On Monday, January 29, 1996, Les Aykler went to check on the superintendent of his family’s apartment building at College Street and Roxton Road, just east of Ossington Avenue. Tenants had last seen Clayton Russell on Saturday. Aykler had spoken to him that day too. Now neither the residents nor the realty firm could reach him.
Aykler arrived at noon. The door to the superintendent’s main-floor bachelor apartment was open. Inside, one man lay partially clothed in the bed. Another was sprawled on a couch. Paramedics found there was nothing they could do.
“It was grisly,” Aykler told the Toronto Star. “He was a good man — I can’t believe it.”
The dead men were Clayton Joseph Russell, 60, the building’s superintendent, and John Harold Clarke, 40, who lived with him in apartment 106 at 807 College St.
The first day’s Star identified Clarke only as Russell’s roommate, “John,” aged between 35 and 40. Its headline called him Russell’s “pal.” The story reported that one man appeared to have been beaten, with severe bleeding from a head wound. Another source said both may have been stabbed.
Autopsies the next day settled it. Both men had died of stab wounds to the chest.
“There’s no question it’s a horrific crime. It seems to lack any kind of motive,” homicide Det. Rolf Prisor told the Star.
Russell was a retired serviceman from New Brunswick. Aykler put his age at about 55. A friend, Bill Fawcett, told the Star that Russell had a reputation for keeping large sums of money at home. His niece, Bonnie Banks, said he was separated from his wife but that “they were close.” The two still celebrated their wedding anniversary together. “He was such an easy-going guy and so well-liked,” she said.
The Star described Clarke as unemployed and as Russell’s roommate. The Globe and Mail called him a friend who had been staying with Russell.
Police said the two men had been drinking together on Saturday night and into Sunday morning. They were believed to have been downtown at about 2 a.m. Sunday. Russell wore a black jacket, probably suede or leather, and blue jeans. Clarke wore a dark coat and jeans.
Russell and Clarke were not the only people killed in Toronto that Monday. In Scarborough, 16-year-old Christie Christie was shot in the kitchen of the apartment she shared with her mother and baby brother. Police said two youths had forced their way in demanding drugs and money. Two 17-year-olds were charged as young offenders. The next night, Ali Henry, 21, was stabbed to death behind an Etobicoke school after a fight broke out at a pickup basketball game.
On February 1, the Globe and Mail counted eight homicides in Metro Toronto that January. That was double the toll for January 1995, and second only to January 1991. Three days before Russell and Clarke were found, Davood Shahpourboland, 20, had been stabbed to death in a stairwell of the Whitehouse Hotel on Church Street.
“If it’s setting a trend for 1996, then we’re in for a very rough year,” Staff Insp. Ken Cenzura, head of the homicide unit, told the Globe.
On February 4, the Star ran a three-sentence item on page D16. Police were trying to trace the two men’s last movements, and Det. Prisor wanted to hear from any cab driver who might have driven them to an after-hours gay club at Isabella and Yonge streets. The earlier stories had called the two men roommates.
No one was charged that year.
On January 2, 1997, the Star reviewed the 80 homicides in the Greater Toronto Area in 1996. It listed the College Street stabbings as unsolved. Twenty-seven of the year’s 80 killings were.
On September 5, 2001, Russell’s nephew, Mikeal James Russell, had a long, heavy drinking session at a club with Daniel MacKenzie, a friend and former business partner. MacKenzie later testified at the preliminary hearing that afterward, Mikeal Russell told him he had killed the two men five and a half years earlier. He gave no details.
Toronto police arrested Mikeal Russell, 40, of Newmarket, on Wednesday, January 29, 2003. The Star named him as Michael. The National Post reported that police had identified a suspect at the time of the killings but lacked the evidence to lay a charge.
He was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one of second-degree murder. The Newmarket Era-Banner reported the second-degree count was for his uncle and the first-degree count for Clarke.
He appeared at Old City Hall court the next day. The Globe and Mail reported the appearance as coming “seven years to the day after two gay men were stabbed to death.” The Globe called him a cousin of one of the victims.
By the spring of 2004, Mikeal Russell had been ordered to stand trial on two counts of second-degree murder. On April 14, 2004, he applied for bail before Justice Dambrot of the Superior Court. The Crown alleged he had stabbed the two men on January 29, 1996. Its principal evidence was MacKenzie’s account of what he had said in 2001.
Mikeal Russell was 41. He was married, had a five-year-old son and ran his own renovation company. His criminal record included a conviction for sexual assault and related offences, for which he had been sentenced to four years. Apart from two alcohol-related driving offences, he had been out of trouble for eight years.
The Crown opposed his release. Justice Dambrot called the case triable but “certainly not a strong one for the Crown.” He released Mikeal Russell on a $50,000 recognizance with three sureties, a curfew and an order not to contact MacKenzie.
On January 7, 2005, Mikeal Russell was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter in the deaths of his uncle and John Clarke. Court heard that Clayton Russell had sexually abused his nephew from the ages of 10 to 13. Judge Frank Caputo said the abuse was a mitigating factor.
The Star’s report of the sentence said the two men were found on January 24, 1996, in Clarke’s apartment. In 2003 the Star had given the date as January 30. The 1996 reports say January 29, in Russell’s apartment.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Clayton Joseph Russell |
| Age | 60 (one early report, about 55) |
| Occupation | Building superintendent; retired serviceman |
| Name | John Harold Clarke |
| Age | 40 (first reported as 35 to 40) |
| Occupation | Unemployed |
| Gender | Male (both) |
| Date of death | January 28 or 29, 1996 (found January 29) |
| Manner of death | Stab wounds to the chest |
| Location | 807 College St., apartment 106, at Roxton Road |
| Accused | Mikeal James Russell (also reported as Michael), nephew of Clayton Russell, 40 at arrest |
| Charge | First-degree murder and second-degree murder, one count each; committed for trial on two counts of second-degree murder |
| Defence counsel | J. Struthers (bail hearing, 2004) |
| Crown counsel | P. Enright (bail hearing, 2004) |
| Judge | Justice Dambrot (bail, 2004); Frank Caputo (sentencing, 2005) |
| Verdict | Manslaughter |
| Sentence | 10 years, January 7, 2005 |
Sources
- Toronto Star, January 30, 1996, p. A4
- Toronto Star, January 31, 1996, p. A8
- The Globe and Mail, February 1, 1996, p. A12
- Toronto Star, February 4, 1996, p. D16
- Toronto Star, January 2, 1997, p. A6
- The Globe and Mail, January 31, 2003, p. A6
- Toronto Star, January 31, 2003, p. B4
- National Post, January 31, 2003, p. A9
- Era-Banner (Newmarket), February 10, 2003, p. A05
- R. v. Russell (M.), [2004] O.T.C. Uned. 368 (Ont. S.C.J.), Dambrot J., April 14, 2004
- Toronto Star, January 8, 2005, p. B2
Murder Village Map