50 years after Stonewall riots, LGBT rights are in 'midst of a backlash,' says activist

Guests: Mark Segal, Olivia Nuamah

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from Pride parade in Toronto

MW: The sound of Gay Pride parade in Toronto this past weekend. This year the march honoured the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, one of the most important movements in the history of the gay rights movement. It started at the Stonewall Inn in New York City when LGBTQ patrons were arrested and thrown out into the street. Then for the first time those patrons decided to throw something back. They used rocks, bottles, shot glasses, leading to night after night of clashes with police. The rebellion at Stonewall helped spark LGBTQ activism and pride as we know it today. Mark Segal is a prominent LGBT activists and journalist who was part of the Stonewall uprising 50 years ago. Mark Segal joins us from our New York studio. Hello.

MARK SEGAL: Hi. So what you mean is I'm old now.

[Laughter]

MW: Alright.

MARK SEGAL: I'm a happy 68-year-old.

MW: To make you feel even older let us go back 50 years to Stonewall. You were there that night. What do you remember?

MARK SEGAL: Well I have to tell people how I got there because I think that's part of the story because that story is like all of your LGBT listeners. When we grew up we didn't know in the 1960s at least, we didn't know who we were. We were totally invisible. We weren't in newspapers. We weren't in magazines. We weren't in radio talk shows. We weren't on the news on TV. We weren't any of the characters on TV. We weren't in movies. We were totally invisible. And when people talked about us it was whispers and those whispers were always negative. If you knew you were gay and wanted to find out something about you, the only place you could do that was at a library. And when you got to the library what you would discover about yourself is that you were called this thing that was called homosexual and that thing homosexual was illegal immoral and most likely insane and you should either be arrested or put in an insane asylum. I didn't feel that was me. So at that time I was living in Philadelphia a city of about one point six million. And I thought because of all those things that I was the only gay person in Philadelphia.

MW: And you were 18 at the time, is that right?

MARK SEGAL: 18. So or May 10th 1969 I moved to New York and when I moved to New York I wanted to find my people. There were no neon signs saying here's the way to the gay area. All I knew is that gay people might be in in Greenwich Village and I went down and eventually I found Christopher Street and it was like nirvana. I was there. I was with my people.

MW: And that's where the Stonewall Inn was, right?

MARK SEGAL: Yep every single night we walked the streets up and down from the Silver Dollar diner near the river all the way up to stonewall between 7th Avenue and Greenwich. And the reason you would go into the Stonewall was it was a safe place. It might have been a Mafia controlled bar. It might have had watered down drinks might have been dirty. I described it as red black and wood. It was. That's all it was. But in those days it was the only place you could go to be safe and show emotion. And for 18 year old it was the only place you could go to dance. And what 18 year old doesn't like to dance?

MW: And what did it feel like being in there for you as you know someone who had been closeted. I don't know how long you knew you were gay, but to step into a space where you weren't as you say someone illegal or sick or all of the negative associations with homosexuality at the time.

MARK SEGAL: I think I've known my entire life I was gay. The earliest I could remember was when the Sears and Roebuck catalog would come in my male friends would always talk about looking at the girls in the catalog and panties and bras and I wouldn't say it, but I would say I like looking at those guys in their underwear. So I always thought that I always knew that I was gay. I mean I always knew that I couldn't say that but that night inside the bar when the police came in it was the first time I'd ever seen violence. They barged in. They slammed people against the walls. They called us all the names I had heard before fairy fag queer dyke and just were violent and then they went up to people who looked like they were prosperous or successful. Ask them to take their wallet out and then took the money from their wallet and put it in their pockets.

MW: These are the police? Police officers?

MARK SEGAL: These are the police. What could we do? What are we going to do? Call the police? They are the police and they thought they could treat us like that.

MW: Had you experienced anything like this from the police?

MARK SEGAL: In my entire life, no. And that's why that was so frightening to me. Other people in the bar were used to raids but they didn't see anything like that. It used to be a common occurrence for police to come in raid a bar, take the money from the bar and leave or maybe close it for the night and reopen the next day. They had never seen violence like that. It is that violence which caused the spark of Stonewall.

MW: So the police have come in are hurling insults at everybody, pushing people around, taking money from people. When did the situation sort of shift two to one of resistance?

MARK SEGAL: Well after they got done doing everything they needed to do, which is pushing people around, shoving people around, getting out whatever anger they had because of who we were, they had no use for anybody. So at that point they started carding people to let them out. I look like the kid next door. So I was one of the earliest to get out and I was thrilled to get out of that scene. I got out and went across the street. Little by little they carded people. Each time someone would come out we would applaud. Eventually we were more people outside of the bar than inside the bar inside the bar where the six policemen who did the raid and the bar staff we now were 50 to maybe 75 at the most outside the bar. Then they wanted to go back to the precinct they had done everything they could do so they open the door and said disperse. We did not leave. They came out a second time and said something. By the third time we picked up whatever was around us stones cans and just started throwing them at the door. They were blocked and now I could psychologically tell you what the reality was for the first time in history. Those people who had always imprisoned us we had imprisoned them. They were locked inside the stonewall. They were afraid of us that empowered us. That gave us unity and for the first time in my life I felt empowered. I felt I could yell I'm gay, I'm gay, I'm gay.

MW: Did you yell that? Do you remember what you were doing?

MARK SEGAL: I don't remember yelling it, but I certainly felt it.

MW: You felt this huge shift within you?

MARK SEGAL: Absolutely. I was lucky at that point for a guy by the name of Morty Robinson came up to me gave me a piece of chalk and said write on the streets and on the walls tomorrow night Stonewall. My writing on the streets and walls along with other people led to the second night of Stonewall where Martha Shelly, Morty Robinson and others spoke from the very close doors of the stonewall. That was a defining moment and a defining moment to the police. We who couldn't gather in more than three people without being arrested now were a crowd speaking up against the police. The police were now afraid of us. The world had shifted and one hour in one night. Third and fourth night we had leaflets on the street taking back our neighborhood. From that we issued medical alert legal alert. We created the first trans organization we created the first youth organization. We marched on the police station. We marched on media. That is the first magical year of Gay Liberation Front.

MW: It just seems amazing to me listening to you tell this that you were able to organize so quickly like within hours really because the next night there were the riots and they went on for what three more nights?

MARK SEGAL: I'd like to say 365 nights. We were there organizing that entire year, which led to the first gay pride and the magic of that year you must understand. Up until that point the gay community in a sense was segregationists all the people who represented us were basically white men in suits and ties and women in dresses. They only demonstrated once a year on July 4th. We on the other hand demonstrated every single night before us. There was only one hundred out activists in the entire United States of America. When we got to that first Gay Pride 15,000.

MW: Wow and these activists you're speaking of before the ones and ties and dresses, your implication being what that they in a sense were trying to appease people? They were trying to present a certain censored version of gay people?

MARK SEGAL: I think they were back to the 1950s and the early civil rights, black civil rights movement. They wanted to fit in and show the world. They were just like you were housewives and businessmen. Well I was 18-years-old. This was the end of the counterculture 60s. People were into fighting against the war. Black community was becoming militant feminists were becoming militant. So were Latinos. What about us. What are we going to fight for our rights and stand up and demand them. And that's what gay liberation front was all all about being out loud and in your face.

MW: Now you became an activist essentially overnight, as did a number of other people and one activist I want to ask you about who emerged from that evening is Marsha P. Johnson. What can you tell me about her?

MARK SEGAL: Marsha P. Johnson was my sister and I love Marsha. She was one of the sweetest people in the world. Marsha, the word often is that she would give you the scarf off her back and she would she would. She was a poor trans woman sex worker and an early member of Gay Liberation Front. She and Sylvia Rivera were basically the face of trans America. There were no others. They created Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries known as Star. We basically put them up front rather than hiding them. Trans community up to that point was hidden.

MW: Now I want to read something that Marsha P. Johnson once said. "As long as gay people don't have their rights all across America there's no reason for celebration." And I want to ask you during Pride Month, this month, if you think there is reason for celebration in the U.S. right now?

MARK SEGAL: Right at the moment there is celebration over how far we've come in 50 years, but the reality is we're second class citizens. Unlike Canada, we don't have equality. You can get married today anywhere in America, but an hour later you can be fired by your boss in most states in the United States simply because you got married and you're gay. It's that simple. We have been trying since the 1970s to pass an Equality Act. It still hasn't passed Congress. We have 22 states in America that have no equality meaning you could be fired, meaning you could lose your housing, meaning you could be denied accommodations. And one of the dangers I don't think many of us realize is when we're in the midst of a backlash against our rights backlash occurs where society doesn't appreciate or are nervous over the new rights to a certain group that is happening now and it's happening now stronger than ever because it has a leader in the name of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

MW: Mark Segal, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for speaking with me today.

MARK SEGAL: My pleasure Megan. Been great being with you.

MW: Mark Segal is an LGBTQ activists and journalist. He was at the Stonewall Inn 50 years ago. He went on to found the Philadelphia Gay News, one of the first LGBT weeklies in the U.S.. He was in our New York studio. The Stonewall Uprising and the activism that followed has led to the Pride celebrations that happen around the world today. The Toronto Pride Parade was this past weekend. Olivia Nuamah is the executive director of Pride Toronto. She joins me now in studio. Good morning.

OLIVIA NUAMAH: Good morning.

MW: Olivia, what was going through your mind as you heard Mark describe living through Stonewall?

OLIVIA NUAMAH: Wow so much first of all. His description was so vivid you almost felt like you were there. You know it felt reminiscent of the characteristics of all sorts of movements that have grown across the world. I particularly am a student of the civil rights movement if you like a vague student of the civil rights movement. And the characteristics of the start of the Stonewall Riots seemed very similar in my mind. I had a very similar kind of feel of a touchpoint that then ignites that kind of conversation and then people's imaginations to fight back.

MW: Now Canada decriminalized same sex activity just a day before Stonewall in June 27th, 1969. Can you tell me why Toronto Pride and a lot of prides throughout the world, pride parades, decided to take the American event the historic Stonewall event and make it the theme of their pride celebrations.

OLIVIA NUAMAH: Well first of all I suppose you know in the sense that it's a commemoration of the start of a global movement. It seems you know just and necessary and fitting on the surface of it but there's also commemorations as they kind of allow you or as they open the door to reflection. And mostly it's the point at which you decide you're going to think about how far you've come. And certainly for many prides around the world 50 years on especially in the context of a kind of legislative decriminalization is that we see that perhaps the institutional culture that goes along with that kind of decriminalization is the hardest thing to turn. And so the celebration of Stonewall is really a kind of moment to stop and reflect on how far we've actually come in 50 years since that first brick shot glass, a stone was thrown.

MW: Now this year Toronto Pride has highlighted the experiences of black trans people in particular. Why was that one group, why has that one group been left so far behind in so much of the progress that's been made?

OLIVIA NUAMAH: That's such an interesting question and I think that the amazing thing about the LGBTQ2+ movement is that it's it's it's ability to reflect on the intersections of so many different kinds of inequalities. In this case we have a situation where 50 years ago a trans woman of color you know was here has been documented as the first one to throw that brick. Fifty years on we have a situation where I think is it the 11th or the 12th trans woman of color has been murdered. We also have a situation where in so many places in states only in the United States but really across North America you can murder a trans woman. You can murder a trans person and suggest that it's justifiable homicide because you didn't know they were trans but of course the interesting thing about that is it always tends to fall on women of color so much like so many of these things tend to fall on people of color and of course when we say people of color we are mostly talking about black people.

MW: And as we heard from from Mark, Marsha P. Johnson was was one of the first, perhaps the first to turn on the police and stand up for her rights.

OLIVIA NUAMAH: Yes and it's interesting. I was thinking about that actually as he was telling his story because it would have had to have been a black person in 1969 to throw a brick at the police. It's an interesting intersectional conversation. Even in 1969 about not only what it meant to be black but what it meant to be trans and black post slavery and then post sharecropping and then post kind of a migration from the south of America to the north in a kind of in the search for a better life only to find yourself throwing a brick at the same institution that perhaps is you know criminalized you all your life. So for Marsha P. Johnson it was a many layered anger.

MW: And speaking of police, as you may have heard this week we're playing the CBC podcast Uncover: The Village, which is all about the serial killer Bruce McArthur how that case has become emblematic of the problematic relationship with the police in particular and the whole controversy of uniformed police officers being permitted in the Toronto Pride parade came up again this year. Do you see that changing anytime soon?

OLIVIA NUAMAH: Well you know 50 years on we're still having that conversation. It's only taken a different form, the content is the same. And really it's a conversation about you know institutional change and it's interesting because when we think about 50 years of Stonewall and we look at you know how the relationship has changed with the police over time we actually are stopping to think about what change might look like and if we're still having that conversation. One would imagine that we have quite a way to go before we get to a place where we're we are all calling ourselves are treated equally and so in the near future no, I don't see it.

MW: OK. We have just a few seconds left, but in a nutshell, what would you like to see the legacy of Stonewall be?

OLIVIA NUAMAH: I'd like to see the legacy of Stonewall be a complete turning of the situation where trans women of color have now become so marginalized that they almost you know that they were queer that we require greater that they were kind of a greater visibility and discussion on the subject.

MW: Thank you so much. I've been speaking with Olivia Nuamah who is the executive director of Pride Toronto. She joined me in our Toronto studio. The CBC News is next then we continue with The Village, the latest season of CBC's investigative podcast series, Uncover. In the Episode 3 of The Village, journalist Justin Ling explores why so many murders went unsolved in Toronto's gay village in the 1970s. I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Uncover: The Village - Episode 3

MW: Hello. I'm Megan Williams And you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MW: All summer long we'll be sharing some of the best of CBC podcasts. This weekend next we're featuring The Village the latest season of the CBC investigative series, Uncover. Today, The Village, Episode 3. A string of unsolved murders in Toronto's gay village in the 1970s share a disturbing pattern. Host Justin Lang interviews a retired homicide detective who expresses his regrets about not solving one case for which he had evidence and a sketch, but a victim's sister says police had blind spots when the victims were gay. Today's episode is called, "Meet Me Under the Clock." And a warning this episode contains descriptions of a murder that could be disturbing to some listeners.

SOUNDCLIP

[Justin enters and introduces himself]

JUSTIN LING: It's a few months after the Toronto police announcement. Cops have said they're going back to 1975 to review a string of unsolved murders and open missing persons cases, all to see if Bruce McArthur's fingerprints show up. I figure if Toronto police are dusting off a bunch of cold case murders, so will I. That's what brings me here to Canada's LGBTQ2+ archives.

VOICE 1: They have things set up for you upstairs so if you want to listen to some tapes and so on.

JUSTIN LING: Yeah.

VOICE 1: So I.

JUSTIN LING: The archives are housed in a square three storey yellow brick building just outside the village. It's the largest independent queer archive in the world.

VOICE 1: So I'll let you get at it then.

JUSTIN LING: Perfect. Thanks so much.

VOICE 1: Thanks.

JUSTIN LING: It's run by a dedicated team of volunteers who have been painstakingly cataloguing and digitizing the queer history of the entire country.

[Flips through documents]

JUSTIN LING: There's you know a hundred different banker's boxes and sort of file folders all kind of piled up halfway to the ceiling all across the room. These are tapes, magazines, all mostly from the 70s and 80s compiling gay newspapers, coverage of the gay community, oral histories of people from the community. I'm particularly interested in the boxes and boxes of notes and newspaper clippings. They're the records of The Body Politic, arguably the most important queer publication in Canadian history. The Body Politic covered the early days of queer liberation, everything from police repression of the community to the AIDS crisis. The paper's archives are meticulous. Seemingly every scrap of paper that came in and out of their office. What I would like to do is find a copy of that edition of The Body Politic about all these murders. I spend hours in the archives opening one box after another sifting through stacks of loosely categorized papers.

[Flipping pages]

JUSTIN LING: There's headline after headline for the 1970s about murdered gay men. There are clippings from Toronto's various daily newspapers who'll be the next victim fatal pattern on gays. Gay men are staying downtown bars fearful they may be the next victim in a series of unsolved slayings homosexuals in Metro Metro Police are advocates killing a bloodbath brutal stabbing death of Metro's 50 first homicide victim is a classic case of overkill. Police admit they're stymied when investigated homosexual murders because homosexuals witnesses are often afraid to come forward. There may have been in the closet or simply fearful everyone from employers to family members learning of their sexual lifestyle please say. With the help of the archives I try and add up all of the murders of queer people in Toronto. I immediately noticed a spike in the late 1970s and early 1980s but there's a three year window between 1975 and 1978 that really jumps out. Two gay men were murdered in Toronto in 1975. Three were murdered thereafter and three the year after that. In 1978 six queer people were killed. Five gay men and one transgender woman. I expect that there are many other victims. People of color sex workers immigrants victims whose deaths were even less publicized than the ones I'm reading about. But what really hits home is just how few were solved. I count 14 murders in those years and only six were solved. Toronto Police boasted a solve rate of about 85 percent back then but when it came to queer murders they solved less than half. In other words they were way more likely to solve a straight murder than a queer one. Problem with information people not coming forward. I find some reporter's notes about a conversation with police. That sounds awfully familiar. So it's actually funny these look similar to the notes that I was taking I was talking to cops wouldn't want to limit the investigation have their own theories they won't want to share them. This is almost word for word the. The quotes the cops were giving me a couple of years ago about the guys I now think were killed by Bruce McArthur. There's a box of cassettes most of which look like they haven't been touched in years maybe even decades in one box. There's a tape with a handwritten note on it it reads interview with a friend of Hal Walkley I recognized the name from some of the newspaper clippings. So I pop it in the tape player.

[Plays casette]

VOICE 1: Tell me when you met Hal.

VOICE 2: I met how the summer of 1967. I stayed with him for about three months that summer.

JUSTIN LING: Hal or Harold Walkley was murdered February 18th, 1975. This could be the earliest Cold Case Toronto police have reopened. His friend remembers police knocking at the door.

VOICE 2: And I said is there any problem and I said yeah well he was attacked.

JUSTIN LING: Hal Walkey had been attacked early that morning. He'd been out the night before. His friend asks is he alright? The cops say no. Apparently he's dead. A reporter from The Body Politic is interviewing a friend of Hal. The two discuss Hal's job as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, his political views, how he first met Hal. Even Hal's love life.

VOICE 2: Yeah he would go to the bars fairly frequently and also to the baths.

VOICE 3: He would have brought home a lot of people he didn't know that well.

VOICE 2: Oh yeah, sure. They had sort of a hard time understanding the fact that Hal might pick up someone on the street. Might take someone who he didn't know.

JUSTIN LING: His friend since police had a hard time understanding that Hal might pick up someone off the street or that he might take someone home from a bar that he didn't know. It's something I would see again and again. Cops investigating murders of gay men like they were total aliens. They just couldn't wrap their heads around that foreign strange lifestyle.

VOICE 2: It just seemed beyond them.

VOICE 3: How was he kileed, do you know?

VOICE 2: Stabbed. Like I think five times. I think stabbed through the back and one through the heart.

JUSTIN LING: Stabbed/ Five times through the back and once through the heart.

VOICE 2: I considered him one of my best friends.

JUSTIN LING: The day after Hal's murder there's a tiny item in The Globe and Mail with the headline "U of T lecturer dies after being stabbed." He was pronounced dead on arrival at 4:15 a.m.. There is an obituary a few pages after. It reads on February 18, 1975 in Toronto, beloved son of Mrs. G Walkley, Kelowna, B.C. Arrangements by Morley S Bedford Funeral Chapel. That's it. That's the whole obituary. Nothing about his career as a professor or the students he inspired. Nothing about his friends or other family. A month later police would offer a two thousand dollar reward for information on his murder. Police told the Globe and Mail that his apartment was ransacked and that quote Mr. Walkley returned to his home with a man at 2 a.m.. After spending the evening in a Yonge Street Tavern. Months go by the reward goes uncollected. I imagine at the time House murder just look like a one off maybe a robbery gone wrong. An unsettling mystery, but police would soon have to give Hal Walkey's homicide a second look.

[Newscast]

REPORTER: Walkley had been stabbed several times but no weapon has ever been found. A number of credit cards were also stolen.

JUSTIN LING: This is a CBC news story from 1977 two years after Hal Walkey's death.

[CBC newscast]

REPORTER: Walkley was a history teacher. He was involved in community organizations and was highly regarded by his neighbours. The second murder occurred nearly a year later and also involved a Yonge Street gay bar.

JUSTIN LING: Two more gay men had been murdered. Suddenly there appeared to be a pattern.

[CBC newscast]

REPORTER: James Kennedy a 49 year old civil servant was last seen at the bar September 19th 1976. Kennedy's nude body was found the following day. He had been beaten and a towel was not had around his neck. Credit cards were missing from his wallet. The third killing took place January 22nd this year. This apartment building on Erskine Avenue in the Yonge-Eglinton area. Brian Latocki was last seen at the same bar where it's believed James Kennedy met his killer. The 24-year-old was found tied to his bed. His head was badly beaten is lying in a pool of blood. Police say the investigation into the three killings is virtually at a standstill because of a lack of information.

JUSTIN LING: Hal Walkley, James Kennedy, Brian Letocki. Three years, three exceptionally violent murders.

[Newscast]

REPORTER: Three murdered men had all come here to the gay bars on the Yonge Street strip.

JUSTIN LING: The Yonge Street strip was a seedy drag in Toronto's downtown. It included a couple of beer halls that were known meeting places for gay men. This is years before the village became an established neighborhood. Just a few blocks over on Church Street.

[Newscast]

REPORTER: They each met someone and that person turned out to be a vicious killer. Why is it that you're having so much trouble getting information on these three killings?

BERNARD NADEAU: It's the reluctance of the people in the gay community to supply any information to us. All we can do is ask for their assistance.

JUSTIN LING: That's Detective Sergeant Bernard Nadeau. In the late 1970s he ran the homicide squad for the Metropolitan Toronto police. It's been more than 40 years since these murders. Unfortunately many of the officers have died. Others aren't keen to talk about the killings or say they simply don't remember.

BERNARD NADEAU: Hello.

JUSTIN LING: Hello Bernard.

BERNARD NADEAU: Come in.

JUSTIN LING: Bernard Nardo does remember.

BERNARD NADEAU: Yeah Bernie.

JUSTIN LING: Oh Bernie, sorry.

Yes.

JUSTIN LING: Bernard lives in a two bedroom apartment in a senior's residence about an hour's drive north of Toronto. That's where I meet him. I spot a birthday card on the table. He's about to turn 88. He's sitting in a blue recliner while we talk, a cane in his hands. There's not many of you guys still around.

BERNARD NADEAU: They don't look after themselves the way I do.

JUSTIN LING: Bernard has been retired for years, but he's never stopped being a cop. His whole apartment is covered in police memorabilia awards and souvenirs from his time on the force. He even still looks like a cop. He's got neatly trimmed white hair a plaid shirt on rolled up to his forearms and he's got a thick watch on his left wrist. What year did you retire?

BERNARD NADEAU: 92. I'd been retired almost as long as I was a police.

JUSTIN LING: Since he left the force Bernard has avoided the media just like lots of cops I know. But now he feels it's finally time to talk about one murder he remembers very well. Brian le talkie the 24 year old accountant who was beaten strangled and stabbed to death in his apartment and a little talky I remember more than the rest of them because it's unsolved and there were some significant clues there that should have been successfully cleared up never was.

Brian the talk had just moved to Toronto from Winnipeg. He came to work in finance at the Toronto Dominion Bank. He was just a young guy embarking on a new life in a new city.

JUSTIN LING: Tell me about that case. I mean do you remember first hearing the name Brian Latocki?

BERNARD NADEAU: Yeah. He lived on Erskine Avenue, which is near Mount Pleasant and Eglinton and he had gone to the St. Charles tavern that night and picked somebody up there and then drove them home.

What are you remember about the St. Charles Tavern. Well it was as was a homosexual Tavern.

The St. Charles was hard to miss. It was a two story gray slab of a building with its name written in red cursive font just above the doors above that was a tower with a timepiece at the top which made it the tallest building on the block.

JUSTIN LING: In the 1970s, meet me under the clock was gay code for hey let's grab a drink at the St. Charles. But before I became a prime meeting spot for the gay community, the St. Charles was a rough and tumble place. Drug dealers thieves and bikers even as it became basically the village's neighborhood pub. It was still rough around the edges. It's also the last place anyone recalls seeing Brian Latocki alive.

BERNARD NADEAU: He didn't show up for work and the police were called and it was found that he was dead in his room. It appeared that. Whoever he brought home. Had tried to strangle him.

Because of the ligature marks on his neck and not as if I remember correctly his wrists than his feet ligature marks on his neck.

Just like Andrew kinsman and Sleep Medicine the pro league up there there was no rope or anything. Nothing to indicate he was other than ligature marks. What does that tell you. Why would someone somebody tied them up.

JUSTIN LING: There were also plenty of similarities to Hal Walkey's murder. But in this case police had leads.

BERNARD NADEAU: I think he had a Seiko watch which was strong we had a serial number of that which we posted and headed ever been brought in for repairs. We've been notified and his car was stolen as well which had been parked outside in the parking lot in the back. Somebody was seen taking the television set. He was seen going down the elevator carrying a television set. And then the car was recovered shortly after a very short distance away which would indicate the suspect lived probably very close by.

JUSTIN LING: Neighbors remember seeing someone carrying a TV into the elevator. Brian with talkies building. Bernard had an artist create a sketch of the man.

BERNARD NADEAU: I spent a lot of my time in the St. Charles tavern after that trying to spot somebody that looked like that and talking through a lot of people that might have seen them there that night. But we were not too successful in getting them identified.

JUSTIN LING: I stared at the sketch for a bit. Could it be Bruce MacArthur. Probably not. He's too skinny for one. Even if I squint it's just not his face. I keep reading. Police say that he was East or West Indian. Bernard thinks he may have been Filipino between 25 and 27 years old 5 foot 9 with quote thin features and medium brown complexion. So not Bruce MacArthur. Does that mean MacArthur isn't responsible for this killing or did police identify the wrong suspect. Either way it does feel like someone would recognize this guy if he ever walked into the St. Charles tavern again. So what happened here.

BERNARD NADEAU: Most of the homosexual murders you could identify that it was a homosexual murder from the brutality. The overkill. If they were stabbed, they weren't stabbed once. It might be one hundred times and that was one of the things that made it pretty sure it was a homosexual murder.

JUSTIN LING: Tell me about that I mean is that particular to homosexual murders?

BERNARD NADEAU: Yes. It was to me. So you'd pretty well know from that with the number of times this is a homosexual murder turned out usually you're right cause the history of the person would come up during the investigation.

JUSTIN LING: Oh so you would go into some of these rooms and look at the scene and say yeah this is homosexual killing before.

I'd think it is.

JUSTIN LING: Right so I'd think it is and then you'd go and confirm that, but you'd almost know just by looking at the crime scene.

BERNARD NADEAU: Yeah. Yeah.

JUSTIN LING: What does that say to you?

Well we talked to a lot of psychiatrists during these investigations and the psychiatrist seemed to pretty well indicate that the person had not come to terms with their sexual problems and went along with it and then became so angry that this is what occurred. But whether that's true or not I don't know. But that came up time and again.

JUSTIN LING: Overkill. It's a word I would hear over and over again. It means using more force than what's necessary to kill someone. And there is evidence that the murders of queer people are unusually violent but defining overkill as a murder by someone who hasn't come to terms with their sexual problems. That feels too simplistic. Do you think they maybe you have your own blinders on. I mean looking back would you have dealt with those cases differently.

BERNARD NADEAU: I might have looked at them differently but I wanted in the worst way to solve it. I hated having unsolved cases. It still bothers me every one I had. But if you talk to a member of the public at that time it would not be unusual to hear them say well he was only homosexual anyway which is wrong. But they consider it wrong even then.

JUSTIN LING: It's hard for me to accept that there were no cultural blind spots that may have hampered the investigation, but it's not hard to believe that Bernard really did try and solve Brian Latocki's murder.

BERNARD NADEAU: Latocki with his watch, we had the serial number and we were hoping that would be pawned. We had the pawn squad that if he had pawned it, we would have been notified right away and he never showed up.

JUSTIN LING: At the same time the odds may have been stacked against the cops from the beginning. I remind Bernard what he told the CBC back in 1978.

[CBC newscast]

BERNARD NADEAU: It's the reluctance of the people in the gay community, fear of exposure to their families, their friends.

JUSTIN LING: Was that a big thing? You think people didn't want their boss, their family to know?

BERNARD NADEAU: Yes I do.I think that's true.

JUSTIN LING: How much harder did that make it?

BERNARD NADEAU: It makes it very difficult. Most of them would not disclose to anybody that they were homosexual and they didn't trust the police then thought. He probably told my boss or for my wife for my mother. So we weren't trusted. I had no dislike for them. They were their own community. I didn't want to be part of that community but the reserves way of life and I wasn't going to change them no matter what my feelings were and you couldn't change them. At that time everybody thought it was an acquired way of life. We don't think that way now.

JUSTIN LING: It's fair to say maybe you didn't understand the community. Is that fair?

BERNARD NADEAU: Yeah that's right. Absolutely right.

JUSTIN LING: We're going to get into this a lot more later but I should say that there were good reasons why the community didn't trust police. Lots and lots of good reasons. A big one, many queer people were afraid of taking a stand a trial. Being outed could ruin your life. You could be evicted. You could be fired. You can even be disowned by your family.

BERNARD NADEAU: And I think the reason that let's talk he stands are my mind so much as I thought for sure we were going to solve that case. And I'm still disappointed that it's not solved. Now every time I hear of another woman I try to connect it.

JUSTIN LING: So you must have seen the news when Bruce McArthur was arrested?

BERNARD NADEAU: Yes.

JUSTIN LING: And what did you think when you saw that?

BERNARD NADEAU: I thought Latocki right away and then I thought no and the circumstances seem a little different than Latocki, but it's still in your mind because if I hung around the St. Charles tavern during these investigations, I'm sure I would have seen him.

JUSTIN LING: Bruce McArthur was 66-years-old when he was arrested. In 2010, when he killed Skanda he was 58. Some criminologists say it's very unlikely he would have started killing that late in life. So was a 25-year-old Bruce McArthur hanging out at the St. Charles tavern the night Brian Latocki was killed?

BERNARD NADEAU: We didn't think too much of serial killers at that time. I think today we think more along that line from what has happened since and there were serial killersthen too, but I never really arrested anyone who was a serial killer as far as I know.

JUSTIN LING: Thanks again. We'll stay in touch.

BERNARD NADEAU: OK. Good talking to you. I wish I could've helped you a little more.

JUSTIN LING: I leave Bernard's apartment a bit conflicted. It's obvious that he wanted to solve the case, but why didn't he? Police had witnesses who could describe a likely suspect. They knew what goods were stolen from the apartment. They knew where the suspect met Brian Letocki the night of his murder. There was a reward for information. Just how did this case go unsolved?

MW: Episode 3 of CBC Uncover: The Village continues in our next half hour. I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MW: I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. In this final half hour of today's show, we continue with Episode 2 of The Village, the latest season of CBC's investigative podcast series, Uncover. The Village features journalist Justin Ling on the case of a series of mysterious disappearances and Toronto's gay village. You can find the entire series wherever you download your podcasts. We'll be featuring it and other CBC podcasts all summer long on The Current. Now we continue with Episode 2 of The Village, titled "Shame and Blame." And a warning: today's episode contains content relating to the discovery of human remains that could be disturbing to some listeners.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN LING: Police start yet another task force. They call it Project Prism. Soon the old missing persons posters with the faces of Skanda, Hamid and Basir are back up. Everybody knows that something is deeply wrong. It's been seven years since Skanda went missing and there are now five unsolved cases of missing men. Andrew's friends are desperate for answers. It's been more than a month since Andrew was last seen and there's a growing sense of fear mixed with determination to find out what happened. There's a town hall at the 519 Community Centre, a brick building right on Church Street that is a focal point for the village. I'm standing in the back off to the side of a big conference room on the second floor of the building. Missing persons posters are taped up on the walls around the room. Two hundred people show up. They pull up seats at big round tables. When there are no chairs left, people stand in the back. The room is buzzing with a nervous energy. Some in the room are friends of the missing men. Others are honestly just afraid. Everybody is frustrated. The event is off the record, so people can speak freely about their fears and concerns, but someone does shoot a video of a homicide detective who gets up to address the crowd.

POLICE OFFICER: Sadly I do not have a lot of information for you at this time. I can say right now I have no evidence of criminality. I also have no evidence at this time to link through evidence, the cases of the disappearance of Mr. Kinsman and also the disappearance of Mr. Esen.

JUSTIN LING: That answer does not satisfy the community. The buzz goes around the room. How could these not be connected?

POLICE OFFICER: I can say that cases that have disappearances that have not been solved, do not get closed, but they do wait for additional information to come in. So for us, even though we don't have a linkage now, we are certainly looking at previous cases, but if there's questions tonight that are going to be what have you uncovered or what techniques are you using or where are you looking, I'm so sorry because I know it's not satisfying, but I'm not able to give you that information.

JUSTIN LING: I remember the town hall at the 519 next door.

NIKKI WARD: We were both there.

JUSTIN LING: That's right. Nikki Ward is a transgender advocate and a community activist. She was also at that town hall. We meet up, coffee in hand, at the park next to the 519 to chat.

NIKKI WARD: And I actually made a point of grabbing a few of the officers there, some of whom I knew, some of them I didn't and just literally pulling them out. They were sort of cloistered and if you remember they were actually closer to on one table.

JUSTIN LING: They were in the back corner trying to avoid detection.

NIKKI WARD: Yeah exactly like the unpopular relatives at a wedding you know, it's one table. And I physically got them up and said go out and mingle. Forced them to make some introduction. I think that helped as well. And everybody in the room was saying is there a serial killer? And in fact many of the people I talked to often were saying is there a serial killer and was he in the room with us?

JUSTIN LING: I remember the question was asked in the audience, have you ever been assaulted or do you ever feel unsafe? And I think a show of hands if you've ever felt unsafe or if you've Iever been assaulted.

NIKKI WARD: And there was actually a lot like the one I just said that went found the room everybody raised their hands right. Everybody in the rooms has experienced physical and or sexual assault and not just some sometime in the past but in the recent past. Yeah that was a clear area where there was a lack of understanding of the nature of the community. So yeah that was a telling moment.

JUSTIN LING: In a show of hands of did you know Andrew, did you know Selim, did you know Skanda, did you know Basir.

NIKKI WARD: Right.

JUSTIN LING: It was varying, but you know someone in the room knew just about every person.

NIKKI WARD: Yeah, yeah and many of us knew more than one.

JUSTIN LING: The anger in that room was palpable. But then summer turns to fall turns to winter, the media moves on, some posters stay up and you still see Andrew's face around the city, but the feeling sets into the community that these cases would go unsolved just like the others.

Yeah it was hard. It was really hard not knowing. It was exhausting. That's all you can think about.

JUSTIN LING: Right.

From the time you get up to the time you go to bed and even an hour or so after that you're still going through in your head. What else can I do? Where else can I look? What else, you know?

JUSTIN LING: At the very end of 2017, police give one last update on their investigation.

POLICE OFFICER: There is no evidence at this point in time which in any way establishes the disappearances of Selim Esen and Andrew Kinsman are linked to the disappearance of the males from the Project Houston investigation. There is no conclusive evidence that establishes any of these males were the victim of foul play. Although this cannot be ruled out. There is no evidence that the serial killer is responsible for the disappearance of any of the missing males.

JUSTIN LING: That conclusion was very, very wrong.

[Newscast]

REPORTER: I want to take you live now to Toronto police headquarters where authorities are making an announcement about an arrest in connection to a missing persons case.

JUSTIN LING: It's just one month later, January 18th, 2018. I'm sitting at home. My partner calls me in from the other room. He turns his computer to show me a tweet. It says police are about to announce an update on the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman. There's been an arrest. I turn on the TV just as Detective Sergeant Hank Idsinga walks to the podium at police headquarters.

HANK IDSINGA: This morning at approximately 10 25 a.m. police arrested 66-year-old Bruce McArthur of the city of Toronto. He is self-employed as a landscaper. He has been charged with two counts of first degree murder in relation to Mr. Kinsman and Mr. Esen and we believe he is responsible for the deaths of other men who have yet to be identified. In other words, we believe there are other victims.

JUSTIN LING: Just hours before this press conference, police had knocked on Karen Fraser's front door.

KAREN FRASER: And one of them said you've got five minutes to get out. There's been a serious crime. Bruce McArthur has been arrested. And I was just stunned.

JUSTIN LING: Despite telling the public over and over again that there's no conclusive evidence of foul play, police had been investigating McArthur for months.

KAREN FRASER: They had put him under surveillance and watched him at Karen's property. They had seized a van he tried to scrap and inside they found Andrew and Selim's DNA. Then they secretly entered McArthur's apartment and searched his devices. Police found photos of the missing men. Some were taken after their murder. They had been strangled. That is when police made the arrest. Now they have enough evidence to lay charges, but there is one thing they haven't found.

HANK IDSINGA: We have not yet found the bodies. We're actively looking for them. We're conducting these search warrants in efforts to locate the bodies, but at this point in time no we have not located them.

JUSTIN LING: Officers fan out across the city and the province, searching more than 100 properties where McArthur worked, including a home near Moore Avenue where Basir's abandoned car was found. Police would learn that McArthur had been house sitting there when Basir went missing, but ultimately police make the most gruesome discovery at the place where McArthur had been a fixture for a decade.

POLICE OFFICER: Today the dismembered remains of at least three individuals have been recovered from the backyard of the residents at Mallory Crescent.

JUSTIN LING: The same spot where I had stood just a few months earlier as I tried to figure out what had happened to these missing men. Karen Fraser's leafy property on Mallory Crescent.

POLICE OFFICER: These remains have not yet been identified.

JUSTIN LING: Police discovered the victim's bodies in those huge stone planters that sat in Karen's backyard. They found Hamid's remains in the ravine behind her house. The community was expecting the worst, but nobody imagined it would be this bad. They weren't just killed. They were dismembered. Disposed of in ways even a year later I just hate talking about. For a minute this feels like an ending. I know more charges are coming and even if we don't have all the answers yet, at least it would put an end to the disappearances. Police are finally ready to say the words that for years they have avoided.

POLICE OFFICER: It's a serial killer. Alleged serial killer and he's taken some steps to cover his tracks and we have to uncover these victims and identify these victims and hopefully get some good news or some closing news to the families of these victims.

JUSTIN LING: Mallory Crescent becomes an active crime scene yellow police tape surrounds the entire property. Police bring in vans trucks and even excavation equipment. Outside the tape are satellite TV trucks. Karen and her husband Ron can't even stay in their own home. Ron gets swarmed by reporters when he tries to move their stuff out.

REPORTER: This must be quite an ordeal for you.

RON: Sorry, not a good time.

JUSTIN LING: It would take months but one by one please do identify the missing men, including Skanda. Joel Walker, his friend who bonded with him over games of pool, remembers hearing the news.

JOEL WALKER: It was the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I hated it, but it was like here's a crappy, situation, oh by the way it's 17 billion times as worse. And I felt sick to my stomach.

JUSTIN LING: Joel heard the news from his ex-boyfriend.

JOEL WALKER: When he said his name I was like I don't know who you're talking about. I honestly did not remember his name at all. So I googled or Facebooked his face and his name and I was like shut up like because I just right away all of a sudden these memories really strongly came back of him trying to be friendly and trying to console me.

JUSTIN LING: This wasn't some stranger. It was Bruce McArthur.

JOEL WALKER: He's a good actor. I'll tell you that because he asked me to my face, so have you heard anything about Skanda? Any news? Any news. And the sick thing is that I've started to feel like I should bond with him over it because I knew that was the last person he was with. So I assumed in my head that he had been going through the same angst that I was going through over it and when I think about it now Bruce is very focused on asking you you know the cops what did the cops say. I think anything or any leads.

And he was trying to find out if they would do what he had done. And I didn't really realize it at the time.

JUSTIN LING: There's a guilt Joel carries around with him. He knows it's irrational, but it's there.

JOEL WALKER: I wish I had known. I would've snapped his neck right there. I have no problem saying that out loud. I would have in a heartbeat taken that man's life if I'd known he had done that to my friend. But that wouldn't have helped anything. It would have made me just like him. So I'm glad I didn't. He wrecked my forever memories with that person that I can't get back. So I wish nothing, but the worst for that person.

POLICE OFFICER: Good morning. I will be providing you with an update on the Bruce McArthur investigation.

JUSTIN LING: Many expected that McArthur's arrest would be a conclusion, but there would be another announcement. This time I'm in the room at police headquarters and what comes next feels like a punch to the gut.

POLICE OFFICER: Mr. McArthur has now been charged with three additional counts of first degree murder.

JUSTIN LING: There are even more victims.

POLICE OFFICER: Soroush Mahmudi who was 50-years-old when he was reported missing in Scarborough by his family in 2015. Dean Lisowick was never reported as missing, but we believe that he was murdered between May of 2016 and July of 2017. I can now report that the remains have been identified as Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam. He was not on file as missing.

JUSTIN LING: In total the bodies of eight men were unearthed over seven months including three names I hadn't heard before. Dean Lisowick was a fixture on Church Street. He panhandled for money usually outside the 519 community center. Everyone remembers him as an incredibly nice guy who had fallen on hard times. Soroush Mahmudi came to Canada as a refugee from Iran. He was married to a woman and was a loving stepfather. And there was Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, an asylum seeker who had arrived from Sri Lanka in 2010. He went missing after his refugee claim was denied. His family thought he'd gone underground to avoid deportation and then of course there was Skanda, the Sri Lankan refugee with a sense of humor and a pension for jewelery. Basir, the Afghan refugee and father of two who never had a chance to fully address his own sexuality. Hamid, the refugee from Afghanistan who'd break into Bollywood songs at a moment's notice. Selim who had struggled to get back on his feet and wanted to work as an addictions counselor. And Andrew, the activist who loved baking and had a dark sense of humor.

NIKKI WARD: A big part of what McArthur identified was people who he thought wouldn't be missed and that's the really really dark part of all of this. Well there is so much darkness but.

JUSTIN LING: That's trans activist Nikki Ward.

NIKKI WARD: Not only did he pick people who thought he could get away with killing he wouldn't be missed whether because they were recent immigrants people of color maybe closeted for whatever reason. That's that that's the common thread that ties all of these people together I think and to find that he was somebody within you know a wolf in sheep's clothing it was regrettably not surprising. I do take exception to say that the phrase he was one of our own because most definitely was not one of my own or anyone else's own.

MARK SAUNDERS: It's very clear that he was able to navigate in the community. He had friends, family, loved ones. He would be in bars.

JUSTIN LING: That's Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders. As his investigators were still digging up Karen's backyard, he sat down with my colleagues at The Globe and Mail newspaper. We wanted to know how and why his police service had failed to catch a serial killer.

MARK SAUNDERS: And all the while nobody knew if anyone would know before us, it's people that knew him very very well and so that did not come out. And I'm not, this is not, I'm not going to point fingers because we're past that. The loss of life it is catastrophic here. We knew that people were missing and we knew that we didn't have the right answers, but nobody was coming to us with anything.

JUSTIN LING: Nobody was coming to us with anything? That didn't go over well with the community including Nikki Ward. Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders sits down with The Globe and Mail and just a couple months after McArthur's arrest and said if only the community had done more, if only the community had said more, if only they had spoken up, maybe we've caught him sooner. What was your reaction to that?

NIKKI WARD: Well it was a certain amount of dark humor and there's little doubt in my mind that this is part of their shame and blame philosophy. That's the first thing to do. If I have a knee jerk response frankly to any pushback from the community. I was really even by the poor communication standards we've come to expect, I was still kind of stunned at the barefaced ness of it, it was quite brassy to use an old fashioned word.

JUSTIN LING: Brassy is a pretty good word for it and that attitude is exactly why Mita Hans, the woman who knew Skanda is angry at police too.

MITA HANS: We have already been doing your job for you. How much more do you expect from us? Do you expect this from other communities to do your work for you? And how dare you. How dare you further victimize the people that are already not getting the good end of this deal. There's so much to be angry at. I don't even have words for it right now. I'm so angry.

[Protestors chant Saunders Out]

JUSTIN LING: Plenty of people agree. There are loud calls demanding Chief Saunders resignation including coming from these protesters who gather outside of his office try to shame us kill us leave us try to blame us. And here's the thing about Saunders comments. He's just wrong. Friends were coming to police with information. Remember Kyle, that friend of Hamid? The one who lives in Nova Scotia?

KYLE: I said that the last time I talked with them and I gave him a physical description and I tried to look him up on the Internet.

JUSTIN LING: He told police about Bruce McArthur in 2013. He was in Hamid's apartment with McArthur just months before he went missing.

KYLE: And that his name was Bruce and I didn't know his surname.

JUSTIN LING: So the first time you spoke with him or one of the first interviews you did, they had said you know oh yeah we know that there's this guy named Bruce. But I always wondered why didn't that tip change the entire course of the investigation? Turns out it could have. A few days after Saunders comments, I got a phone call.

[Phone call]

VOICE: Hello.

JUSTIN LING: This is an officer from inside the Toronto Police Service. They're cautious and honestly I understand why. They could lose their job for making this phone call. That's why I only communicated with them over a prepaid cell phone, which I bought with cash and that's why we've disguised their voice. They have inside information, information that they're not supposed to be passing on to journalists. They've read Chief Saunders' interview and they're angry. They also have a problem with the suggestion that the community didn't come forward to help.

[Phone call]

JUSTIN LING: Yeah, so why don't we just dive right in. I mean we got some of what you're frustrated about from our friend maybe. The cop tells me that the investigation wasn't started to find three missing men. It was started because of a tip that Skanda had been murdered. Right and obviously that tip didn't pan out.

VOICE: No it did not, but that was Project Houston. They left two inexperienced officers on Project Houston. After the original project was disbanded, mostly investigators were taken off the project. During the investigation it was discovered that there was two more missing gay men that had the same description as Skanda, same characteristics.

JUSTIN LING: Police discovered that Skanda nd Basir both knew McArthur.

VOICE: They found his social media, his handle or whatever he was using was silverdaddy or something like that.

JUSTIN LING: Oh his dating profile.

VOICE: Yeah the dating profile. So they had him on both. Then after they had put out the flyers in the community they got information that Bruce was associated to Kayhan as well. So they had McArthur on all three of them.

JUSTIN LING: Kayhan is Hamid. So police had link McArthur to all three missing men.

VOICE: They interviewed him.

JUSTIN LING: Toronto police interviewed Bruce McArthur in 2013, but he wasn't a murder suspect. He was a witness in a missing persons case. So I'm going to ask you how are you sure that they interviewed him?

VOICE: I received that information. It's a good source.

JUSTIN LING: I would later find out that McArthur admitted in that interview he'd known Skanda and Hamid for years. He told police he'd hired Hamid for landscaping and that he knew Skanda from the Black Eagle, but he denied knowing anything about their disappearances. So police let him go. He went on to kill five more men.

[Music]

JUSTIN LING: Police now have their killer, but the investigation isn't over.

VOICE 1: We are tracing his whereabouts as far back as we can go with essentially and see if we can link any outstanding occurrences to his movements and then see where we go from there.

JUSTIN LING: Police say there may be more victims. The trail of bodies may go back decades.

VOICE 2: Our investigative team are currently reviewing 15 homicide cold cases from 1975 to 1997.

JUSTIN LING: 15 more homicides. 15 more men with families and friends who have been waiting for answers for decades. Unsolved and largely forgotten.

[Music]

MW: That was Episode 2 of the CBC podcast, Uncover: The Village. Tomorrow we'll bring you episode three. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Pulitzer Prize winning critic Emily Nussbaum is on the show to talk about her new essay collection, I Like to Watch. We'll leave you today with some music from Bruce Springsteen. This is "Hello Sunshine." I'm Megan Williams. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Song: "Hello Sunshine" by Bruce Springsteen]

The Current Transcript for June 26, 2019

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

50 years after Stonewall riots, LGBT rights are in 'midst of a backlash,' says activist

Uncover: The Village - Episode 3

June 26, 2019 episode transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode