Case: 2/1959
Name: Patricia Lupton
Alias: 'Pat' to her immediate family, 'Patsy' to her extended family
Murdered/Body Found: March 9, 1959
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Date Of Birth: July 4, 1946
Age:12
A Little Bit About Patricia's Case:
On or about February 16, 1959, 12-year-olds Patricia Lupton, Brenda Walker and Lucy Novak and 11-year-old Maureen Monaghan, friends and neighbors in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, saw a notice posted on the bulletin board at the A & P supermarket then located at Kennedy Park Shopping Plaza, at Kennedy Road and Eglinton Avenue East. The notice called for "applications from babysitters": the girls, having all had experience babysitting for their neighbors, put their names, addresses and phone numbers on the accompanying list. (Patricia, Brenda and Maureen were trying to save up $20 apiece to go to Camp Sherbourne, near Bolton, Ont., the following summer.) Three weeks later, on March 9th, Patricia received a call from a man answering the ad. This man, identifying himself as "Mr. Johnson," said that he and his wife were going to visit their ailing infant son in hospital, and therefore needed a babysitter for their slightly-older son. (Brenda, at this time, was bedridden with the flu and Maureen's line was busy; Lucy was never called.) Patricia agreed to come to Kennedy Park Drugs, in the same plaza, where "Mrs. Johnson" would pick her up. With her love of small children in general, Patricia had become highly regarded both by the children she'd babysat in the past and by their parents: therefore her own parents, Albert and Bridget Lupton, felt safe letting her accept the job. Nonetheless, when she left home at 6:20 to keep the appointment, she agreed to check in with them upon reaching the address. By seven o'clock Patricia had failed to call. Four hours later, on the CBC-TV news, her anxious family learned that she had been found dead at about 7:20 in a snowbank on McCowan Road, less than two miles from her home. She had been strangled with her own scarf; though she was not sexually assaulted, the somewhat-disarrayed state of her clothing, plus bruises to both her knees, made it probable that sexual assault had been attempted.
The next day, upon learning of her friend's violent death, Maureen Monaghan gave up babysitting. Also that same day, Ontario's then-Attorney-General, Kelso Roberts, asked supermarket chains to ban babysitting ads from their bulletin boards. Patricia's death fed already-high public outrage in a city which had seen the several horrific and unsolved murder cases between 1947 and 1956.
Details of Investigation Provided by the Toronto Police Service:
On Monday, March 9, 1959, at about 7:05 p.m., police responded to an emergency call on McCowan Road south of Ellesmere Road. The victim was discovered off the roadway, suffering from medical trauma. Despite life-saving efforts by emergency personnel, the victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators believe the victim was last seen alive leaving her residence en route to Kennedy Park Plaza sometime after 5:30 p.m.
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Please contact Homicide at 416-808-7400, or at homicide@torontopolice.on.ca
Phone anonymously at 416−222−TIPS (8477); or via the internet at www.222tips.com; or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637); or download the free Crime Stoppers Mobile App on iTunes, Google Play or Blackberry App World.
Contact us via Social Media
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TPSHomicide
Facebook: https://facebook.com/TPSHomicide
No comments:
Post a Comment