A six-year-old girl, Andrea Atkinson, is found dead in the boiler room of her Toronto tenement. Forensic investigators quickly determine she has been raped and smothered. There are no witnesses. Quick-thinking cops experiment with the sound in the boiler room by yelling with the door closed. Outside, total silence. Whoever killed Andrea knew no one would hear him.

Caretaker Larry Mallory notices something unusual while on his way to work. Lying in the middle of the highway is a leg from a department store dummy. When he gets closer, Mallory sees two crows feeding on it. The leg is not plastic, it is flesh, and it has been severed from a female human body with surgical precision. The discovery of four more body parts in the area touch off a murder manhunt.