Stories of Murder in Toronto's Gay Village
Sawyer Cowley 
The summer of ’67 was anything but love for seventeen-year-old Robert Wayne Mortimore of Glouster Street in the Gay Village. That was year he was murdered and his body dumped in a field northeast of Markham. He was found July 17, 1967. Mortimore’s brother had reported him missing a week earlier. His naked body was … Read more
On June 25, 1967, thirty-year-old Gabriel Brunet, a bartender, was murdered in his 100 Maitland Street home after being stabbed 50 times. Although his screams resonated throughout the building, no one went to his aid or called police. Brunet’s nude body was found by his roommate, Rene Cote, 34, about 45 minutes after the attack, … Read more
The body of a young man was found by a passing motorist – who had spotted a partridge and got out of his car to hunt it – on December 17, 1967, in a wooded area near Balsam Lake Provincial Park, near Coboconk. The victim was wearing one white tennis show. He remained unidentified for … Read more
Bruno Max Seidel led a quiet, mysterious life and died a mysterious, unsolved death. Police were called to a rooming house at 103 Hamilton St., where they found Seidel with three stab wounds in his chest. They originally through the wounds were self-inflicted, until they found two more stab wounds in his back. Seidel, 57, … Read more
High-school teacher Francis Desjarlais, known to police for his “homosexual tendencies,” was found beaten to death on July 17, 1966 in a $4 room at Toronto’s Walsingham Hotel at 321 Jarvis St. The Walsingham was part of a notorious section of Jarvis St. that included murder, prostitution and theft in various low-rent hotels. Less than … Read more
On January 9, 1965, thirty-five-year-old Aiden Francis MacDonald met up with William Alexander Mackie, 19, and Robert Michael Black, 18, and took a cab ride to his death. MacDonald was known to frequent the BaBloor Hotel at 1163-1167 Bay Street, between Charles and Bloor Streets at the end of the day after his work as … Read more
On July 16, 1963, Ronald John Grigor, a 30-year-old bank account, met and was murdered by Glen John Seip, just 15 at the time. Grigor was found dead in his Shelborne Ave. apartment two days later by police. Grigor had taken Seip home and was murdered for his “homosexual advances,” according to Seip’s defense, which made … Read more
Alexander Bakalis was 40 years old when he met Joseph Normandin, 20, at the Ford Hotel’s cocktail lounge on May 3, 1960. They each drank seven or eight bottles of beer, according to waiter John Markovitch. Bakalis, a clothing salesman, was found May 4 stabbed to death in his basement apartment on Farnham Avenue. He … Read more
On October 29, 1953, when the body of a man was found in a field riddled with bullet holes and without identification, and before advanced forensics, it was the laundry marks on a shirt that helped police find the name of their victim. Fred “Scotty” Cameron was a messenger for a Toronto investment brokerage firm … Read more