On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 4, 2009, a family friend went to check on Gerald Robert Brown at his home on Bedford Road in Toronto’s Annex. She had not heard from him in days, the National Post reported. His entrance, at the back of the house, was unlocked. She found his body and called police.
Det. Paul Worden of Toronto police homicide said there was no sign of forced entry or a robbery. The Globe and Mail described the basement apartment as untidy and newspaper-strewn. Worden said Brown was killed in the living room and the body could have been there since November 1.
Brown was 67, a retired dentist. He rented the basement of 114 Bedford Road, a semi-detached Victorian house north of Bloor Street and west of Avenue Road that the Globe said was divided into three units. The Globe reported that he had lived there 12 years. The Post called him a “frail” retired dentist. He wore a brace on his leg and sometimes used a cane.
Neighbours called him “the doctor.” The Globe described a “gentle, avuncular figure,” a newspaper reader and gardener who walked his two Italian greyhounds around the neighbourhood. Worden said everybody thought Brown was “a very passive individual” who “never had an enemy.”
Brown shared the apartment with a younger man named James. Worden said the two had met years earlier, and that James rented the bedroom while Brown slept in the living room. The Sun reported Worden as saying the two knew each other from the community before James began subletting the bedroom about three years earlier. The Post reported that James had lived with Brown “on-and-off” for years. About five years before, police had been called to the apartment over a dispute between the two. The Sun reported that Brown made the call and that, Worden said, no one alleged physical abuse.
The papers had no settled word for the relationship. The Globe called James Brown’s “live-in companion, a garrulous man half his age,” and wrote that it was unclear whether the two were in a relationship. The Post called him a roommate. The Sun called him Brown’s “on-again, off-again roommate.” Nathan, a neighbour next door, told the Post the two men were “together always, hanging out, having meals together.”
On Thursday, November 5, neighbours woke to a police forensic truck on the street and yellow tape across the scene, the Globe reported. The Globe wrote that homicides were rare on Bedford Road and pointed to the “notorious” 1994 Just Desserts murder, a restaurant killing a couple of blocks north on Davenport Road. An autopsy was under way. The Globe reported that an officer familiar with the investigation said Brown’s body showed signs of having been “either beaten or stabbed.”
Police said they wanted to speak to James. The Globe reported that homicide investigators stopped short of calling him a suspect and preferred the word “witness.” Worden said police knew where James was and would reach him, and that there was “no cause for concern” for the public. That night, the Post reported, detectives located the roommate and were questioning him. Worden called him an “important witness.”
The Toronto Sun ran its story under the headline “Fight may have led to death.” Its first paragraph asked whether arguments that “seeped through” Brown’s apartment “led to murder.” Neighbours described James to reporters. Jesse, a 29-year-old architectural graduate student who had moved into the top-floor apartment in August with his girlfriend, told the Globe that James “seemed to be an erratic, scary person.” He said James’s empty bottles of Wild Turkey bourbon crammed the shared recycling bin. “There was a lot of drinking and a lot of drug abuse going on down there,” Jesse said. He told the Sun he heard an argument between the two men after he moved in. It did not sound as if it was getting physical, he said. Brown wanted James to stop using intravenous drugs. A long-time neighbour told the Sun that loud fights could be heard from the apartment, with James yelling and screaming. Neighbours and police said Brown was not believed to be involved in hard drinking or drug use, the Sun reported. Nathan told the Post that Brown was “more intellectual” and watched the news all the time, while his roommate liked drinking and playing video games.
Jesse told the Sun he saw a light on in the basement at about 3 or 4 a.m. on Tuesday or Wednesday. He was “not at all surprised” to see police tape around the building. “We sort of always knew something was going to happen down there,” he said.
The Globe reported on Saturday, November 7, that a police source said Brown was stabbed to death. His was Toronto’s 48th homicide of 2009.
On Sunday, November 8, police announced an arrest. A post-mortem, they said in a news release, “determined the cause of death to be a sharp force wound to the neck.” The release said James Chalaturnyk, 33, of Toronto, had been arrested and charged with second-degree murder on Friday, November 6. A news-service report in the Alberni Valley Times said the accused “appears to be the roommate of the deceased.” Chalaturnyk was scheduled to appear in court at College Park on Monday morning, November 9.
On November 30, the Toronto Sun reported that homicide detectives were looking for witnesses to a fight between Chalaturnyk and a man driving a silver SUV. Det.-Sgt. Dan Nielsen said police believed Chalaturnyk was walking two dogs near Bloor Street West and Avenue Road when the altercation happened, between 5 and 5:30 p.m. on November 1.
The reports differ in places. The Globe’s Saturday report said no charges had been laid; the police release gave Friday as the date of the arrest and charge. The Globe said Brown had lived in the basement for 12 years. The Sun said he had rented the apartment for the last decade.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Gerald Robert Brown; known to neighbours as “the doctor” |
| Age | 67 |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Retired dentist |
| Date of death | Body found Wednesday, November 4, 2009; police said it could have been there since November 1 |
| Manner of death | Sharp force wound to the neck (police news release); stabbing (Globe and Mail police source) |
| Location | 114 Bedford Road, Annex, Toronto (basement apartment; entrance at the back of the house) |
| Accused | James Chalaturnyk, 33, of Toronto |
| Charge | Second-degree murder (arrested and charged November 6, 2009. Outcome not available online.) |
Sources
- National Post, November 6, 2009, p. 15
- The Toronto Sun, November 6, 2009, p. 8
- The Globe and Mail, November 6, 2009, p. 18
- The Globe and Mail, November 7, 2009, p. 19
- National Post, November 9, 2009, p. 9
- Alberni Valley Times (Port Alberni, B.C.), November 9, 2009, p. 5
- The Toronto Sun, November 30, 2009, p. 8
- Photographs: Toronto Police Service (Brown, National Post); Deborah Baik, The Globe and Mail (Bedford Road scene)
Murder Village Map