Stories of Murder in Toronto's Gay Village
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 Naglic’s murder to be “case closed.” Naglic, 58, was murdered on October 27, 2004 and found in his home on Balliol Street. Naglic was renowned … Read more
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 thrilled” when he was acquitted of the murder. On December 18, 1989, moving company owner McDonald was attacked by Simon, who was 17 at the … Read more
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
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
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 the female jurors who convicted him visited him later in prison. Roach, 46, of Edgewood Avenue, was found dead at about 8:30 a.m. on October … Read more
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 an open door to a balcony. Police later said at least half a dozen people heard him. No one phoned the police. At about 12:45 … Read more
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 were making inquiries. They telephoned the Edwin Hotel on Queen Street East, where Burns had lived for the past two months, and asked that his … Read more