Highway 403 trucker slaying still haunts investigators 32 years later

For 30 years, police have been looking for the person who fatally shot a trucker while he was parked along Highway 403. CTV’s Hannah Schmidt reports.

The Brantford Police Service is renewing its push for answers in the fatal shooting of truck driver Michael James Lovejoy — a case that remains unsolved more than three decades later.

Lovejoy, a transport truck driver from Flint, Mich., was found dead inside his vehicle on Highway 403, near Brantford, Ont., in April 1994.

He had only been working for RTS Transport Inc. for about five weeks.

At the time of his death, the 35-year-old was married and had a child. Police said Lovejoy’s family is still seeking answers to his murder.

Cross-border route ended on Ontario highway

Lovejoy left the American Axle & Manufacturing plant in Buffalo, N.Y., shortly before 11 a.m. on April 8, 1994. He crossed into Canada at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge around 12:20 p.m. and was supposed to drop off his load of automotive axles later that night at the GMC truck and bus plant in Pontiac, Mich.

Witnesses saw Lovejoy’s tractor-trailer pull over onto the westbound shoulder of Highway 403 between 1:30 p.m. and 1:45 p.m., about 1.4 kilometres east of the Wayne Gretzky Parkway.

Police said the vehicle was stopped there for an extended period of time.

“That specific portion of the highway, it seems unusual that a transport truck would be parked there,” Insp. Keith Tollar, of the Brantford Police Service, told CTV News in May 2026.

Lovejoy found dead in sleeper cab

Another driver with RTS Transport, travelling the same route, noticed Lovejoy’s truck parked on the highway about 24 hours later.

The driver attempted to reach him over CB radio but received no response. Lovejoy’s CB handle was “SuperTramp.”

The following day, at about 2:15 p.m. on April 9, the same driver stopped and checked the vehicle.

He found Lovejoy’s body in the sleeper compartment of the white 1991 GMC tractor-trailer.

Police said Lovejoy had been shot multiple times.

“Members of the Brantford Police Service attended Highway 403 on the west side, approximately one mile east of the Park Road North overpass,” Tollar said. “Information had been received that a transport truck was parked at the side of the road. Police conducted an investigation and unfortunately found Michael James Lovejoy deceased in the rear portion of this transport trailer.”

Lovejoy had set his wristwatch alarm for 5:30 p.m. and his shoes and socks were on the floor of the cab. His wallet was left inside the vehicle, and the trailer’s cargo was untouched.

Police said robbery was not believed to be the motive for the shooting.

Witness reports and unidentified individual

Witnesses described a tractor-trailer with similar markings parked behind Lovejoy’s vehicle in the hours after he stopped.

Some also reported seeing a man walking between the two trucks.

Police said that man has never been identified.

“I think anyone that was part of that investigation would still be considered a person of interest,” Tollar said. “If anyone has information in relation to who that individual was, we’d love to speak to them.”

More than 300 tips were received in the months after the killing, but police said none of them led to charges.

New technology and ongoing review

Brantford Police renewed the public appeal for information in the years after Lovejoy’s death, citing improvements to the digital record-keeping and case linkage systems.

Handwritten notes from 1994 were digitized and entered into centralized systems specifically designed to identify links between cases and across jurisdictions.

Investigators said advances in DNA technology have also helped advance other historical cases, and they continue to review evidence collected in the Lovejoy investigation.

“The investigators are constantly poring over that information,” Tollar explained. “Because there’s been quite a significant gap in time, we have assigned several investigators to that. Even though we call these cases cold, they’re not really cold.”

Investigators urge witnesses to come forward

Police are asking anyone who may have been travelling on Highway 403 near Brantford on or around April 8, 1994, or who may have seen Lovejoy’s truck stopped on the shoulder, to reach out.

Investigators said even small details, such as second-hand information shared in conversations, could be relevant to the case.

“Sometimes people talk. They might have heard something at a party or a gathering,” Tollar said. “We would appeal to you specifically, to this investigation, because it’s been such a big time gap, somebody from Canada or the U.S. may have some information.”

They can contact the Brantford Police Service or Crime Stoppers.

“We have dedicated people sworn in that are really passionate about the work that they do,” Toller said. “We don’t stop investigating these things, and we won’t stop until we solve them.”

This is part of an ongoing series dedicated to cold and unsolved cases in southwestern Ontario. More stories can be found at Unsolved 519.