by Albert E. Brock

Kidnapping is a rare occurrence in Canada. It was certainly rare in 1955 when I worked as a detective in Forest Hill, a small but very affluent part of Toronto. Most of the crime involved break, enter and theft, and so the possibility of investigating an abduction was the furthest thing from my mind when I heard over my police car radio: “D-211. Call your station.”

I remember it was a beautiful spring day and that I was the only detective on duty in a community that housed more millionaires per acre than any other place in Canada. I must also explain that whenever we heard the words “Call your station” we were expected to use a telephone and not the police radio because the latter was monitored by the news media.

My call to the station was made from a pay phone, and I was soon directed to investigate a report of a missing child from an address on Dunvegan Road. The house was in the lower part of Forest Hill where the crème de la crème resided. It was a large home with magnificent architecture. The property was beautifully landscaped with a wide sweeping lawn, mature trees, shrubbery and a curved pathway that swept up to an impressive front entrance where I was met by a very upset mother.

The woman quickly related the following facts: Her eight-year-old daughter was a student at nearby Bishop Strachan School for Girls. The girl had failed to return home for lunch, an expectation that was part of her school-day routine. The mother had been away from the house, visiting in another part of the city. When the child was overdue for lunch, an alarmed domestic servant had contacted her by telephone. The mother’s quick call to the school had determined that the girl left the building at the usual time, more than an hour prior to the mother’s call.

Justifiably alarmed, the mother had rushed home to receive the most dreaded news any parent could possibly hear: A man had telephoned to say: “I have the girl. Don’t call the police or you will never see her alive again. Get $50,000 ready in small bills. I will call back later.”

The mother, who seemed highly intelligent and very courageous, had had a terrible decision to make: Comply alone or seek police help. She could not seek the advice of her husband because he was in England.

We were very fortunate in Forest Hill to have as our chief of police William Gordon Fraser, a World War I veteran who earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions at Vimy Ridge. My phone call to him resulted in an immediate alert to all police resources in the Metropolitan Toronto area.

I was instructed to remain at the victim’s home, obtain a description of the child for an all-points broadcast, find a recent photo for possible publication and interrogate members of the household and silently record all incoming telephone calls. A team of investigators went to the child’s school where they quickly struck gold. A classmate had left the schoolyard at the same time as the victim and readily recalled that “a man in a brown station wagon stopped and called her over. She got in and they drove away.”

The young witness did not know the car’s licence plate number, nor did she know the car’s make and model. All we had was a vague description of the driver, but that was a start.

Back at the house, the tension mounted as the minutes dragged by. All eyes were focused on the silent phones, and an urgent plea to Bell Canada brought a consent to attempt a trace on all incoming calls, but the success of a trace was far from guaranteed.

Meanwhile, the mother had been busy herself. She had, indeed, cast her lot in with the police, but her priorities were not exactly the same as ours. She would do anything humanly possible to ensure the safe return of her child, and that included willing payment of the demanded ransom. She reasoned that catching the kidnapper or kidnappers could come later and so she quietly took me aside and told me that the ransom money had been gathered by a family friend who would be at the house momentarily.

The friend turned out to be a former chief coroner of Ontario. He was also the same physician who attended the birth of the kidnapped child. He asked me to witness a recount of the currency, an awesome amount of money in those days. In 1955, you could buy a new house in Toronto for $10,000.

There was never any serious attempt to dissuade payment and at long last the crucial telephone call came in at around
4 p.m. At the end of the second ring, the mother and I lifted our separate phones together. The voice on the other end sounded like it belonged to a middle-aged male. There was no accent, but it sounded tense and deadly determined. I had coached the mother on how to keep the caller talking for as long as possible, but he was brutally brief.

“Have you got the money ready?”

“Yes, but…”

“A boy will be there soon, asking for shirts. Give him the money in a paper package.”

That was all he said. He hung up and all Bell could tell us was that the call came from a public pay phone somewhere downtown. The area became the immediate focus of police scrutiny, but nothing turned up.

Meanwhile, the unavoidable radio communications had alerted the news hounds and to my horror they started arriving at the house. Personnel from every newspaper, radio and television station showed up and their vehicles lined the streets. My pleas that they were endangering the life of an innocent child went unheeded and I called headquarters for urgent help.

Detective Sergeant Joe Thurston, a WW II veteran who had served with the Royal Canadian Air Force, was at the house in minutes. He convinced the ladies and gentlemen of the media that they would be immediately charged, arrested and locked up and their vehicles impounded if they obstructed justice. Most of them were mollified when we told them they could go to the police headquarters control centre to await developments. Others weren’t so quick to leave. Some were spotted on rooftops, while others were seen hiding behind trees and shrubs.

As zero hour approached, it was reasonable to expect that the person who came for ‘the shirts’ would be the kidnapper or an accomplice who could lead us to the kidnapper and the child. And so it was essential that the person not be scared off by anything or anyone, including the media. It was also equally important that he be successfully tailed after taking delivery of the package. Unmarked police cars were strategically parked in driveways that gave a view of the house, while others were discreetly patrolling a close perimeter of the neighbourhood.

The mother would answer the door and if the shirts were requested, she would hand over the money without comment. There was to be no hint of a police presence at the house and I was to observe it all from careful concealment. My main job was to get a good description, but not attempt to take photographs. The bait was in place and an uncertain trap was set. Meanwhile, Toronto rush-hour traffic had thickened and we knew this would make tailing a suspect vehicle more difficult. I wondered at the time if the criminal had counted on this.

At 4:45 p.m., a taxi turned onto Dunvegan Road and slowed as the driver appeared to be looking for a house number. Eventually, it stopped at the house and a casually dressed young man in his early teens got out and hesitantly approached the front door. The mother quickly opened the door to his knock and when he shyly said: “I’ve come for the man’s shirts,” I dialed the last digit of the phone number to police control and confirmed that the package had been picked up. As the taxi bearing the young man and the package pulled away, it had an unobtrusive police escort, front and rear.

Seconds later something quite unexpected happened. As the taxi continued down Dunvegan, a brown station wagon with a little girl seated beside the driver appeared on the street. It slowed and stopped just long enough for the girl to get out. It then continued in the direction of the taxi.

Detective Sergeant John J. Mullen and his partner had been lurking nearby in an unmarked car. Mullen jumped out of the car and identified himself to the frightened child. The girl quickly confirmed that she was indeed the victim and then Mullen instantly signaled his partner who had the vehicle’s make, model and license number. The word went out and the police pursuit was on.

I remember the joy that was felt by all when the exhausted child was carried by Mullen up the pathway to the house and into the waiting arms of her sobbing, laughing, happily amazed mother. It was hard to believe she was safe at home, frightened, but apparently unharmed. As the brave little victim told her story, the rest of the drama unfolded on the Toronto streets. The brown station wagon was stopped and a search of the vehicle produced a fully loaded 9-mm German army issue P-38 semi-automatic pistol.

The suspect was arrested and returned to the Forest Hill police station where I conducted the interrogation, a job that proved to be less of a problem than all of the resulting paperwork.

The suspect was charged with kidnapping and cautioned. He readily confessed all and voluntarily signed a written statement acknowledging his full guilt. And no, his feet were not put to the fire.

The accused told us he had come to know much about the victim’s family through indirect work performed for them at their summer home on Georgian Bay. He said he lived in that general area, had seen the little girl often and had come to know her name. He said he also got to know where she attended school. But his avarice and envy led him to the ill-conceived crime and into police custody.

He told us he had worked alone on the cowardly caper. He said that after calling to the girl by name as she left the schoolyard, he got her into his car by telling her that her mother had sent him for her. He drove to a phone booth downtown and before he got out of the car he convinced the girl she could not escape.

Outside a downtown hotel, about two miles from the child’s home, he procured the services of an innocent paper-boy. He told the lad he was attending a conference in the hotel and needed some clean shirts, but couldn’t leave the conference. He said he asked the lad to pick up the shirts at his Dunvegan Road home. When the lad agreed, our man bought all the newspapers, put him in a taxi and sent him to get the shirts. He told us that he followed the taxi and once he was sure the boy had the package containing the money, he released the girl. He said he was on his way back to the hotel where he would accept delivery of his ill-gotten gains, pay off the cabby and live happily ever after.

The next morning the accused appeared in magistrate’s court and soon after the charge was read he answered: “Guilty!” After being warned by Magistrate Oliver Martin of the seriousness of the crime, the accused declined the invitation to reverse his plea or seek legal counsel. Assistant Crown Attorney Harold Sanders called me to the stand and after being sworn in I gave the facts of the case as I knew them. The accused, who declined the opportunity to cross examine me, was soon remanded in custody for a week, pending the passing of sentence.

Prior to sentencing, he had assembled some character witnesses who spoke highly of him. It was established that he had no prior convictions or other known problems with the law. One of the most effective character witnesses was a uniformed RCAF officer. The magistrate, a war veteran himself, had considerable respect for members of the armed forces and I think he was greatly moved by this very sincere and credible witness. The accused also took the stand on his own behalf and although not a brilliant orator, he sounded truly remorseful and profoundly ashamed of his crime.

I cannot remember the exact sentence that was handed down, but I believe it was two years less a day with a period of probation. Of course, at the time we all thought it too lenient for a crime punishable with life imprisonment, but we never heard of this offender again and so he probably learned a lesson that lasted his lifetime.

Editor’s note: Albert E. Brock retired from the Metropolitan Toronto Police in 1971 after 25 years service. Throughout WW II, he served with the 48th Highlanders of Canada, followed by a year with the Canadian Provost Corps in Europe.