Early on Monday, September 18, 1978, Gerald Douglas White was found in a pool of blood in a 15th-floor apartment on Rosehill Avenue in Toronto. The apartment belonged to a friend who was away on holiday. White had been looking after it, the Toronto Sun reported, visiting every day to check the security and feed his friend’s pet birds.
White was 39. He had come to Toronto from Fredericton, New Brunswick. The Sun said he worked as a sales manager for a Toronto firm; the Toronto Star called him a salesman. He lived on Charles Street West, in a 32nd-floor apartment he shared with another man.
His roommate last saw him at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, September 17. When the roommate woke later that morning, White was not home. By late afternoon he still had not come back, and the roommate called a group of friends to start looking for him.
Police later said White had taken a young man back to his friend’s apartment early that Sunday, and that he was struck on the head during an argument. The Globe and Mail reported that he died of a crushing blow to the head. The Star said his skull was fractured.
The Sun’s first report ran on Tuesday, September 19, under the headline “Police suspect homosexual link in beating death.” Police feared White was the latest in a series of “homosexual-related killings” in Metro, seven in about two years, the Sun reported. Homicide investigators asked to hear from anyone who had seen White at any time on Sunday. His was the 40th homicide in Metro that year.
That Tuesday, police found White’s car on Havelock Street.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 20, police arrested Paris Colin Rogers, 23, of no fixed address, and charged him with second-degree murder.
That evening at about 7:30, three friends of Alex (Sandy) Leblanc kicked in the door of his apartment on St. Joseph Street after he failed to answer their knocks and phone calls. Leblanc, 29, managed the Studio II discotheque at Carlton and Church streets. He had been stabbed more than 100 times, the Star reported.
The Star’s story the next day led with Leblanc and called his death “the third homosexual killing in Toronto this month.” White’s, it said, was the second since the weekend.
The first that month was Colin Nicholson, 41, whom police also described as homosexual, the Star reported. He was found beaten and robbed in his St. Nicholas Street apartment on August 27 and died of head injuries on September 4. Police said Nicholson and his roommate, Elbert Homer Durnan, had met two men in a St. Nicholas Street tavern that the Star called a known hangout for homosexuals, and taken them back to their apartment. Durnan was robbed as well. No arrests had been made.
White’s arrest ran in the middle of the Leblanc story. In the Globe and Mail that morning, the charge against Rogers took two short paragraphs on page 3.
On Monday, February 19, 1979, Rogers pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Chief Justice Gregory Evans. He was sentenced the same day. With the plea, there was no trial.
Rogers’ own account appeared in the papers only then. According to the Sun, he told police White picked him up on the street and took him to a friend’s apartment for a drink. When White made sexual advances, Rogers said, he struck him on the head and knocked him unconscious to the floor. White was found the next day, dead of a fractured skull.
Medical evidence showed White’s skull was half the usual thickness of a man’s skull, and easily fractured, the Sun reported.
In September, police had spoken of an argument. In February, the papers carried Rogers’ story of an advance. The Star reduced the case to one line: Rogers had killed White after White “made a pass” at him. The quotation marks were the Star’s, and it did not say whose words they were.
The Crown attorney, Paul Chumak, told the court Rogers had a history of violence and was unable to control himself. Staff Sgt. Ed Hill of the Metro homicide squad told the court that in 1975 Rogers had been sentenced to two and a half years for manslaughter in the beating death of another man.
Evans sentenced Rogers to six years in penitentiary. He told him he was probably “erring on the side of leniency,” the Sun reported, but that he was always optimistic a young man could change his life.
The Sun’s headline read “Skull crusher gets ‘lenient’ 6 years.” The Star ran the sentence in its “In the courts” column, between a conditional discharge for an attempted bribe and an 18-month term for an apartment superintendent. There it described Rogers as a Quebec Avenue man.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Gerald Douglas White |
| Age | 39 |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Salesman; sales manager for a Toronto firm (Toronto Sun) |
| Date of death | September 17, 1978 (found September 18) |
| Manner of death | Blow to the head; fractured skull |
| Location | 15th-floor apartment, Rosehill Avenue, Toronto |
| Accused | Paris Colin Rogers, 23, of no fixed address |
| Charge | Second-degree murder |
| Crown counsel | Paul Chumak |
| Judge | Chief Justice Gregory Evans |
| Verdict | Pleaded guilty to manslaughter |
| Sentence | 6 years in penitentiary, February 19, 1979 |
Sources
- Toronto Sun, September 19, 1978, p. 8
- The Globe and Mail, September 21, 1978, p. 3
- Toronto Star, September 21, 1978, p. A16
- Toronto Star, February 20, 1979, p. A16
- Toronto Sun, February 20, 1979, p. 21
Murder Village Map
Vital Statistics
Name: Gerald Douglas White
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Date of Death: September 18, 1979
Manner of Death: Blunt Force Trauma
Location: Rosehill Avenue
Suspect Name: Paris Colin Rogers
Conviction & Sentence: Manslaughter, 6 years