On Monday, April 9, 1979, David Albert Manship went to a Toronto lawyer. The information he gave led police to the body of James MacDonald.
MacDonald, 35, had been shot once with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle. The Globe and Mail reported that he was found in Manship’s apartment on King Street West. The Toronto Star placed the killing in the basement of Manship’s home. MacDonald was lying on his back, his head on a pillow and a blanket over him.
Manship, 36, was charged with second-degree murder. MacDonald had his own address, on Rumsey Road.
The two men had known each other for about 15 years. They met in prison. Crown attorney David Gorrell later told the court about the relationship, and the papers gave different years for the meeting: 1960 in the Globe and Mail, 1964 in the Star. The Globe described both men as in and out of jail for most of their adult lives.
After their release they moved west together. In Calgary, both were jailed for robbing a gun store. Manship was paroled first. He flew out of the province, came back and reported his own parole violation so he would be jailed with MacDonald again. In the Star’s version, Manship broke his parole hoping to be placed in the same cell.
Once both were free, they went to Ottawa and set up a small business selling jewelry.
At Christmas 1973, the two went to New York. The Globe reported that they were married there in “a small chapel at which weddings for homosexuals are performed.” The Star, citing defence counsel, said they “went through a form of marriage” in a New York church.
In 1975, MacDonald left Manship and moved to Toronto. Manship followed him. By then, Gorrell said, it was clear that MacDonald no longer wanted to continue the relationship.
Manship began talking to police about crimes that implicated both of them, the Globe reported, so that the two would be sent to jail together again. He went to the RCMP in Toronto and reported tax offences connected to the jewelry business. Police found too little evidence to lay charges. Manship, Gorrell said, was “sent away so he could gather more evidence against himself.”
By late 1978, Gorrell told the court, MacDonald was trying to “go straight.” The Star reported that Manship retaliated by telling police that MacDonald had committed a crime.
In March 1979, MacDonald complained to police that Manship was harassing him.
The only account of the shooting is the one Manship gave police afterward. According to the Star, he said MacDonald told him he “would never be able to forgive me” for turning him in. The Star said Manship had done so in a fit of jealousy. The two men struggled over a gun, Manship said, and it went off.
“I went to pieces,” Manship told police.
He said MacDonald spoke to him after he was shot: “Now you’ve done it. You better wipe off the prints and get rid of the gun.”
MacDonald “had a grip on my arm,” Manship said. “He just kept holding on.” Then MacDonald gasped and stopped moving.
“I said, ‘Eddy, Eddy.’ It just dawned on me he was gone.”
Manship threw the gun in a garbage can. He later showed police where it was.
On December 17, 1979, Manship told Chief Justice Gregory Evans of the Supreme Court of Ontario that he would not have a lawyer at his trial. Defence counsel Dragi Zekavica was the second lawyer Manship had fired. Evans told him: “If you choose to defend yourself that’s your right — and your problem.” The trial was put over to January 8.
It never went to a jury. On January 30, 1980, with Edward Greenspan as his lawyer, Manship pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Associate Chief Justice William Parker.
Greenspan built his case on the relationship itself. He called the killing a “tragic domestic dispute. Even though it was a homosexual relationship, it was just like a husband and wife,” the Globe reported. The two men “just clicked,” he said. “Neither of them had a friend in their lives before then.” They fought often, and both had attempted suicide more than once.
Greenspan described Manship as a recluse, frightened of people, who had never got along with anyone but MacDonald. Manship was so much in love, Greenspan said, that “he has actually said he wanted a baby by Mr. MacDonald.”
After hearing the history of the “stormy relationship,” in the Star’s words, Parker agreed it was “a proper case” to accept the plea to the lesser charge. At the end of a 90-minute hearing he sentenced Manship to nine years. He told Manship he hoped he would make use of any psychiatric services available in prison.
“You haven’t led a very good or exemplary life,” the judge said.
The papers ran the story under the headlines “Male lovers’ fight ended in death” (Star) and “Man admits manslaughter in gays’ domestic dispute” (Globe). The Star opened by calling MacDonald the man Manship had “married” and then killed “after being jilted.” The Globe called him Manship’s “homosexual lover.” Both papers called him James in their own reporting. Eddy appears only in the words of Manship and his lawyer.
Of MacDonald’s own words, what reached print was what Manship told police he said, and the complaint MacDonald made in March 1979, that Manship was harassing him.
Vital statistics
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | James MacDonald; called Eddy by David Manship and his lawyer |
| Age | 35 |
| Gender | Male |
| Date of death | April 9, 1979 |
| Manner of death | Gunshot (sawed-off .22-calibre rifle) |
| Location | David Manship’s home, King Street West, Toronto (apartment, per the Globe and Mail; basement, per the Toronto Star) |
| Accused | David Albert Manship, 36 |
| Charge | Second-degree murder |
| Defence counsel | Edward Greenspan |
| Crown counsel | David Gorrell |
| Judge | Associate Chief Justice William Parker |
| Verdict | Guilty plea to manslaughter |
| Sentence | 9 years, January 30, 1980 |
Sources
- Toronto Star, December 18, 1979, p. C8
- The Globe and Mail, January 31, 1980, p. 5
- Toronto Star, January 31, 1980, p. A25
Murder Village Map