Stories of Murder in Toronto's Gay Village
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 dinner every Wednesday night. He had died August 4. Kasdan, 55, was a real estate lawyer. He was found fully clothed on the living room … Read more
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 newspapers piling up in the apartment building hallway, and notified police. Ager, 31, was last seen attending a party at the Westbury Hotel and may … Read more
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 young men, caught and beaten, dying of head injuries. They left him unconscious. It was the last day of school for the killers before summer … Read more
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 Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now named the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) for “a long time.” At the time, the Clarke was the only … Read more
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 year. Clifford was attacked in a ninth floor apartment of 31 Gilder Drive. She had been stabbed six times in the chest and back. She … Read more
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 prostitute who would bring clients home. Babb, also known as John Alfred McDonald, was murdered on December 10, 1983, in their apartment on Wilton Street … Read more
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, 47, heard Cahill call out his name. When Furlong responded, he found Cahill in a pool of blood and the front door open. Police were … Read more
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 his mouth. Weir, 50, was found by firefighters who had rushed to his apartment in response to a security staff person’s call: a fire alarm … Read more
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 death. Several rifles, a gold bracelet and his wallet were stolen. Palmer, who lived on Shier Drive in Scarborough, was found lying dead on a … Read more
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 St. where, at about 3:30am on March 20, 1983, they parted company. Pearce headed west along Wellesley toward his 1973 Plymouth. His body would be … Read more
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, by building authorities after a neighbour complained of loud music all night long. Because the loud music continued Saturday morning, building personnel used a passkey … Read more
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 pool of blood, suffering from multiple stab wounds in the neck and stomach. Jan Kubilinski, the superintendent of the rooming house, said she heard a … Read more
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 one who murdered him. McBride had moved to Canada from Australia 17 years before his death, and had a thriving career as an interior decorator … Read more
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 when requested. When Courville could not account for having the car of another man, nor for the stereo and other items in the car, police … Read more
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 in his sixth-floor Jarvis St. apartment. He lived just a block away from police headquarters. Police said Martin picked up the prostitute while his roommate, … Read more