Stories of Murder in Toronto's Gay Village
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 had been called to the scene, where they found her suffering from “significant” face and head injuries. She was pronounced dead in hospital. Berman … Read more
Cassandra Do had arranged to meet her brother and sister on the evening of Monday, August 25, 2003. When she did not answer her door or her cellphone, they asked the building superintendent to let them in. The Toronto Star reported in 2006 that she was found face down in a bathtub full of water, … Read more
On Friday night, May 30, 1997, a lawyer directed investigators from the Metro police homicide squad to an apartment. In the bathroom they found the body of James Edward Detzler, 54. The lawyer acted for Steven Todd Craig, 26, of Dundas Street East. The apartment was Craig’s home, the Globe and Mail later reported. Craig … Read more
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 was also a songstress who had performed at various venues, and was a poetess and short story writer. The Sex Workers Alliance of Toronto held … Read more
The Toronto Sun reported on December 27, 1992 that Grayce Baxter had sent her parents plane tickets so they could spend Christmas with her in Toronto. They flew in from Clearwater, B.C. Their daughter was not there. Her concierge told the Sun he noticed she was missing before anyone else did. Friends came by and … Read more
At about four in the afternoon on Monday, March 2, 1987, Metro Toronto police answered a call for help at a basement apartment on Northcote Avenue. Constable Leon Johnson found Lisa Black on a bed. Two years later he told a jury he could detect only a faint pulse. He said he came to recognize … Read more
Eleven months after the stabbing, Assistant Crown Attorney Karen Dunlop told an Ontario Supreme Court jury that on the night of December 20, 1984, Joyce Lorraine Filshie banged on a neighbour’s door and cried, “Come quickly! I’ve stabbed Phil!” Dunlop said Joyce had blood on her hands and that a bloodstained knife lay on the … Read more
The day after Martha Babb died, David Thomas Muir stopped a friend on the street, the Toronto Sun reported. Sergeant Neale Tweedy of Metro police later testified to what Muir said: that “he had killed a girl and she was in his bathtub.” The friend phoned police. Officers went to the apartment and found the … Read more
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 arm had been broken by a baseball bat that morning. “He was after Diane in particular,” she said. Diane Edwards was 36. At about 4:30 … Read more
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 the west side of the school, he saw someone lying on her side. “I thought she was asleep at first,” he told the Sunday Star. … Read more