At about 9:40 a.m. on Tuesday, January 25, 1977, Toronto police answered a call to check an address at 141 Erskine Avenue. A young bank employee had not come to work, and the apartment superintendent had been asked to look in on him.
Police found Brian Latocki dead in his bedroom. He was nude and tied to the bed. The room was spattered with blood. His head had been badly beaten, he had been strangled, and there were knife wounds in his back and chest. No knife was found.
Latocki was 24. He was born in Winnipeg in 1952. His mother, Anne, died in 1963. He earned an honours degree in commerce at the University of Manitoba and was Senior Stick of the Faculty of Commerce in 1972–73.
In Toronto he worked at the head office of the Toronto-Dominion Bank. His family’s notice described him as a financial planner. The papers called him a financial analyst. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers and was working toward a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Toronto.
On Friday night, January 21, he was seen in a Yonge St. bar that the Toronto Star described as a hangout for homosexuals. The Body Politic, Toronto’s gay newspaper, named it as the St. Charles Tavern. Police knew he had hitchhiked home from the St. Charles. They did not know whether anyone was with him.
His family’s obituary and The Body Politic gave the date of his death as Saturday, January 22. He lay in the apartment until Tuesday.
The killer took a lot of personal property. The Body Politic reported that he had apparently made an “extraordinarily thorough” cleanup of fingerprints.
On Saturday, January 29, the Star ran a police appeal on page A12. Investigators wanted to hear from anyone who had seen Latocki that Friday night or early Saturday morning. Police said they believed the killer was a sadist who “specializes in preying on homosexuals.” They suggested he might also have killed Harold Walkley, 51, in his Borden St. house. The Star said Walkley had died a year earlier. He had been killed in February 1975, almost two years before.
The appeal ran as a single column beside a full-page A&P grocery advertisement. Latocki’s photograph was captioned “Tied and stabbed.”
On Monday, January 31, his funeral was held at the Leatherdale-Gardiner Funeral Home in Winnipeg, and he was buried in Brookside Cemetery. He was survived by his father, Peter, his brother, Peter George, and his sister, Maureen Anne. The notice in the Winnipeg Free Press said he had died “suddenly.” It listed his degree, his student office, his professional fellowship and his job at the bank. It did not say how he died.
In February, gay groups in six cities picketed the CBC over its refusal to air public service announcements from gay organizations. About 50 people marched in Toronto, including up Yonge Street. The Body Politic reported that only one Toronto newspaper and one radio station covered the march.
In its March issue, The Body Politic ran Latocki’s case on page 1 under the heading “A plea for help.” It set his death beside Walkley’s and that of James Stewart Kennedy, 49, a civil servant last seen at the St. Charles the night before he was killed in September 1976. All three men were found naked in their bedrooms, and all had been robbed. Each had been to a gay bar the night before he died. Metro Toronto homicide detectives were considering whether one man had killed all three.
The paper described Latocki as “shy and new on the gay scene.”
It reported that the investigation was hampered because gay people were reluctant to come forward. Some mistrusted the police. Others feared being called as witnesses and exposed. Det.-Sgt. Bernard Nadeau, who was investigating the Latocki case, volunteered that part of the difficulty might come from the way police had treated some gay people in the past. Anyone who came forward, he said, would be treated “with all due respect and confidentiality.”
Nadeau also offered advice. A man who picked someone up in a bar should introduce him to a friend, or let others know they were leaving together.
By December, Metro Toronto had recorded more killings in a single year than ever before. On December 12 the Globe and Mail listed the seven 1977 killings that remained unsolved. Latocki’s was first. Police believed, the paper said, that he “may have been the victim of a homosexual assailant.” Insp. George Sellars, head of the homicide squad, told the Globe that unsolved killings received less attention over time and were given lower priority, but that a file was never closed until the killer was found.
Three days later, Neil Wilkinson, 35, a data processor at the Royal Bank, was found beaten and nude in bed in his Charles St. E. apartment. His employer had called police after he missed four days of work.
The Star’s front-page headline in its Metro section on December 16 read “Homosexual killer may be stalking city.” The paper compared Wilkinson’s killing with Latocki’s, describing him as another bank employee. Police said both men “frequented Yonge St. homosexual bars.”
On January 5, 1978, Sellars told the Globe and Mail that Wilkinson’s death resembled those of Latocki, Kennedy and Walkley. He said he had not proved the killings were the work of one person. “They sure are similar,” he said. Police reported that Latocki had been tortured, stabbed and strangled.
On November 28, 1978, Donald Robinson, 24, was found stabbed in his Vaughan Rd. apartment. The Star called it the 14th homosexual-related killing in Metro in three and a half years and listed Latocki among the dead. Police said half of the 14 were unsolved.
Toronto Police list the case as Homicide #2/1977. Their file gives his age as 25 and the date of his murder as January 25, the morning he was found.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Brian Dana Latocki (Brian D. Latocki in his obituary) |
| Born | 1952, Winnipeg |
| Age | 24 (Toronto Police file gives 25) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Financial analyst, Toronto-Dominion Bank (financial planner in his obituary) |
| Date of death | January 22, 1977 (found January 25) |
| Manner of death | Stabbed, strangled and beaten |
| Location | 141 Erskine Avenue, Toronto |
Sources
- Winnipeg Free Press, January 1977, obituary
- Toronto Star, January 29, 1977, p. A12
- The Body Politic, March 1977, p. 1
- The Globe and Mail, December 12, 1977, p. 5
- Toronto Star, December 16, 1977, p. C1
- The Globe and Mail, January 5, 1978, p. F6
- Toronto Star, November 29, 1978, p. A3
- Toronto Police Service, Homicide #2/1977: https://www.tps.ca/organizational-chart/specialized-operations-command/detective-operations/investigative-services/homicide/case/2/1977/
Murder Village Map
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