Murder Timeline

Akim Fleming and his partner Rajiv Ralph were murdered on February 27, 2024 near their 111 Hickory Tree Road home. Both men were shot in the early morning hours. A ...

The cold case murder of Kevin McBride was considered solved by Toronto Police after they used DNA to identify the killer. He was William Taylor. Read more about Kevin here ...

Auctioneer Chadwick Francis, 37, was murdered in his home in the Greenwood and Mortimer Avenues. On August 6, 2020, police were called to his home, where they found his body ...

Peter Elie, hard-working Toronto DJ/VJ who worked under the name Blue Peter. He was found dead after a fire in the laundry room of his midtown Toronto apartment building. He ...

Julie Berman was an internationally known trans rights activist living in Toronto. Fifty-one-year-old Berman was found in her Brunswick Avenue and Harbord Street area home on Sunday, December 22, 2019 ...

Police have used DNA to determine who killed school trustee Dennis Colby. Read more here ...

A homicide in Canada must include culpability to be considered murder. That means, the courts must believe the killer is deserving of blame. The fact that the courts must decide ...

We are proud to announce we have completed a timeline which lists all murders, plus some historical events of significance to LGBTQ+ people, and changes to the criminal code affecting ...

There is a memorial tonight for Skanda Navaratnam, allegedly one of serial killer Bruce McArthur's victims. To be held 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the 519 Church Street Community ...

Jeffrey Parker was known among friends as Jay Tripper. He was a "creative gun/illustrator/graphic designer/activist bringing back colourful psychedelic vibes from the sixties and beyond!" Tripper ran a graphic design ...

On June 15, 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that protecting the rights of LGBT+ university students from discrimination is more important than the religious freedom to discriminate against ...

Alleged Convicted gay Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur has, as of April 2018, been charged with the deaths of eight men, most of whom are gay/LGBT+. Sgt. Detective Hank Idsinga has ...

On February 5, 2018, police announced the arrest of 21-year-old Kalen Schlatter. He was charged with second-degree murder in relation to the death of Tess Richey. A trial is pending ...

Murder Village is not a newspaper, we don't report on crimes as they happen. The discovery and arrest of gay, Toronto-based serial killer Bruce McArthur is being covered in depth ...

Today when I was out and about in The Village, I saw someone who made me think "Is that the murder suspect in the Tess Richey case? I could not ...

Tess Richey, 22, was out celebrating on November 24, 2017, with friend Ryley Simard at Crews & Tangos, a Gay Village drag bar, although Richey is not LGBTQ+. They left ...

Andrew Kinsman, 49, disappeared from the area of Parliament and Winchester Streets , just outside the Toronto Gay Village, on June 26, 2017. He disappeared just 10 weeks after Selim ...

On June 19, 2017, Bill C-16 received Royal Assent (became law). Bill C-16 amended the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, to protect  gender identity and expression ...

On April 14, 2017, Selim Esen, 44, disappeared in the area of Bloor St. East and Ted Rogers Way, on the outskirts of the Toronto Gay Village. His disappearance would ...

Dean Lisowick had a tough life. Struggling with homelessness and drug addiction, the 47-year-old would rely on panhandling, digging through garbage to find booze bottles to return for cash, and ...

On December 15, 2015, Dr. Mark Ernsting went for his regular nightly walk. It would be his last. Ernsting, 39, was a well-respected cancer researcher who lived with is husband ...

Toronto police had a photograph of a dead man's face, and parts of his body, before they had his name. Alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, who is already facing seven ...

Soroush Mahmudi, 50, was married to a woman and lived in the suburb of Scarborough with his stepson. When he went missing in August 2015, his wife never imagined it ...

Brent Gartner, 51, was longtime friends with Roderick McIntosh, 67, and had even loaned him money. On January 10, 2015, McIntosh went to Gartner's home to get his money. He ...

Majeed "Hamid" Kayhan, Abdulbasir Faizi and Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam were all targets of Project Houston, a task force set up in November 2012 to investigate their disappearances. Kayhan and Navaratnam ...

The body of Allan Lanteigne, 49, was found still dressed in his coat, face down in the front foyer of his home on March 3, 2011 just before 3:30p.m. He ...

On December 29, 2010, Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, disappeared. On April 11, 2018, Toronto police announced they charged alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur with his murder. Faizi was a married immigrant ...

Zipperz was a bar at the edge of the Gay Village, operating for 16 years at the corner of Carlton and Church Streets. Known for its piano players and retro ...

Christopher John Andrew Skinner was 27 when he was purposefully struck and killed by an SUV on October 28, 2009. He was killed in Toronto's Entertainment District at Adelaide St ...

On Monday July 14, 2008, sixty-four-year-old William Ross Magill was pronounced dead at his home on 40 Delisle Avenue. He had been stabbed. Magill, how usually went by Ross Magill, ...

Seventy-two-year-old Harley Walker was born in Manchester England and immigrated to Toronto in 1958 where he found employment with the CBC for 30 years. He went missing on October 13, ...

Lawrence "Larry" Roosevelt Callahan was born in Botwood Newfoundland on July 13. 1941. He died at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto on June 10, 2006, after being savagely beaten in ...

On July 20, 2005, the Canadian Civil Marriage Act received royal assent, meaning persons of the same sex could legally get married in Canada ...

Although it took the jury less than four hours to acquit Ivan Mendez-Romero of killing his lover Janko Naglic, and no other person has ever been charged, Toronto police consider ...

When he did not show up for work, police were called to the home of prominent psychiatrist and former medical director of the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, Dr. Henry ...

On August 25, 2003, Cassandra Do, 32, was found in her bathtub sexually assaulted and murdered in her 60 Glouster Street apartment by police who were responding to a call ...

David Buller was murdered at his desk at the University of Toronto's Visual Studies department at 1 Spadina Crescent. On January 18, 2001, he was stabbed repeatedly and died in ...

In 1989, Anthony Patrick Bennett pleaded guilty to one charge of gross indecency related to sex abuse of a minor male. The judge found Bennett, then an ordained priest with ...

Richard Kall, 45, was chief operating officer of the March of Dimes charity who was murdered by a man he went home with. He was found dead inside his 5 ...

The body of sixty-three-year-old James "Jimmy" Thomas Campbell was found in a Parkdale apartment on April 29, 2000. Known to frequent area bars including the Gladstone Hotel (pictured below) and ...

On May 1, 2000, police discovered the body of antique dealer Neil Parker, 49, three days after he had been murdered in his apartment. Residents had called to complaint about ...

July 7, 1999 was seventy-two-year-old Hugh Sinclair's last day alive. Sinclair was murdered in his 42nd-storey apartment at 44 Charles Street West in the Manulife Centre. His murderer would be ...

Fifty-six-year-old Anthony Charles Dowding, a Guyanese-born Canadian, was found dead in his apartment at 200 Wellesley Street East by police after they received an anonymous phone call. Dowding was a ...

Fifty-four-year-old Gracie (James Edward) Detzler, described in news reports as a "would-be transsexual", was drowned in a bathtub at 280 Dundas Street East, on May 28, 1997, probably between 10pm ...

Instead of celebrating a shared birthday with her twin brother, Mary Perra spent her 38th birthday burying him. Paul Armstrong's charred body was found December 16, 1996, in the garbage ...

Thirty-one-year-old Deanna (Thomas) Wilkinson was the last victim of spree killer Marcello Palma, who killed three prostitutes within just a few hours on Victoria Day weekend, May 20, 1996. Wilkinson ...

Shawn Keegan was just 19 years old when they was murdered by Toronto spree killer Marcello Palma. Keegan, described as a "transvestite prostitute", was killed with the same gun as ...

A double homicide took the lives of John Clarke, 40 and Clayton Russell, 60 when they were stabbed in their shared 807 College St. apartment on January 29, 1996. Police ...

Dennis Joseph Colby, 47, was murdered in his home at 185 Cosburn Avenue on September 9, 1995 but it wasn't until September 12 that police were called to the residence ...

Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms used to state that every individual is to be considered equal regardless of religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, sex, ...

Virginia Lee "Flex" Coote, 33, was a prostitute working in Parkdale when she was murdered. Police suspect she is a victim of serial killer Peter Dale MacDonald. Her body was ...

On the evening of October 14, 1994, 46-year-old Larry Arnold disappeared. Arnold was last seen at Trax V (aka Traxx), a gay bar at 529 Yonge Street in the company ...

When Harry Ronald Isaac, 50, did not show up to work at Journey's End hotel on Lombard St., he was reported missing by friends. On September 19, 1994, one friend ...

Prostitute Julieanne Middleton, 23, was working the Parkdale neighbourhood when she was murdered. Police suspect she is a victim of serial killer Peter Dale MacDonald. She was found July 7, ...

On May 7, 1994, John Beverly "Bev" Wilson, 60, a well-known stage manager who once worked with the National Ballet of Canada, was found dead in the laundry room of ...

Dr. Stephen Patrick Kirby, 37, died from head injuries after being knocked to the ground and kicked in the head on February 26, 1994. Rendell Junior Gillette, 21, was charged ...

On August 2, 1993, Jack Willard Bell, 58, left his home at midnight, drove to an area well-known for male prostitutes and returned shortly after with the man who would ...

Just before midnight on July 30, 1993, a trail of blood led tenants of an 80 Charles St. East apartment building to the viciously beaten body of Norman Bernard Rasky, ...

On December 8, 1992, Grayce Baxter went missing. It was weeks before her friends reported her missing. Baxter was a transsexual high-priced call-girl who, according to her friend "Mary", was ...

On July 23, 1992, John Patrick Somerton, 42, was found beaten to death in his own apartment above a store at 3465 Lakeshore Boulevard. He died from 11 blows to ...

On March 24, 1991, Michael Henry Vadeboncoeur, 42, was stabbed to death in his home at 7 Hilltop Road. Vadeboncoeur was a former CBC radio comic called Boncoeur. He was ...

Fifty-one-year-old Norman John Cardwell was last seen on February 11, 1991, in the late afternoon, near the rear of his car. Witnesses said he was alone. He had just finished ...

Hairdresser Derek George Dacosta, 33, was strangled on the night of December 5, 1990 after an apparent robbery gone bad. Dacosta had told friends of plans to travel home to ...

Revenue Canada tax auditor Michael Boley, 56, was found dead on April 14, 1990. He was tied, fully-clothed, spread-eagle on his bed in his Homewood Avenue condominium. Four days later, ...

Apparently, fifty-five-year-old Dennis McDonald inspired such terror in his killer, he was stabbed 10 times. In the back. Then he bled to death. The killer, 19-year-old Guy Simon, was "absolutely ...

A wild sex and drug "nude party" ended in the early hours of October 26, 1989, in the death of Michael John Flannigan, 27, after he had his throat slashed ...

Charles Albert Lizotte's body was seen being tossed out a speeding U-Haul truck on October 4, 1988. The dumping of the 30-year-old man, who lived on Shuter Street, was seen ...

Twenty-two-year-old David Madden was an X-ray technician at a chiropractic clinic who had moved into a new Scarborough apartment just three weeks before his death. On March 19, 1988, Michael ...

A fight over which side of the floor cushions they would sleep on, cost Charles Robert Welbanks, 38, his life. Welbanks' on-and-off lover of eight years, John Ralph Taylor, 46, ...

Marlene Ann Collins, 34, was murdered on September 5, 1987 in a basement apartment on Miller Street in the Davenport and Weston Roads area. Police were responding to a woman's ...

Allan Charles North, 54, was found murdered seven to ten day after his death on approximately May 3, 1987. North was a hairdresser, and his body was found in the ...

Paul Lopez Monte-de-Ramos, 38, was strangled to death and stabbed in the early morning hours of April 14, 1987, in a Sherbourne Street apartment. Previously, Monte-de-Ramos had lived with his ...

On March 2, 1987, police received a call for help at Northcote Avenue. They arrived to find Lisa Janet Black (aka Leo James Black), dying. Twenty-three-year-old Black died in hospital ...

On August 6, 1986, Edwin Howard Kasdan was found dead by his parents, who had become concerned after not hearing from him on Wednesday morning: he met his parents for ...

Grade 8 teacher Peter Lawrence Ager was 1985's fifty-fifth homicide of the year. He was killed December 14, 1985, and found a few days later after a neighbour who noticed ...

Public school librarian Kenneth Zeller, 40, was mobbed in High Park by five teenage boys. He would be found later, slumped in his car. He had been chased by five ...

Phillip Robert (Barbara) Filshie was murdered by his common-law wife, Joyce Lorraine Filshie, 47, in a domestic dispute on December 20, 1984. Phillip had been seeing a doctor at the ...

On the night of January 6, 1984, a lover's triangle went very wrong for twenty-nine-year-old Christine Lavery Clifford. She was stabbed to death. Hers was the first murder of the ...

Martha Babb was 38 years old when her roommate, David Thomas Muir, 39, grabbed her by the throat and strangled her. Babb and Muir often fought because Babb was a ...

On Sunday, December 4th, 1983, high-school art teacher Thomas Cahill. 44. was stabbed to death in his own home at 199 Berkeley St. At 4:45am, tenant and friend Charles Furlong, ...

Former Alderman and accountant Donald William Weir died on April 5, 1983. He was found naked in his bathtub with more than 40 injuries. A banana had been shoved in ...

Twenty-four-year-old Torontonian Charles Edward Palmer was shot in the head and chest with a .22 calibre rifle at his family cottage on Bob Lake near Minden, Ontario. He bled to ...

After going out for drinks to Boots, a gay bar, and then dancing at the Stages disco, Graham Hugh Pearce, 36, and a friend headed up Yonge St. to Wellesley ...

Nirmal Rawle Ramnanan, 35, was found stabbed to death in his 939 Avenue Road apartment on Saturday August 7, 1982. He was found nude and bound to a chair, stabbed, ...

Kenneth Albert Jones was the perfect tenant, according to the superintendent of his 81 Charles Street East room. But on June 10, 1982, Jones was found lying naked in a ...

Forty-seven-year-old Kevin Lionel McBride advertised for a roommate for his 5600 Sheppard Avenue East apartment. Police believe a man responding to that ad on Saturday May 15, 1982, is the ...

When Ottawa police stopped a vehicle for running an amber light, they had no idea they would arrest a triple-homicide suspect. Twenty-six-year-old Joseph Norbert Perceval Courville handed over ownership papers ...

Thirty-three-year-old John Henry Martin was an unemployed hairdresser who, on the night of November 14, 1981, met a male prostitute at the Selby Hotel. Martin was later stabbed several times ...

George Matthew "Peaches" Roach was murdered in Allan Gardens on October 24, 1981. His killer, a male prostitute named Larry Raymond Perrault, 22, was so compelling in court, one of ...

David Murphy, 61, was a freelance artist, killed June 28, 1981 in his own Brimley Acres senior's apartment at 2950 Lawrence Avenue East. He was found dead with his skull ...

Forty-two-year-old Marlon John McRae of 35 Wynford Heights Crescent was found March 1, 1981 lying in a pool of blood in the building's underground parking garage. The attack was so ...

James Edward Downing, 23, worked as a night cleaner at the College Street YMCA in Toronto's central core. He lived, and died, on Ontario Street, in the east central area ...

On the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1979, Micheline Ferland, 25, spoke to the Toronto Star on the steps of a house on Badgerow Avenue in east-end Toronto. Her left ...

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 ...

Early on Sunday, March 18, 1979, James Francis McIntyre was stabbed repeatedly in the head and body with a 10½-inch knife. Police arrested his roommate at the scene, in the ...

On Tuesday, November 28, 1978, Duncan Robinson failed to turn up for work for the second day in a row. His sister, Catherine, asked police to check on him. Officers ...

On the evening of Wednesday, September 20, 1978, three men kicked in the door of an apartment on St. Joseph Street in downtown Toronto. Their friend had not answered their ...

Early on Monday, September 18, 1978, Gerald Douglas White was found in a pool of blood in a 15th-floor apartment on Rosehill Avenue in Toronto. The apartment belonged to a ...

Early on the morning of Sunday, August 27, 1978, in an apartment on St. Joseph Street, a man who had fallen asleep woke to find his room-mate unconscious and bleeding ...

At 7:05 a.m. on Saturday, August 19, 1978, Nick Yasynowycz, 69, was walking his dog across the grounds of Western Technical-Commercial School on Evelyn Crescent. Near a flower bed on ...

At about seven on the morning of Monday, February 13, 1978, Bill Petkos arrived for work at the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club on Price Street. On the second floor he ...

On Thursday, December 15, 1977, Neil Wilkinson's employer called Metro Toronto police. He worked the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift at the Royal Bank, and he had not been to work for ...

Just after midnight on Thursday, May 5, 1977, three youths attacked a man in Allan Gardens. They beat him and kicked him in the head. When people came toward them ...

At about 9:40 a.m. on Tuesday, January 25, 1977, Toronto police answered a call to check an address at 141 Erskine Avenue. A young bank employee had not come to ...

On the morning of Monday, September 20, 1976, John Fretz, the superintendent at 262 Jarvis Street, went into a sixth-floor apartment. Another tenant had complained that its door had been ...

On the afternoon of Saturday, September 4, 1976, a man from Cooksville was walking through the bush near Enterprise Hill, looking for mushrooms. The spot was on the east side ...

In Canada, until 1961, all "murder" convictions resulted in the sentence of execution. Murder was then divided into non-capital and capital murder, but still included the death penalty. On July 26, ...

On the morning of Wednesday, February 11, 1976, a young man went to a rented bungalow on Elmhurst Avenue in Willowdale. He had lived in the house himself until about ...

 At about 8:50 on the evening of Saturday, December 20, 1975, police responded to a 911 call at the St. Charles Tavern, 484 Yonge Street. The Toronto Police Service recorded ...

At 3:43 a.m. on Tuesday, February 18, 1975, Toronto police headquarters took an emergency call. The caller, a man, would not give his name. He said there was "trouble" at ...

On June 27, 1969, the federal government enacted the Criminal Law Amendment Act (also known as Bill C-150) which decriminalized homosexuality, meaning you could no longer be arrested and jailed ...

Early on Sunday, June 15, 1969, a man's body was found in a parking lot on Eastern Avenue. He lay between a parked car and a truck, behind an auto ...

On Saturday, July 15, 1967, a farmer named Antonio De Freitas found a body in one of his fields near Markham. It was a young man, naked, lying in grass ...

On May 15, 1968, a man ploughing a field near Schomberg, Ontario, found a human skeleton lying against a wire fence in a hedgerow. The spot was on the west ...

Shortly after midnight on Sunday, June 25, 1967, people living in the apartment building at 100 Maitland Street heard a man yelling. The sound came from the 10th floor, through ...

On Sunday, December 17, 1967, Donald Alton was driving a sideroad by Balsam Lake Provincial Park, near Coboconk, when he saw a partridge. He stopped the car, climbed a fence ...

At about 10 a.m. on Friday, January 20, 1967, Toronto police answered an emergency call to a rooming house at 103 Hamilton Street, near Broadview Avenue and Dundas Street. A ...

At 1:40 p.m. on Sunday, July 17, 1966, a room clerk at the Walsingham Hotel, 321 Jarvis Street, found a body in Room 114. The room was at the end ...

Early on Saturday, January 9, 1965, two youths walked into a service station at Jane Street and Wilson Avenue in North York. They told the night attendant, "We just threw ...

On Wednesday, July 17, 1963, a black convertible carrying two youths went through a police speed trap on Lake Shore Boulevard West. Constable Grenville Dawkins chased it through Long Branch ...

Late on the night of Tuesday, May 3, 1960, a young man walked into a restaurant on North Yonge Street. His right hand was badly cut. He said later that ...

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 ...

At about 10:45 on the morning of Friday, October 30, 1953, Robert Cowan was driving his tractor along the 10th Concession of Innisfil Township, toward the village of Stroud. He ...

At about two in the morning on Wednesday, July 27, 1949, three visitors from Montreal were walking along the boardwalk at Kew Beach, looking for shelter for the night. Ralph ...