Stories of Murder in Toronto's Gay Village
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, 1994 in Lake Ontario, just a few minutes’ walk from the Palais Royale at 1601 Lake Shore Blvd West, along Toronto’s western waterfront. Middleton was … Read more
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, 62, a retired dentist. Residents followed the blood trail from the lobby of one building to the underground locker room of another, adjoining building. He … 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
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 work, and the apartment superintendent had been asked to look in on him. Police found Brian Latocki dead in his bedroom. He was nude and … Read more
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 open since Sunday. It was unlocked. Inside was the nude body of the man who lived there, James Stewart Kennedy. “When I found him he … Read more
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 three feet high. The coroner, Dr. Ralph Johns, examined the body where it lay. He said the death “might well be a murder,” the Globe … Read more
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 side of Sideroad 17 in Tecumseth Township, about two kilometres north of Highway 9. The Ontario Provincial Police later described what was there. The body … Read more
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 and followed the bird’s tracks through the snow. About 40 feet from the road, on a bare patch of ground, he found bones. A pair … Read more