On Monday, February 18, 1957, Cecil William Burns did not turn up for work. He was a chef with a catering firm in East York. By about noon his employers were making inquiries. They telephoned the Edwin Hotel on Queen Street East, where Burns had lived for the past two months, and asked that his room be checked.
At about 3 p.m. the room was opened. The Toronto Daily Star and the Canadian Press reported that a chambermaid found the body. The Globe and Mail reported that a cleaning woman could not get into the room, the door was forced, and a hotel employee found him.
Burns was 43. His body lay partly clothed on what the Globe called a “blood-soaked bed.” A broken whisky bottle lay near the bed. The Star reported “indications of drinking in the room,” and police seized several bottles.
Coroner J. D. Lovering said Burns had apparently been beaten and had died about midnight Saturday. Dr. Chester McLean performed the autopsy that afternoon. He estimated Burns had been dead since early Sunday. Burns died of a fractured skull and brain injuries.
The Edwin was a three-storey hotel at the corner of Queen and Carroll streets, built in 1906. It stood in Riverdale, which a City of Toronto heritage report describes as one of the poorest districts in the city from the 1930s on.
Plainclothes officers Charles Webb and John Brown of the Pape Avenue station canvassed hotel employees and patrons. They asked, in the Star’s words, about “Burns’ activities and companions” when he was last seen on Saturday night. By evening they were looking for a 20-year-old named Wayne Ronald Mullen.
The papers said little else about Burns. They gave his work, his age and the hotel. They reported the partly clothed body, the drinking and the police interest in his companions.
That night, about five hours after the body was found, Mullen walked into the Pape Avenue station with his uncle. P.C. Lloyd Warmington later testified that Mullen came in and said: “I guess I’m the man you’re looking for . . . for that Burns thing down at the hotel.” Mullen told him he had learned Burns was dead from the headlines in the evening papers.
Mullen lived on Larchmount Avenue, in the east end. Insp. Andrew McKinney and Det.-Sgt. Charles Martin interviewed him, and he was charged with murder. He gave a statement to Martin and Warmington. In it he admitted striking Burns on the head “once or twice” with a whisky bottle.
The Globe and Mail put the arrest on its front page the next morning. The Star ran it on page 18. A Canadian Press paragraph went out across the country. The Medicine Hat News printed the accused’s name as Mullin, then Mullins.
On Tuesday, February 19, Magistrate S. T. Bigelow remanded Mullen for a week without bail. On February 28, Magistrate W. W. McKeown committed him for trial.
That winter, Toronto was following another case. On January 21, police had arrested Peter Woodcock, 17, for the killing of four-year-old Carole Voyce under the Bloor Viaduct. Woodcock also confessed to killing two boys, Wayne Mallette and Gary Morris, the previous fall.
On April 3, the spring assizes grand jury returned a true bill against Woodcock in what the Star called the “sex-slaying” of Carole Voyce. The same grand jury returned a true bill against Mullen. The Star reported both in one item. Woodcock’s trial began on April 8. On April 11 he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Mullen’s trial opened on Monday, May 13, before Mr. Justice G. A. Gale and an all-male jury. Arthur Klein prosecuted. David Humphrey defended. Late that day, Gale ruled that Mullen’s statement to police could go before the jury.
On Tuesday, near the end of the two-day trial, Mullen took the stand. The Globe and Mail reported that he testified he had struck Burns with a whiskey bottle “in repulsing a sexual attack.”
That was the defence. Burns was a man who had made an advance, and Mullen was a young man fending him off. Only one of the two men could testify to what happened in the room. In 1957, sex between men was a crime in Canada.
The jury was out an hour and 50 minutes. It found Mullen not guilty of murder.
“I agree with your verdict,” Justice Gale told the jurors, the Canadian Press reported.
The Globe ran the acquittal in three paragraphs on page 4. The Canadian Press version appeared in papers including the Kingston Whig-Standard and the Sault Star. It described Burns as “a suburban East York chef.” It was his employer that was in East York. Burns lived on Queen Street East.
We have found no record of how Burns and Mullen met, or how long they had known each other. The surviving reports give nothing from Mullen’s statement beyond the blows. His testimony survives in a single sentence.
We have found no account of the Crown’s case, of the argument over the statement, or of what Justice Gale told the jury about the law before it retired. We do not know whether the jury was offered a verdict of manslaughter.
We have found no obituary for Cecil Burns, and nothing about his family or where he was buried.
The record also disagrees with itself. Burns appears as Cecil William and Cecil Fred, aged 43 and 44. The accused appears as Mullen, Mullin and Mullins. One account has a chambermaid opening the door, another a door forced. The Star’s trial report dates Mullen’s statement to February 18, “the day after” the body was found, though the body was found that day. The coroner and the pathologist placed the death late Saturday or early Sunday. The Globe’s verdict report gives the date of the killing as February 18.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Cecil William Burns; also reported as Cecil Fred Burns |
| Age | 43 (one report: 44) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Chef, East York catering firm |
| Date of death | February 18, 1957 (body found that afternoon; the coroner put death at about midnight Saturday, the pathologist early Sunday) |
| Manner of death | Blunt force (fractured skull and brain injuries) |
| Location | His room at the Edwin Hotel, 650 Queen Street East, Toronto |
| Accused | Wayne Ronald Mullen, 20, of Larchmount Avenue (also reported as Mullin and Mullins) |
| Charge | Murder |
| Defence counsel | David Humphrey |
| Crown counsel | Arthur Klein |
| Judge | Mr. Justice G. A. Gale |
| Verdict | Not guilty, May 14, 1957 |
Sources
- The Globe and Mail, February 19, 1957, p. 1
- Toronto Daily Star, February 19, 1957, p. 18
- Medicine Hat News, February 19, 1957, p. 3 (Canadian Press)
- Toronto Daily Star, February 28, 1957, p. 3
- The Globe and Mail, March 1, 1957, p. 11
- Toronto Daily Star, April 4, 1957, p. 12
- The Globe and Mail, May 11, 1957, p. 55
- Toronto Daily Star, May 14, 1957, p. 4
- The Globe and Mail, May 15, 1957, p. 4
- The Kingston Whig-Standard, May 15, 1957, p. 28 (Canadian Press)
- The Sault Star, May 15, 1957, p. 5 (Canadian Press)
- City of Toronto, Inclusion on the Heritage Register, 650 Queen Street East, Attachment 3A (Edwin Hotel)
- Novae Res Urbis, City of Toronto edition, January 15, 2010, p. 5
- Photographs: Toronto Daily Star (Cecil Burns); SimonP, via Novae Res Urbis (New Edwin Hotel, before the 2010 renovation)
- On Peter Woodcock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Woodcock