Four People Charged Over One Killing in a Riverside Park, and the Two the Warrants Were Upgraded For Are on Opposite Coasts: Lanark OPP Raise Joseph Madore and Brayton Kennedy to First-Degree Murder (Originally Reported September 3, 2026)
PERTH — This file was first reported on Thursday, September 3, 2026 and is not a story that broke today. Lanark County OPP have updated the arrest warrants for two Ottawa men wanted over a killing in a riverside park in April, and each is now sought for first-degree murder rather than second. Neither man has been in custody at any point, and police now believe they are roughly four thousand kilometres apart.
The elevation from second-degree to first-degree is the development here. It is a statement that investigators believe they can establish planning and deliberation, and it lands nearly five months after the death and after two further people were charged around the two men still missing.
What Lanark County OPP Has Put on the Record
- The call: Sunday, April 12, 2026 at about 3:15 p.m., officers respond to Last Duel Park in Perth and find a person with life-threatening injuries.
- The victim: Christo Allison Richards, 34, of Ottawa, transported to a trauma centre and later pronounced dead.
- Originally charged in April 2026: Joseph Madore, 34, and Brayton Kennedy, 28, both of Ottawa, each with second-degree murder.
- The update, September 3, 2026: both arrest warrants are amended and each man is now wanted for first-degree murder.
- May 2026: Michael Lewis, 46, of Perth is charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
- June 2026: Lyna Du, 32, of Ottawa is charged with accessory after the fact to murder.
- Madore’s whereabouts: investigators have reason to believe he is in British Columbia and may be travelling through or camping in remote back country areas.
- Kennedy’s whereabouts: police originally believed both men could be in British Columbia; they now say Kennedy may be in New Brunswick.
- Public warning: anyone who sees either man is told not to approach and to call 911.
- Carriage: Lanark County OPP under the direction of the OPP Criminal Investigation Branch, with the Office of the Chief Coroner, the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service and OPP Forensic Identification Services assisting.
- What is absent: no cause of death, no weapon, no motive, no relationship between the accused and the victim, no vehicle, no statement on how the two men are believed to have travelled, and no criminal organization.
A Conspiracy Charge Sits Underneath the Upgrade
Michael Lewis was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in May, roughly a month after the killing. Conspiracy is a charge about agreement in advance, and it does not sit comfortably beside a second-degree murder charge against the people alleged to have carried the agreement out.
Four months later the OPP raised the two principal warrants to first-degree. The force does not connect the two developments and this briefing does not assert that they are connected. But the charge architecture across the four accused — conspiracy at one end, accessory after the fact at the other, and now planning and deliberation in the middle — describes a file investigators are treating as an arranged killing rather than an encounter that turned fatal.
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
Five Months at Large, and the Search Has Split
The most striking operational fact is that neither Madore nor Kennedy has ever been arrested. They were charged in April, and as of September 3 both remain outstanding — nearly five months.
The search has also diverged. Police originally worked on the basis that both men could be in British Columbia. That has now changed: Madore is still believed to be in B.C., possibly moving through or camping in remote back country, while Kennedy is believed to be in New Brunswick. Two men charged jointly with the same killing are now being sought at opposite ends of the country, which suggests they separated at some point after April and that investigators have developed independent information on each.
The back country detail matters for what it implies about the difficulty of the file. A man believed to be camping in remote terrain is not a man expected to surface at a known address.
Two Ottawa Accused, One Ottawa Victim, One Lanark County Park
Three of the four people at the centre of this file — the victim and the two men wanted for first-degree murder — are from Ottawa. The fourth accused, Lyna Du, is also of Ottawa. Only Michael Lewis is described as a resident of Perth.
The killing happened at Last Duel Park, on the Tay River in Perth, roughly eighty kilometres southwest of Ottawa. The OPP have not characterised why a group of people from the capital converged on a park in Lanark County on a Sunday afternoon in April, and have offered no motive of any kind.
No criminal organization has been named by the Ontario Provincial Police in this file, and none is named here.
Lanark County OPP — Last Duel Park Homicide
Primary Wire Sources
- The Lanarkist: “OPP upgrade warrants to first-degree murder in Perth homicide investigation”, by Hollie Pratt-Campbell, published Thursday, September 3, 2026. Every name, age, date and charge above was confirmed on that page.
- The upgrade was announced by Lanark County OPP on Thursday, September 3, 2026. No corresponding item on this development appears in the OPP’s public news portal, which carries corporate and feature material rather than detachment media releases; this briefing will be updated if a detachment release is located.
- The 144-day interval between the killing and the warrant upgrade is arithmetic performed on the dates in the reporting, not a figure stated by police.
- None of the allegations has been proven in court. No criminal organization has been named by the Ontario Provincial Police in this file, and none is named in this briefing.