Warning: This story contains graphic content and might be upsetting to some readers.

For four days, Tess Richey’s family desperately searched for her.

It was Richey’s mother, not the police, who found her youngest daughter’s body in a stairwell in Toronto’s Gay Village on Nov. 29, 2017, one day before the aspiring flight attendant who dreamed of seeing the world would have turned 23.

Richey had been “sexually assaulted and brutally strangled to death by a man whom she’d just met,” Crown prosecutor Beverley Richards told a jury Thursday, giving an overview into the evidence the jury is expected to hear over the next four to six weeks.

A combination of security video, DNA evidence, witness testimony and a jailhouse conversation with undercover officers will show that man was Kalen Schlatter, she said.

Schlatter, 23, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

Richards said Schlatter, then 21, followed Richey and her friend out of a popular bar in the Gay Village, and surveillance video shows him eventually leading her into a stairwell where he attempted to have sex with her.

“Schlatter was upset because Tess Richey told him no,” Richards said.

Surveillance video shows Schlatter walking away from the stairwell alone 45 minutes later, she said.

Richey was never seen alive again, Richards said. Her family began looking for her later that day, after there was no response to her sister Rachel’s messages.

The Toronto police were sharply criticized for failing to properly investigate Richey’s disappearance, amid concerns that missing-persons cases linked to the Gay Village were not being taken seriously. Her case was among those which prompted the police board to commission a sweeping review of how Toronto police handles missing-persons investigations.

On Thursday, at the start of Schlatter’s trial for first-degree murder, Richards gave a detailed account of what the Crown expects the evidence will show happened in Richey’s last hours alive on Nov. 24 and 25, 2017.

Richey, the youngest of five sisters, had spent the day with her sister Rachel after an emotional break up with her boyfriend the day before, Richards said.

That night Richey and her high school friend Ryley Simard went to the Crews and Tangos bar on Church Street so that Richey could dance and drink away the pain of the breakup, Richards said.

She texted Rachel around midnight when she got to the bar, Richards said. This was the last time Rachel heard from her sister.

Schlatter was at the bar too, according to security video, though he never interacted with Richey or Simard, other than a brief exchange with Simard outside the bar at around 2:15 a.m., Richards said.

Security cameras show Schlatter followed the two women when they left the bar and walked north up Church Street at around 2:20 a.m., Richards said.

A hot dog stand vendor on Church St. is expected to testify the three got hot dogs — Schlatter paid — and they continued to walk north on Church.

Around 3 a.m., they turned onto Dundonald Street and walked by Michelle Teape, who was having a cigarette on the front steps of her home, Richards said. Teape will testify that Richey apologized for being too loud and then introduced herself, Simard and Schlatter, Richards said.

Richey quickly confided in Teape about her break-up and heartbreak, Richards said. Richey was intoxicated but was not slurring her words or stumbling, she said.

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Schlatter — whose name Teape cannot recall — didn’t say anything during the 20-minute conversation and did not seem drunk, the prosecutor said.

Teape went back into her home, and video surveillance shows that Simard left Richey with Schlatter around 4 a.m., Richards said. Richey walked towards Church Street with Schlatter trailed “well behind her,” she said.

Extensive video surveillance the jury will see from that night shows no signs of affection or physical contact between Richey and Schlatter, Richards said.

At 4:02 a.m., Richey ordered an Uber to pick her up near the corner of Dundonald and Church — near the stairwell where her body was found. It was set to arrive at about 4:14 a.m but, the driver is expected to testify, Richey wasn’t there, Richards said.

He will testify he messaged her twice before cancelling the trip, Richards said.

At 4:14 a.m., she said, security video from a nearby construction site will show that Schlatter led Richey up a gravel driveway toward the stairwell of a Church Street building under renovation; 45 minutes later, Schlatter leaves alone and walks north on Church.

“Tess Richey is never seen alive again,” Richards said.

Schlatter’s semen was found on the outside of Richey’s pants and his saliva on this inside of her bra, Richards said. A pathologist found that bruises on her arms and wrist, and an injury to her head were consistent with defensive wounds, Richards said.

Schlatter was arrested at his home and charged with Richey’s murder on Feb. 4, 2018. While at Toronto police’s 13 Division, two undercover officers were put in the same cells. For about three hours, Schlatter bragged about his sexual conquests and his ability to pick up women, which he often did at gay bars including the Crews and Tangos bar, Richards said.

Schlatter told the officers he likes a challenge and that sometimes you have to push the boundaries with women to see where it goes, Richards said.

Schlatter said he’d gone to the Crews and Tangos bar on the night of Nov. 24, 2017, and that is where he met Richey. He was walking with Richey and her friend, who left on a streetcar, leaving him and Richey alone. He said he wanted privacy with Richey so they could have sex and he saw and he saw an alleyway near a house under renovation, Richards said.

As they were making out and grinding in the alley, he ejaculated in his pants, Richards said he told the officers. He said he was rubbing the wet stain against her pants, which is how his DNA came to be found on them, Richards said.

The officers said Schlatter told them he wanted to have sex with Richey, but she said no because she was on her period, Richards said. He told the officers this made him upset, she said.

The trial continues.