At about 10 a.m. on Friday, October 27, 1989, Metro police were called to an 11th-floor apartment at 800 Richmond Street West to investigate a “person who was ill,” the Toronto Star reported.
Ambulance attendant Annie Cavally later testified about what she and her partner found. “He was cold,” she said. “He was very pale. He had blue fingers.” They checked for a pulse and for breathing and found neither. There were stab wounds to the chest, abdomen, neck and face, and his throat had been slashed. “There was a very large amount of blood,” Cavally said.
Metro police Const. Carol Banks told the court that two pieces of wood lay near the man’s head. He appeared to be lying on the blade of a steak knife. A folding knife was also found near the body.
The dead man was Michael John Flannigan, 27. Police told the Globe and Mail he was “single, unemployed and lived in the downtown area,” and the paper listed him as “of no fixed address.” The Star called him a “jobless man.” The Toronto Sun called him a “talented cartoonist” and described him as soft-spoken and gentle.
Two days later, police arrested James David Hughes, 28, of Sherbourne Street. He was on parole for robbery. He was charged with first-degree murder and was to appear in old city hall court on Monday, October 30.
Hughes’s trial opened on Wednesday, January 23, 1991, before Mr. Justice David Watt and a jury. The charge by then was second-degree murder. In his opening address, Crown attorney Eugene McDermott suggested robbery as the motive, the Globe and Mail reported. He said the evidence would include a statement in which Hughes told police he was acting in self-defence.
Gary Abrahms, who lived in the apartment, testified that day. The Star reported that he was “dazed” and frightened to find a man lying dead on his living room floor. The paper opened its report with his sexuality: “A homosexual has testified in court.” Abrahms said he found men to party with in the George Street area and brought them to his apartment. That was how he met Hughes and Flannigan. He had met Flannigan the weekend before.
Abrahms testified that he and Hughes were drinking beer and taking LSD when Flannigan phoned and asked to come over. Flannigan arrived about 90 minutes later with marijuana. The three men, all nude, kept partying until Flannigan fell asleep on the living room floor. The Sun reported that Abrahms testified they had oral sex.
Abrahms said he and Hughes went to sleep in the bedroom. The next thing he knew, Hughes was shaking him and was “very agitated.” According to the Sun, Hughes demanded to be let out of the locked apartment. Abrahms opened a special lock. He then walked into the living room, found Flannigan dead in a pool of blood and called 911.
On Monday, January 28, pathologist David McAuliffe testified that a blow from a board had left Flannigan “senseless” before he was stabbed and slashed 74 times. The blow was struck with “massive force,” McAuliffe said, and Flannigan likely collapsed near the couch where his body was found. Fifty-six of the wounds were in the throat area, and the jugular vein was severed. McAuliffe said there would have been gashes on Flannigan’s arms if he had tried to fend off the blows. “This man was incapable of defending himself,” he said.
On Wednesday, January 30, defence lawyer Dragi Zekavica gave his final submission to the jury. He told them police had charged the wrong man and that Hughes had nothing to do with the killing. He pointed to Abrahms. Abrahms had drunk at least 16 beers, taken two “hits” of LSD and smoked three marijuana cigarettes that night, Zekavica said. Hughes had already left the apartment, he said, when a “lovers’ quarrel” broke out between Abrahms and Flannigan, who had met about a week earlier. Abrahms attacked Flannigan in the “frenzy of someone who is high on LSD, alcohol and marijuana,” Zekavica said. Flannigan did not defend himself because he did not fear his attacker. The evidence suggested two knives, one of them Flannigan’s own jack-knife, and only Abrahms knew Flannigan carried it.
The statement the Crown described in its opening had Hughes telling police he acted in self-defence. The defence told the jury he had nothing to do with the killing. It placed the killing inside a “lovers’ quarrel” between two men. The Sun reported that Abrahms described Flannigan as heterosexual.
The jury returned its verdict on Friday, February 1. It found Hughes guilty of second-degree murder after almost five hours, the Star reported. The Sun gave the time as about five and a half hours and said the jury had eight women and four men. McDermott had told the jury that Hughes stabbed Flannigan during a bungled robbery attempt.
Hughes showed no emotion, the Sun reported. Flannigan’s mother, Patricia, wept as the verdict was delivered. “It’s just a real relief,” she said outside the courtroom. The Star reported that she had forced herself to sit through the entire trial, including the forensic evidence that her son was unconscious when he was stabbed and slashed 74 times. Friends of Hughes were stunned, the Sun reported. “He’s not a bad guy, he’s just had a hard life,” said one man.
The conviction carried an automatic life sentence. The jury was asked for recommendations on parole, and 10 jurors suggested Hughes serve 15 to 20 years before he could be considered, the Star reported. At the sentencing hearing, McDermott told the court Hughes had been in correctional schools or prisons since he was 4 and had spent only 122 days out of prison or training schools since he was 16. The Star’s account of the judge’s reasons put the start at age 9. The Sun reported that McDermott called Hughes “an animal” and said he should not be paroled for 25 years.
On Tuesday, March 26, Justice Watt sentenced Hughes to life in prison and raised his parole ineligibility from the minimum 10 years to 21. The maximum was 25. “He is extremely hostile and angry,” Watt said, according to the Star. Hughes had three convictions for robbing elderly people and six for assaulting police. “His physical abuse and domination of others are a way of life,” Watt said. The Globe and Mail reported that Hughes, 29, had spent nearly all his life in penal institutions.
The papers named the night in different terms. The Globe and Mail described a “party at a downtown Toronto apartment where alcohol and drugs were used.” The Sun’s headlines called Flannigan a “nude victim” and Hughes a “nude party murderer.” The Star’s sentencing story called it an “all-night gay sex-and-drugs party.”
On April 27, 1991, a column on the Star’s editorial page answering reader complaints took up whether the Star should have mentioned the party in a sentencing story. Ken Popert, publisher for the Pink Triangle Press, argued that the Star had identified sexual orientation when it was not pertinent to the news story and had broken its own policy on such references. City editor Joe Hall said the Star avoids irrelevant references to sexual orientation. He considered this one essential to the case. “Not to have mentioned the details would have been to mislead readers,” Hall said. The columnist wrote that the Star’s guidelines ask editors to be sure sexual orientation is important to the story or delete the reference. The columnist thought there was some doubt here, and where there was doubt, the reference should be left out.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Michael John Flannigan |
| Age | 27 |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Unemployed; described by the Toronto Sun as a cartoonist |
| Date of death | October 27, 1989 (body found that morning; the Star’s trial coverage places the party in the early hours of October 26) |
| Manner of death | Stabbed 74 times after a blow to the head with a board |
| Location | 800 Richmond St. West, 11th-floor apartment |
| Accused | James David Hughes, 28 or 29, of Sherbourne Street |
| Charge | First-degree murder at arrest; tried on second-degree murder |
| Defence counsel | Dragi Zekavica |
| Crown counsel | Eugene McDermott |
| Judge | Mr. Justice David Watt |
| Verdict | Guilty of second-degree murder, February 1, 1991 |
| Sentence | Life imprisonment with no parole eligibility for 21 years, March 26, 1991 |
Sources
- The Globe and Mail, October 30, 1989, p. A10
- Toronto Star, October 30, 1989, p. A23
- The Globe and Mail, January 24, 1991, p. A10
- Toronto Star, January 24, 1991, p. A11
- Toronto Sun, January 25, 1991, p. 24
- Toronto Star, January 29, 1991, p. A19
- Toronto Star, January 31, 1991, p. A18
- Toronto Star, February 2, 1991, p. A17
- Toronto Sun, February 2, 1991, p. 20
- Toronto Star, March 23, 1991, p. A18
- Toronto Sun, March 22, 1991, p.48
- Toronto Star, March 27, 1991, p. A8
- The Globe and Mail, March 27, 1991, p. A11
- Toronto Star, April 27, 1991, p. D2
Murder Village Map