On Monday, September 19, 1994, at about 5 p.m., an ambulance crew climbed to a 14th-floor apartment on Sherbourne St. A friend had gone there looking for Harry Ronald Isaac, 50, who had not turned up for work at a hotel on Lombard St. The friend found him dead.
The Toronto Star reported the next day that Isaac had been found bound and gagged. Police would not confirm that at first. Det. Peter Gibson of Metro homicide said friends had reported Isaac missing when he failed to show up for work.
An autopsy showed Isaac had been stabbed repeatedly. The Toronto Sun reported that he was stabbed more than a half-dozen times and was bound and gagged in his bed. The Star said he was bound and gagged before the stabbing. Isaac was Metro’s 47th homicide of 1994.
Isaac was a clerk at the Journey’s End hotel, the papers said in 1994. The Sun said he was a Winnipeg native who had moved to Toronto more than 15 years earlier. Friends told the Star he spent his spare time helping AIDS patients. He was a volunteer at Casey House, where he comforted people who were dying.
The Star’s first report said he was last seen at the Selby Hotel on Sherbourne St. Detectives later said he was last seen alive on the night of Friday, September 16. They said he visited both gay and non-gay bars, and that he was known to frequent the Selby Hotel and the Canada Tavern, at Sherbourne and Queen Sts. Police believed he took his killer home with him on the weekend he died.
Det. Terry Wark said there were no visible signs that robbery was a motive, though detectives were still looking at it. Gibson told the Sun he believed the motive was robbery and sex.
The Sun’s first full story ran on Thursday, September 22, under a headline asking whether a “cold-blooded” killer was at large. It described Isaac’s “bachelor flat” and said his killing had shocked the gay community, where he was a volunteer. Its opening line called him a “gay hotel clerk.” The Sun reported that because Isaac “picked up a lot of street kids” for sex, homicide detectives were questioning male prostitutes. It said Gibson was also looking at the stabbing death of the gay stage manager “Bev” Wilson, 60, who was also known to pick up hustlers for sex (Wilson’s case is here).
Gibson had traced Isaac’s family: two brothers and a sister in British Columbia. He told the Sun their only contact with Isaac had been by phone. “His close friends, his family, appear to be centred in the local gay community,” Gibson said.
By Friday, September 23, both papers named a suspect. Leonard Alexander Welch, 32, of no fixed address, was the subject of a Canada-wide first-degree murder warrant. The Sun called him a “transient male prostitute,” and the next day a “homosexual prostitute” and a transient from Winnipeg. Gibson told the Sun that three days of forensic and criminal investigation had pointed to one man. He said Welch had “a violent, violent history,” with a record for assault and robbery going back to the early 1980s, and had been out of prison only a short while after a sentence for assault. The Sun said Welch was known to frequent gay bars and the Sherbourne Ave. area where male hustlers worked.
Police warned the gay community. “Someone else might be attacked in a similar fashion,” Gibson said. On Saturday, the Sun ran the warning under the headline “Murder suspect hiding.” Wark said Welch “is still in the downtown area and may be in the gay bars.” He said Welch was on parole after serving a sentence for assault. “We know he doesn’t have a job,” Wark said. “He may approach people for money or for a place to stay.”
On Thursday, September 29, the Star reported that a 21-year-old man had come forward. He told police he saw Welch on Sunday night in the elevator of a Mutual St. building near Queen and Jarvis Sts. He said that two weeks earlier Welch had tried to pin him down and have sex with him, and that he got away. Wark said police were checking the story but had not confirmed any sighting of Welch since the killing. “We just don’t know where he is at this point,” Wark said.
On Friday, September 30, Montreal police arrested Welch. Metro homicide detectives brought him back to Toronto on Sunday, October 2. The Star reported he was to appear in College Park court on Monday, October 3, charged with first-degree murder.
The case went to a jury trial in early 1996. On Friday, February 23, after four days of evidence, the trial was stopped and moved to a plea and sentencing before Justice David Humphrey. Many of the jurors came to watch. Welch, 33, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 15 years. He admitted he killed Isaac at his 14th-floor Sherbourne St. apartment on September 16, 1994.
Defence lawyer Jim Flemming told reporters Welch had not told him what he had done until the day before, and had not told him the facts until that morning. “This man had trouble dealing with this emotionally and it was from the guilt he felt,” Flemming said.
Prosecutor Dom Basile told the court Isaac was found bound at the wrists and ankles, with a towel stuffed in his mouth and many stab wounds. The jury had heard that Isaac, a front desk clerk at the Quality Inn Hotel on Lombard St., never showed up for work the day before his body was discovered on September 19. The Sun’s 1996 report gave the hotel a different name than its 1994 reports did. Prosecutor Patrick Metzler called Isaac a “well-loved, well-respected friend.” “This was a vicious, unnecessary ending for a good man’s life,” Metzler said.
Flemming gave the court Welch’s account of the night. The lawyer said Welch and Isaac left Boots bar in a cab, stopped at a beer store, then went on to Isaac’s. They played cards and had sex. Flemming said Welch charged $60 for it and that Isaac gave him his bank card. Welch claimed that when he tried the card three times there was no money in the account. Enraged, he went to a bar, drank, and at some point took cocaine. Feeling he had been “taken advantage of,” he returned to Isaac’s and killed him.
Flemming described Welch as a street prostitute who “feels the only skill, the only thing he could do, was prostitute” himself. He said Welch had tried to kill himself 16 times.
Justice Humphrey said Welch “had a callous disregard for the life of another human being.”
The Saturday Sun’s story ran under the headline “Gay hooker gets life for sex slaying.” Its first paragraph said Welch had confessed to murdering a “good man” in a rage over unpaid sex. The photo of Welch was captioned “$60 for trick,” and the photo of Isaac “Murdered.”
Basile also told the court that Welch shaved his head and fled to Montreal’s gay community, and that within three hours of a warrant being issued, a tip led a joint Toronto-Montreal police unit to him.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Harry Ronald Isaac (the Toronto Sun called him Ronald Isaac) |
| Age | 50 |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Front desk clerk at a hotel on Lombard St. (Journey’s End in 1994 reports; Quality Inn Hotel in the 1996 Sun); AIDS care volunteer, Casey House |
| Date of death | September 16, 1994, as stated at sentencing (body found September 19) |
| Manner of death | Stabbed; found bound and gagged |
| Location | 266 Sherbourne St., 14th-floor apartment |
| Accused | Leonard Alexander Welch, 32 at the time (33 at sentencing), of no fixed address |
| Charge | First-degree murder |
| Defence counsel | Jim Flemming |
| Crown counsel | Dom Basile; Patrick Metzler |
| Judge | Mr. Justice David Humphrey |
| Verdict | Guilty plea, second-degree murder, after a four-day jury trial was stopped |
| Sentence | Life, no parole eligibility for 15 years, February 23, 1996 |
Sources
- Toronto Star, September 20, 1994, p. A8
- Toronto Sun, September 22, 1994
- Toronto Sun, September 23, 1994
- Toronto Star, September 23, 1994, p. A15
- The Saturday Sun, September 24, 1994
- Toronto Star, September 29, 1994, p. A19
- Toronto Star, October 3, 1994, p. A20
- The Saturday Sun, February 24, 1996, p. 24
Murder Village Map