Shortly after 6:30 on the morning of Tuesday, August 3, 1993, a long-time friend found Jack Bell dead in his house on Collier Street. The Toronto Star reported that Bell was on the second floor. The Globe and Mail reported that he was face down. The friend told police there were signs of a break-in. Firefighters found evidence that someone had tried to set a fire on the ground floor. The Globe reported $250 in damage.
Bell was 58, according to the Globe, and 59, according to the Star. He had chaired the interior design department at the International Academy of Merchandising and Design since 1986. Before he began teaching full-time that year, he was a partner in an office design firm, Sutton and Bell Associates. He was also a former president of the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario. The Globe reported that he had lived in the house for about 25 years. The Star said 35. Neighbours told the Globe they knew little about his personal life and called him a “very private person.”
The two papers described him differently. The Globe’s report ended with the line that he left a wife, from whom he was separated, and a grown son. The Star reported that he had been separated from his wife, Irene, for about 20 years, and that he was well known in the gay community. It added that neighbours said an older man with a beard had lived with Bell until the Friday before his death.
Four days earlier, late on Friday, July 30, the body of Norman Rasky, a 61-year-old retired dentist, had been found in a basement locker of a high-rise on Charles Street East, near Church Street. Police were looking for two men. Det. James McDermott said police did not believe Rasky’s death was connected to Bell’s. He said it had nothing to do with Rasky’s sexual orientation: “It wasn’t gay bashing.” The Star reported that the downtown gay community was being warned to be careful after two men were found beaten to death less than four days apart. The 519 Church Street Community Centre planned to distribute flyers urging caution. Its executive director, Alison Kemper, said people should “let someone else know who they’re going home from a bar with.”
On August 4, Det. John Line said that Bell was last seen alive at 11 p.m. Monday, when he left his home, and that he came back that night with another person, the Star reported the next day. “That’s the person that killed him,” Line said. The Star’s August 5 report described Bell as “a homosexual.”
On August 5, police said an autopsy had found that Bell was strangled, the Globe reported the next morning. They said he left home about midnight on Monday and drove downtown to areas frequented by male prostitutes, and that he may have picked up his killer or killers. They asked anyone who had seen Bell, or his whitish-grey 1987 Chrysler two-door, in the downtown core in the early hours of Tuesday to come forward.
By August 9, police had issued a cross-country warrant for Dougall Alexander MacDonald, 24, whom the Globe quoted police as calling “violent and dangerous.” The Star reported that police described him as a known male prostitute. Detectives had focused their search on the downtown streets where men sold sex: Grosvenor, Bay, Church and Isabella.
Shortly before 12:30 a.m. on Monday, August 9, a passenger who got off a TTC bus in North York called 911 and told police MacDonald was on board. Officers from 33 Division stopped the bus at Eglinton Avenue East and Swift Drive, handcuffed him and arrested him at 12:30. One officer told the Star that MacDonald admitted at once that he was the man police were looking for. Acting Staff Sgt. Doug O’Driscoll said MacDonald gave his name readily but had no identification on him. MacDonald was named on a first-degree murder warrant in what the Star called the beating and strangulation death of Bell. He was taken to 32 Division to be questioned and have his fingerprints checked.
The Globe reported in 1994 that MacDonald had been charged with second-degree murder. On September 29, 1994, a 25-year-old former Cape Breton Islander, as the Globe described him, was sentenced to 13 years in penitentiary after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Mr. Justice David Watt of the Ontario Court’s General Division accepted the plea and a joint submission on sentencing. The Globe reported that Watt cited evidence that Bell had taken MacDonald to his home, given him alcohol and Valium, and then “posed questions” that resulted in the fatal attack, which included a severe beating. The court heard that MacDonald started a small fire in a closet before leaving the house with Bell’s video-cassette recorder, which had not been recovered. Defence lawyer William Hechter told the court his client was “neither homophobic nor anti-homosexual.”
Watt ordered MacDonald to serve half his sentence before he could apply for parole.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Jack Willard Bell (the Star printed “Jack W. Bell”) |
| Age | 58 (Globe and Mail) or 59 (Toronto Star) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Interior designer; chairman of the interior design department, International Academy of Merchandising and Design |
| Date of death | Night of August 2–3, 1993; body found August 3 |
| Manner of death | Strangled and beaten |
| Location | 125 Collier St., Toronto |
| Accused | Dougall Alexander MacDonald, 24 (1993 reports); 25 (Globe and Mail, 1994) |
| Charge | Second-degree murder (named on a first-degree murder warrant in August 1993) |
| Defence counsel | William Hechter |
| Judge | Mr. Justice David Watt, Ontario Court (General Division) |
| Verdict | Pleaded guilty to manslaughter |
| Sentence | 13 years, September 29, 1994; half to be served before parole eligibility |
Sources
- The Globe and Mail, August 4, 1993, p. A10
- Toronto Star, August 4, 1993, p. A6 (two items)
- Toronto Star, August 5, 1993, p. A6
- The Globe and Mail, August 6, 1993, p. A12
- The Globe and Mail, August 9, 1993, p. A8
- Toronto Star, August 9, 1993, p. A6
- The Globe and Mail, September 30, 1994, p. A5
- Housecreep, entry for 125 Collier Street, Toronto (middle name)
- Photograph: Mark Rozitis, The Globe and Mail (removal of Bell’s body, August 3, 1993)
Murder Village Map