Murder on Highway 403 unsolved 30 years later

It’s been thirty years since Michael James Lovejoy was shot to death inside his transport truck on the side of Highway 403 in Brantford, and his murder remains unsolved.

The 35-year-old Flint, MI man was running a route from Buffalo, NY to the GMC truck and bus plant in Pontiac, MI on Friday, April 8, 1994 but never made it to his destination.

According to Brantford police, Lovejoy, who had been working for RTS Transport Inc. for five weeks, left the American Axle & Manufacturing plant in Buffalo just before 11 a.m. that day.

He crossed the border into Canada at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge around 12:20 p.m. carrying a load of automotive axles that were scheduled to arrive in Pontiac at 10 p.m.

Witnesses reported seeing his truck pull onto the westbound shoulder of the 403 between 1:30 and 1:45 that afternoon, about 1.4 kilometres east of Wayne Gretzky Parkway.

About 24 hours later he was found dead in the sleeper part of his white 1991 GMC truck – shot several times.

According to a re-enactment video by Brantford police and CrimeStoppers, another RTS driver was headed eastbound the night of April 8^th, and spotted Lovejoy’s truck parked on the road. He tried to contact Lovejoy over the CB radio, but couldn’t reach him. Lovejoy’s CB handle was ‘SuperTramp.’

The next day around 2:15 p.m., the same driver was returning and noticed Lovejoy’s truck still parked on the side of the highway.

He went to look inside the truck, and found Lovejoy’s body. He had been shot several times.

His shoes and socks were on the floor of the vehicle, and the alarm on his wristwatch was set for 5:30 p.m.

His wallet was still in the truck, and his cargo was still in the trailer, so police say robbery does not appear to have been a motive.

Investigators received more than 300 tips in the case.

They say several people reported seeing a tractor-trailer with similar markings to Lovejoy’s parked behind the vehicle in the hours after he first pulled over, as well as a man walking from Lovejoy’s truck to the other one.

That man has never been identified.

Ten years ago, Brantford police issued a new appeal for tips in the case.

They hoped new technology would point them in the direction of Lovejoy’s killer.

Handwritten notes from 1994 were being digitized and entered into a centralized police database, which could search for connections to other cases.

Lovejoy was married and had a child at the time of his death, and police said his wife, mother and child are still looking for closure.

Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact the Brantford Police Service or CrimeStoppers.