical signature of strychnine poisoning.
It is not the signature of anything natural.
THE CLINICAL EVIDENCE
A textbook clinical presentation. A textbook cover-up. Three autopsy reports for one death.
Flavour
Extremely bitter. Must be masked in food or drink.
Lethal dose
30–120 mg in an adult human. Smaller than a sugar packet.
Onset
15–30 minutes after ingestion. Faster on physical exertion.
Primary target
The spinal cord. Convulsive paralysis with preserved consciousness.
Detection
Requires a specific toxicology screen. Strychnine does NOT appear on routine post-mortem panels.
Hallmark presentation
Hyperactivity → muscle rigidity → convulsions → respiratory paralysis → death.
Hyperactivity — Raffi was jumping around in bed, laughing, joking with Julie Triferis (minutes before death)
Muscle rigidity with preserved consciousness — he turned to face Julie, smiled, then could not move. He could see her, hear her, could not respond. Frozen smile.
Convulsions — fell to his knees and threw up
Rapid death — collapsed within minutes; never recovered consciousness once paralysed
This is the textbook clinical signature of strychnine poisoning. It is not the signature of cardiac arrest. It is not the signature of arrhythmia. It is not the signature of natural causes.
Chief Coroner Emily Groot ordered no toxicology test for strychnine or any other poison
The spinal cord was never examined — despite being the canonical target tissue for strychnine
Three autopsy reports were generated for a single death — one in 2016, one in 2017, one in 2019 — each giving a different cause
Dr. Martin Queen REFUSED to sign the 2019 autopsy report. A pathologist refusing his own signature on a finalised report is its own evidentiary fact.
Windsor Police refused to open a homicide investigation
A report attributed to Don Arsenault, Sudbury Police is missing from the file. Sudbury is 680 km north of Windsor. There is no public-record explanation for why a Sudbury officer is in this file at all.
MOTIVE
$708,981.66 in combined life-insurance policies and pension benefits payable on Raffi's death.
Sun Life $607,228.70 + four Empire Life policies totalling $108,981.66 (incl. CF31367B0L $95,904.49)
MEANS
Ivana worked at Veolia, a water-treatment company. Veolia facilities maintain industrial chemical inventories. Strychnine is industrially registered under various controlled-substance schedules.
OPPORTUNITY
Custody exchanges. Ostensibly "friendly" post-separation relationship. The bitter taste of strychnine can be masked in any sweetened or strongly flavoured drink.
No allegation here is made beyond what the public record and the unanswered investigation gaps support. The names and roles are reproduced from the existing case file.
An independent forensic re-examination is the only remaining route to scientific certainty.
JULY 16, 2016 · MOMENTS LATER
Daryl Lauzon — co-owner of the property Raffi just died on.
When Julie yelled for help, the first person through the door of the cabin was Daryl Lauzon — Raffi's grade-school friend, fellow camper on the trip, and the 50%-co-owner of Raffi's Windsor residential property under the 2013 Transfer Tax Statement.
Lauzon had not paid his share of the property taxes. He nevertheless held legal title to half the asset by virtue of the joint registration.
The man who walked through the door of a dying friend held title to half of the house that friend had just paid for.
JULY 16-17, 2016 · CHAPLEAU TO WINDSOR
What Lauzon talked about for ten consecutive hours.
After Raffi's body was prepared for transport, the surviving party drove the ten hours back from Chapleau to Windsor. Daryl Lauzon was in the vehicle.
For ten consecutive hours, Lauzon talked about one subject. One subject only.
“Who gets half the house?
Who gets half the house?
Who gets half the house?”
— Daryl Lauzon, throughout the 10-hour drive following Raffi Ceylan's death
“You really couldn't understand,” the family later said. “Your friend just passed away. And all you talk about is that house.”
Ten hours. One subject. Within hours of the death.
Under R. v. Grant, 2009 SCC 32, consciousness of guilt may be inferred from post-event conduct. A ten-hour single-subject monologue about asset division within hours of a friend's sudden death is post-event conduct of the type the Grant Court contemplated.
JULY 17, 2016 · ONE DAY AFTER THE DEATH
Two people who had never gotten along — celebrating with a glass of wine.
The day after Raffi's death, Daryl Lauzon and Ivana Hrvatin were seen having dinner together. They were toasting with a glass of wine.
“Ivana and Daryl never even liked each other for the longest time.”
Two people with no prior social relationship — observed celebrating together with wine — within twenty-four hours of the sudden death from which they would both benefit.
The 2013 co-ownership registration.
The post-death asset transfer.
The next-day wine toast.
The co-ordination signature.
Criminal Code of Canada s. 465(1)(a) — conspiracy to commit indictable offence — turns on co-ordination evidenced by acts in concert. Two parties who never liked each other, observed in private celebration within hours of a sudden death from which each gained, is the canonical signature.
Lucy bought Lauzon's half “for next to nothing”
After the death, Lucy Ceylan eventually purchased Daryl Lauzon's 50% interest in Raffi's Windsor residential property — the half he had never paid taxes on, the half he had acquired by being named on the 2013 registration.
She paid him “next to nothing” for it.
A below-market disposition immediately following a sudden death is the canonical smoking-gun aftermath the murder-motive exhibit identifies. A man who walked away from real property he held title to, taking pennies, is a man with a reason to leave the asset behind.
EXHIBIT A · SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE FILE NO. 000573
Darrel John Lauzon — everything a Crown Brief needs in one page.
DAYS AFTER THE DEATH · THE WILL READING
Days after the camping trip, Daryl Lauzon attended the will reading where the family was handed the unsigned will. Lucy Ceylan, on the record at Tier 4 transcript 00:12:45, describes what happened next:
“Daryl Lauzon was at the will reading. He was there when they handed over that unsigned will to the family. He had concerns about the autopsy. Said something wasn't right about how Raffi died. The timing, the circumstances...”
“He knew something was wrong. But then... nothing. No one ever heard from him about it again. They didn't want anyone asking questions.”
— Lucy Ceylan, Tier 4 transcript 00:12:45 – 00:17:30
A grade-school friend who was at the death scene, then at the will reading, then raising autopsy concerns, then completely absent from the public record for ten years, is not a man whose silence is voluntary.
EXHIBIT B · THE ZERO-SEARCH FINDING
A forensic search of public records on February 8, 2026 produced the following result for queries combining Daryl Lauzon's name with the Ceylan estate, the will reading, and the autopsy:
Search 1
“Daryl Lauzon Windsor Rafi Ceylan”
0 relevant results / 10
Search 2
“Daryl Lauzon will reading”
0 relevant results / 10
Search 3
“Lauzon autopsy concerns Windsor”
0 relevant results / 10
Search 4 — CanLII (May 25, 2026)
Ceylan-related Ontario decisions naming Daryl Lauzon
0 results
A man who held title to half of a property at the moment its co-owner died, who was first through the bedroom door, who attended the will reading, who raised autopsy concerns — and who produces zero hits across four independent public-record searches conducted ten years later — is the textbook signature of a suppressed witness under Criminal Code s. 139(2).
| Section | Offence | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| s. 229(a) | Murder — cause of death with requisite intent | LIFE |
| s. 465(1)(a) | Conspiracy to commit murder | LIFE |
| s. 380(1) | Fraud over $5,000 | 14 years |
| s. 346(1) | Extortion (below-market sale under implied threat) | LIFE |
| s. 139(2) | Obstruction of justice (suppression of witness) | 10 years |
| s. 240 | Accessory after the fact to murder | LIFE |
| s. 718.2(a)(iii) | Abuse of trust — aggravating factor | enhancer |
Per R. v. Stinchcombe, [1991] 3 S.C.R. 326, the Crown bears an affirmative obligation to pursue every reasonable investigative avenue when murder is suspected. The clinical signature of strychnine, the motive profile of Darrel John Lauzon, the suppression of the only witness who voiced autopsy concerns, and the temporal impossibility of the autopsy report Chapter 2 is about to expose, together require one remedy:
Body exhumation. Independent toxicology. Witness interview of Daryl Lauzon under caution.
The death is only the beginning
Raffi Ceylan died in Chapleau on July 16, 2016 with one eyewitness in the room. Within twenty-four hours, his property was the topic of a ten-hour monologue and a celebratory wine toast.
Within four weeks, the family was given a Will that had been signed in one office and unsigned by the time they got home.
Within two months, a Sun Life corporate signature had been forged on a Transfer of Ownership form using the name of a bookkeeper who never signed it.
Within seventeen months, a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee was issued in six days when the standard is six weeks — on the strength of a sworn affidavit a recorded conversation had already contradicted by name.
And the autopsy report — the document that should have caught all of it —
could not have existed when it says it did.
Chapter 2 is about that document.