Toronto Sun

October 19, 1999

Death throes of a T.O. cop

Partner tells how he tried to save pal

By SAM PAZZANO -- Toronto Sun

CAUGHT ON VIDEO
This store surveillance video was played in court yesterday showing under-cover cop Bill Hancox at a convenience store minutes before he was fatally stabbed.
His voice breaking with emotion, Const. Steve Pattison described in court yesterday his efforts to save his partner and good pal Bill Hancox.

"I'm stabbed," Pattison said he heard Hancox's voice simultaneously through his open car window and over his police radio as he pulled up to Hancox's vehicle in a Scarborough parking lot

"I saw Bill fall backwards," Pattison told the jury.

"I saw blood all over his neck and his shirt -- his eyes were fluttering. Then his eyes closed and I reached and felt a pulse, but it was weakening," said Pattison, visibly shaken by the recollection.

"I positioned his head and turned to blow into his mouth, but blood splashed back on to me and after trying again blood splashed, so I couldn't get an airway. So I started chest compressions and one minute later, uniformed cars and the troops starting coming at that point."

Pattison was testifying on the first witness day of the second-degree murder trial of lovers Rose Cece and Barbara Taylor.

Cece, 41, and Taylor, 31, have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
Steve Pattison, Hancox's partner leaves the courtroom after testifying at the trial.
Ernest Doroszuk, Sun

Kim Hancox -- the murdered officer's widow -- wiped away tears as she listened to Pattison's emotional testimony and watched a store surveillance video showing her husband pick up a candy bar and pop minutes before he was killed.

She was eight months pregnant with the couple's second child at the time of her husband's death.

Hancox died after being stabbed in the chest with a 30-cm butcher knife while sitting in his undercover vehicle as part of a surveillance team investigating a burglary ring on Aug. 4, 1998.

The attack took place in the parking lot of a mall at Neilson Rd. and Ellesmere Ave. about 10 p.m.

Pattison, who socialized with Hancox outside of work, worked alongside him and Geoff Hesse on the special investigation team. They were targeting the suspected leader of a highly organized burglary ring that invaded two to three industrial outfits a week.

Hancox was the "eye" -- the watchdog facing the suspect's Honda.

He was stabbed and killed shortly after he took a short break to get a pop and candy bar from a nearby convenience store.

Pattison and several other officers recalled in graphic detail the final hour of Hancox's life in testimony yesterday.

Crown attorney John McMahon said in his opening statement last week that Taylor and Cece attempted to carjack the undercover cop's vehicle.

He said Taylor told Cece: "F--k it -- use the knife" to accomplish the carjacking.

The two accused have admitted the killing and tried to plead guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter but the plea was rejected by the Crown.

The trial continues today.

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