At about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 10, 2015, a resident of 330 Jarvis Street received a visit from a friend who had disturbing news. There was a pool of blood in the elevator. The resident told CBC News he called building security.
Toronto police took a call at 6:34 p.m., the Toronto Star reported. Officers found Brent Gartner, 51, with multiple serious stab and slash wounds, according to a police news release. They gave him first aid at the scene. Paramedics took him to St. Michael’s Hospital. CBC News reported that he had no vital signs when they reached him. He was pronounced dead in hospital.
Shortly afterward, police were called to a second scene a short distance away. A man had been found with stab wounds. CBC News reported that paramedics were sent to Church and Carlton streets about ten minutes after the Jarvis Street call. A spokeswoman for Toronto Paramedics told the station the man, in his 60s, had been attacked with a samurai sword. CBC noted that it was not known whether the two attacks were connected. The man was taken to St. Michael’s too. Within hours, police identified him as the suspect. He was in custody.
Gartner was the first homicide victim of 2015 in Toronto.
On Sunday, police issued a news release that said nothing about a sword. Xtra reported that Det.-Sgt. Gary Giroux denied a sword was involved. He described a sharp instrument, but not a sword of any kind. Giroux told Xtra that it was his sense, at that stage, that the suspect and Gartner might have known each other and had been in an altercation. Police were waiting until the suspect was well enough to be interviewed. They would not release his name.
The Star reported on Tuesday that police said a samurai sword was involved in the crime, though not how. Gartner’s brother told the Star that Gartner owned one.
Xtra described the killing as just outside the Church-Wellesley Village, and ran the story under a headline placing it near Toronto’s gay village. The building at 330 Jarvis is owned by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. A spokesperson told Xtra that its community safety unit officers were on site and would stay as long as needed. A resident who had lived there 18 years told Xtra he did not know Gartner well but thought of him as a good neighbour. He had always considered the building a safe place to live.
On Tuesday morning the Star published a profile based on an interview with Gartner’s brother, Daryl Gartner, who spoke by phone from Regina. Brent Gartner was the youngest of eight children, born in Davidson, Saskatchewan, and raised mostly in Regina. Daryl was nine years older. After high school Brent worked in an extended-care home and saved his money. He then spent four years in Australia and two in New Zealand, and travelled through Europe and Asia. He studied in Vancouver to become a travel agent, then moved his studies to Toronto, where he settled in the 1990s.
Daryl Gartner said his brother had built up a knowledge of artifacts and artwork from his travels. In recent years Gartner had taken extended medical leave from his work as a travel agent, and his trips had become less frequent. Daryl Gartner would not say what the condition was. Gartner still flew home to Regina at least once a year, sometimes twice, to see his siblings and his parents, who are in their eighties. “His biggest dream was family,” Daryl Gartner told the Star. He called the attack a cowardly act. The Star’s subhead described Gartner as a jet-setter who always stayed in touch.
The suspect had not been charged by that morning. The Star reported that he had undergone emergency surgery on the night of the killing. A police source told the paper he would be charged with second-degree murder once he was well enough to understand the charge.
Later on Tuesday, January 13, Toronto police announced that Roderick McIntosh, 67, of Toronto, had been charged with second-degree murder in Gartner’s death.
The Ryersonian reported the next day that police had set up boundaries at Jarvis and Carlton streets and at Church and Carlton streets on Saturday night. Residents said they had seen a forensics team in the area for several days, most recently on Tuesday night. McIntosh was still in hospital.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Brent Gartner |
| Born | Davidson, Saskatchewan |
| Age | 51 |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Travel agent (on extended medical leave) |
| Date of death | January 10, 2015 |
| Manner of death | Stabbing; multiple stab and slash wounds |
| Location | 330 Jarvis Street, near Carlton Street, Toronto |
| Accused | Roderick McIntosh, 67 (66 in one Star report) |
| Charge | Second-degree murder |
Sources
- CBC News (online), January 10, 2015
- CBC News (online), January 11, 2015
- Xtra (online), January 12, 2015, updated January 13, 2015
- Toronto Star, January 12, 2015, p. GT7
- Toronto Star, January 13, 2015, p. GT2
- Toronto Star (online), January 13, 2015
- CBC News (online), January 13, 2015
- Ryersonian (online), January 14, 2015
- Toronto Star, January 14, 2015, p. GT4
Murder Village Map
The court case was an absolutely joke and proved to our whole family (Gartner) that the system is so so broken. We never got justice for this senseless act over 200$. His life was priceless and taken too soon.