Early on the morning of Sunday, August 27, 1978, in an apartment on St. Joseph Street, a man who had fallen asleep woke to find his room-mate unconscious and bleeding from a head injury. The injured man was Colin Nicholson, 41. That was how the Toronto Star told it after he died.
The evening had begun at The Stable, a tavern on Church St. Police said Nicholson and his room-mate, Elbert Homer Durnin, met two men there and invited them back to the apartment for more drinks. A third man joined them later.
Nicholson suffered a fractured skull and brain damage. He died in Toronto General Hospital on the night of Monday, September 4, Labour Day. The Star counted him as Metro’s 36th murder victim of 1978. At the same point in 1977, there had been 39 homicides.
The Star and the Globe and Mail reported him as a robbery victim. Neither said more about who he was.
Early on Sunday, September 17, Gerald Douglas White, 39, a salesman from Charles St. W., was struck on the head during an argument with a young man he had taken back to a friend’s apartment on Rosehill Ave., police said. He was found dead there on Monday. On Wednesday afternoon, September 20, police charged Paris Colin Rogers, 23, of no fixed address, with second-degree murder.
Alex (Sandy) LeBlanc, 29, managed the Studio II discotheque at Carlton and Church. The Body Politic reported that he was last seen at 3:15 a.m. on September 20, after a party for the club’s second anniversary. About 7:30 that evening, three friends kicked in the door of his St. Joseph St. apartment when he didn’t answer their knocks or calls. He had been stabbed more than 100 times, the Star reported. According to the Body Politic, Nicholson had been attacked in the building next door.
On September 21, the Star reported that police called LeBlanc’s death “the third homosexual killing in Toronto this month.” The count included Nicholson. The paper now described him as a man “who police say was also a homosexual,” and the tavern where he and Durnin met the two men as “a known hangout for homosexuals.” Durnin had also been robbed, it said. No arrests had been made.
Later that day, police charged three men with second-degree murder in Nicholson’s death: Kerry Pierre Gallant, 21, of Lawrence Avenue West; Brian Robert Pasher, 18, of Tichester Road; and John Stephen Sharkey, 19, of Broadoaks Drive. The Globe and Mail called them “three North York men.”
The Globe’s account of the night differed from the Star’s. Police said that at about 1:30 a.m. on August 27, Nicholson and Durnin, 56, were entertaining the three suspects in Nicholson’s apartment when both men were assaulted with a heavy iron skillet. The attackers took cash, clothing, silverware and liquor, and fled. Both men regained consciousness and called police. Durnin was treated in hospital and released.
On September 22, the Toronto Sun ran the arrests under the headline “Homosexuals fear mass killer.” Reporter Cal Millar counted 12 “homosexual-related” killings in Metro since February 1975, six of them unsolved. Sources in the gay community, he wrote, believed several were connected and one killer might be responsible.
The Sun listed the unsolved cases. Arthur Harold Walkley was stabbed in his Borden Street home in February 1975. James Douglas Taylor was beaten to death with a baseball bat in February 1976. James Stewart Kennedy was beaten and strangled in September 1976. Brian Latocki was tortured and stabbed in January 1977. Neil Wilkinson was killed in December 1977. Donald Ordly Rochester was shot at the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club in February 1978.
Police told the Sun some of the unsolved killings were similar, but they did not believe one person was responsible for all of them. Investigators had trouble with these cases, the paper said, because some people in the gay community would not co-operate with police. To find a suspect in the Wilkinson killing, two policemen had posed as gay lovers and frequented downtown taverns.
In October, the Body Politic carried an appeal from homicide Sgt. Julian Fantino. Police were “extremely concerned” about LeBlanc’s murder, he said, and would treat any information in the strictest confidence. George Hislop, president of the Community Homophile Association of Toronto, told the paper that an earlier series of killings, in which gay men had been tied up, beaten and killed, remained unsolved. The recent killings were different, he said, because “the police are arresting suspects.”
John Sharkey Jr. was sentenced on Friday, January 12, 1979. Provincial Court Judge Donald Graham gave him seven years for manslaughter.
The court was told Sharkey was one of three men invited to the St. Joseph Street apartment for drinks. According to the Globe and Mail, when Durnin made homosexual advances toward Sharkey, Sharkey picked up a frying pan and hit Durnin on the head. Then he attacked Nicholson, hitting him twice on the head.
The Globe’s report placed the advances with Durnin, who survived. Its headline read “Teen-age killer of homosexual jailed 7 years.” Its first sentence said Sharkey had battered a man to death “after homosexual advances were made.” It did not say who made them. The man who died was Colin Nicholson.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Colin Nicholson |
| Age | 41 |
| Gender | Male |
| Date of death | September 4, 1978 |
| Manner of death | Blunt force |
| Location | 26 St. Joseph Street, Toronto |
| Accused | Kerry Pierre Gallant, 21; Brian Robert (also Briand) Pasher, 18; John Stephen Sharkey (also Sharkey Jr.), 19 |
| Charge | Second-degree murder |
| Judge | Provincial Court Judge Donald Graham (Sharkey) |
| Verdict | Manslaughter (Sharkey) |
| Sentence | Sharkey: 7 years, January 12, 1979 |
Sources
- Toronto Star, September 5, 1978, p. A3
- The Globe and Mail, September 6, 1978, p. 4
- Toronto Star, September 21, 1978, p. A16
- The Globe and Mail, September 22, 1978, p. 4
- Toronto Sun, September 22, 1978, p. 4
- The Body Politic, October 1978
- The Globe and Mail, January 13, 1979, p. 4
Murder Village Map