Lisa Black (Leo James Black*) – Spontaneous Confession

At about four in the afternoon on Monday, March 2, 1987, Metro Toronto police answered a call for help at a basement apartment on Northcote Avenue. Constable Leon Johnson found Lisa Black on a bed. Two years later he told a jury he could detect only a faint pulse. He said he came to recognize her. He had arrested her before, and he had seen her working as a prostitute on Queen Street West.

Paramedic Glen Munro testified that he did not expect her to live.

On March 4, the Globe and Mail reported her death in “For the Record,” its column of short items. The headline read “Transvestite found slain, police say.” The item named her Leo James Black, a “transvestite who preferred to use the name Lisa Janet Black,” and called her “Mr. Black.” It said police found her at 4 p.m. and that she died two hours later at Toronto Western Hospital of head injuries. The same column carried items on a groundhog’s forecast and a library closing.

Synthia Kavanagh (formerly known as Richard Chaperon*), whom the Court of Appeal later described as a close friend of Black’s, gave police a statement on March 2. The court called it admittedly false.

On July 30, Staff Sergeants Michael Boyd and Bob Adair of the homicide squad interviewed Kavanagh. She was charged with first-degree murder. The Star reported the charge on July 31. It said Black, 23, “was in the midst of being surgically changed from a man to a woman” and was known to work as a prostitute in Parkdale. Police said Black had been lured into a man’s car and robbed several hours before she was killed. She had told police the man took her purse, which held her money and identification. The Globe’s item on August 1 called the accused “a 25-year-old male” and said her name had been changed from Richard Chaperon.

On August 28, police arrested Brian Thomas Inch, 33, and charged him with first-degree murder. The Star reported the arrest the next day at the end of a story about a woman found slain in Warden Woods Park in Scarborough. It called Black “a trans-sexual prostitute” and counted hers as the ninth murder of the year in Metro Toronto.

By October 12, the Globe reported that a third person, a 38-year-old man, had been charged with two counts of accessory after the fact. The item did not name him. It called Black “a known transsexual prostitute.”

On January 5, 1988, the Star reviewed the homicides of 1987, a record 60 victims in Metro. Black’s entry ran under her photograph. It called her “the transvestite” and used male pronouns for her. On January 22, Kavanagh gave police a further statement. The Court of Appeal said it gave a different motive for the killing.

Inch pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years.

Kavanagh pleaded not guilty. Her trial opened in the Ontario Supreme Court before Mr. Justice Robert Reid and a jury. On March 15, 1989, assistant Crown attorney Chris Punter laid out the Crown’s case. The Star quoted him describing Black as someone who “had male sex organs but lived her life as a woman.” The Star later added that she had never had a sex-change operation. Punter said Kavanagh and Inch drank beer and took tranquilizers to build up the courage to kill Black. He said Kavanagh hid a hammer in the back of her pants, concealed a knife and enticed Black into the bedroom. She attacked Black with both, he said, then ransacked the apartment to make the killing look like a robbery. He said she left behind a Valium bottle with her name on it.

The Star’s headline on Johnson’s and Munro’s testimony, on March 17, read “Trans-sexual prostitute’s beating left brain exposed, murder trial told.” The story reported that Munro first took the victim for a woman and then, on examination, “discovered a penis.”

On April 6, the jury heard a tape of Crystal Anderson’s interview with homicide investigators on August 28, 1987, the day Inch was arrested. Anderson was Inch’s lover. The Star described her as a trans-sexual prostitute. On the tape she said Inch and Kavanagh visited Black to talk about a statement Black had made to police, “and it ends up in murder.” She said Inch told her he put his thumb in Black’s mouth so she could not cry out while Kavanagh hit her repeatedly with a hammer, and that both then used a knife. On the stand, Anderson said she had no memory of making the comments. She told the jury that she and Kavanagh had been implicated in a robbery because of Black’s statement, and that the charges were dropped when the complainant did not appear in court. Anderson was serving four years for burglary and possessing stolen property. Asked by Punter whether she had “ratted,” she answered, “That’s correct.” She agreed she was now in danger from other inmates.

On April 7, Inch declined to be sworn as a witness. Punter had told the jury that Inch would be called and that he did not know what Inch would say. Reid excused the jury until Monday.

On April 14, Boyd told the jury about the July 30 interview. He said Kavanagh was not a suspect when it began. During the questioning, he said, she admitted confronting Black for apparently informing on someone to police. She said she “flipped out” and attacked Black with a hammer and a knife. She agreed to be videotaped, and the jury watched the tape.

On the tape, Kavanagh said the owners of $700,000 worth of cocaine and jewellery had come to her because they thought she was Black’s partner. She said Black had taken the goods. She said she was told to return them or kill Black, and that someone put a .38 in her mouth. She said her family was threatened. She would not name the owners. She said she took drugs and liquor that day and worked up the nerve to go to Black’s apartment. She pretended she wanted to borrow clothes, she said, and hit Black from behind so she would not have to see her face. She said Black was still breathing, so she stabbed her.

On April 21, defence counsel Jack Pinkofsky questioned Adair, the officer in charge of the investigation. The Star reported that Kavanagh had asked, while in custody, to be placed in cells for women. On the tape she had complained of being ridiculed at 14 Division and asked not to be returned there. Adair told the jury that police have male cells and female cells and “they really don’t have anything in the middle.” The Star noted laughter in the courtroom. Pinkofsky said Kavanagh was “in a sense neither male nor female.” He said she had “made up” her confession.

The defence also called a psychiatrist, Dr. Pollock, to speak to Kavanagh’s state of mind, and whether she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, when she gave her statements. The Court of Appeal later summarized the Anderson evidence this way: Crystal testified that Inch told her both he and Kavanagh killed Black. Her mother, Una Anderson, testified that Inch told her he alone did.

On May 3, Kavanagh testified. She said her confession was “all lies.” She said she gave it because “I felt responsible for what happened and wanted to be punished.” She said another person attacked Black in the bedroom while she sat in the kitchen. Black called out her name, she said, and she did not go to her friend’s aid. “I sat there and didn’t do anything when my best friend was killed,” she said. She said the other person later told her to keep in mind “what happens to stool pigeons,” and that she promised not to tell police. She said that person believed Black had implicated a friend in a crime. The Court of Appeal said her defence was that Inch alone killed Black, though she admitted she was in the apartment with him that day. The Star noted that Kavanagh has a lengthy criminal record. The Court of Appeal summarized her explanation of the false confession: she was using drugs excessively, felt remorse for not preventing the death of a close friend and saw jail, where she had spent most of her adult life, as a refuge from a street life that had become intolerable.

The jury retired on Thursday, May 11. On Friday it sent out questions about what degree of participation made a person guilty of murder or manslaughter. The Crown had argued in closing that Kavanagh could be guilty as an aider or abettor, and Reid had told the jury to disregard that theory. After a second question, he instructed them on aiding and abetting, as both counsel had asked. That night the jury found Kavanagh guilty of second-degree murder. It recommended 15 years before parole eligibility.

Reid sentenced Kavanagh on May 15, 1989, to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 15 years. Punter had contended the motive was that Black was suspected of informing on Kavanagh and others to police about an alleged mugging. Reid said the verdict showed Kavanagh “took an active part in the gruesome event.” Pinkofsky told him Kavanagh suffered greatly in institutions for men. Kavanagh said, “I’m innocent.” She said serving the sentence in a men’s prison would be impossible. Reid said “simple humanity” would justify the authorities keeping her in a women’s prison, and he recommended she serve her sentence in one. The Star’s headline read “Prostitute’s murderer gets life sentence.”

On July 10, Reid found Inch in contempt for refusing to testify and added a year to his sentence. Inch, held at Millhaven Penitentiary, had written the judge that testifying would bring a death sentence in prison. “My life is more important to me,” he wrote. He said two Millhaven inmates had been murdered and three wounded in the previous four months. Reid said Inch’s decision was reasonable from his point of view “but one which the administration of justice cannot permit.” The judge noted that the jury had not accepted Kavanagh’s story that Inch alone was responsible.

Kavanagh was sent to Millhaven, a maximum-security prison for men in Kingston, despite Reid’s recommendation. The Star reported in March 1991 that officials had cut her hormone dose to a tenth of what she had taken since she was 13. Correctional Service of Canada Commissioner Ole Ingstrup and Ontario deputy commissioner Andy Graham had refused her requests for a higher dose and for surgery. She told the Star she would be killed if she served 15 years there.

On November 28, 1994, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal against the conviction and reduced her parole ineligibility from 15 years to 10. The court said it was more likely the jury had found her guilty as an aider or abettor than as the principal. It noted the gap between her sentence and Inch’s seven years.

In 1993, Kavanagh had filed three complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, seeking restored hormone therapy, consideration for surgery and placement in a women’s prison. Her hormone therapy was reinstated that October. In November 1999, the Star and the Winnipeg Free Press reported that Correctional Service Canada had settled her complaints under a confidential agreement. Both papers described Black only as “a transsexual prostitute in Toronto.” Under the settlement, Kavanagh had surgery at her own expense in 2000 and was moved to the Joliette Institution for Women in Quebec.

On August 31, 2001, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal sustained her complaints. It found the service’s ban on surgery for inmates and its placement policy discriminatory on grounds of sex and disability. It also agreed with the service that pre-operative transsexual inmates should not be housed in women’s prisons. On January 30, 2003, the Federal Court dismissed both applications for judicial review of the tribunal’s decision.

Vital statistics

Field	Detail
Name	Lisa Janet Black; named in the Globe and Mail and the Star as Leo James Black
Age	23
Gender	Female
Occupation	Prostitute
Date of death	March 2, 1987
Manner of death	Head injuries; beaten with a hammer and stabbed
Location	Basement apartment, Northcote Avenue, Toronto
Accused	Synthia Anne Kavanagh, 25 (the papers gave her former name as Richard Chaperon); Brian Thomas Inch, 33 in 1987 and 35 in 1989; a third person, 38, charged with accessory after the fact
Charge	First-degree murder (Kavanagh and Inch); accessory after the fact (third person)
Defence counsel	Jack Pinkofsky (for Kavanagh)
Crown counsel	Chris Punter
Judge	Mr. Justice Robert Reid, Ontario Supreme Court
Verdict	Kavanagh: second-degree murder, May 12, 1989. Inch: manslaughter, on a guilty plea
Sentence	Kavanagh: life, no parole eligibility for 15 years (May 15, 1989), reduced to 10 years on appeal (November 28, 1994). Inch: 7 years, plus one year for contempt (July 10, 1989)

Sources

• The Globe and Mail, March 4, 1987, p. A13
• Toronto Star, July 31, 1987, p. A7
• The Globe and Mail, August 1, 1987, p. A10
• Toronto Star, August 29, 1987, p. A8
• The Globe and Mail, October 12, 1987, p. A13
• Toronto Star, January 5, 1988, p. A8
• Toronto Star, March 16, 1989, p. A32
• Toronto Star, March 18, 1989, p. A19
• Toronto Star, April 7, 1989, p. A25
• Toronto Star, April 8, 1989, p. A18
• Toronto Star, April 15, 1989, p. A14
• Toronto Star, April 22, 1989, p. A14
• Toronto Star, May 4, 1989, p. A23
• Toronto Star, May 16, 1989, p. A23
• Toronto Star, July 11, 1989, p. A18
• Toronto Star, March 10, 1991, pp. D1–D2
• Winnipeg Free Press, November 22, 1999, p. 14
• Toronto Star, November 22, 1999, p. A6
• R. v. Kavanagh (S.) (1994), 76 O.A.C. 19 (Ont. C.A.), November 28, 1994
• Kavanagh v. Canada (Attorney General), Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, T.D. 11/01, August 31, 2001
• Canada (Attorney General) v. Canadian Human Rights Commission (2003), 228 F.T.R. 231 (Fed. Ct. T.D.), January 30, 2003
• Photograph credit: Ian MacAlpine for the Toronto Star (Synthia Kavanagh), March 10, 1991

 

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Murder Village Map

 

 

*We include Lisa Black’s birth name and Synthia Anne Kavanagh’s birth name for genealogical searches.