Retired reverend Brent Hawks remembers Toronto’s Gay Village of the 1970s. Then it occupied a small stretch of Yonge Street between College and Wellesley, anchored on either end by two bars — the St. Charles Tavern at the south end and the Parkside Tavern at the north. They were the “dark and dirty” places where a serial killer might, and did, find his victims.

The CBC’s fifth estate investigated a recent string of disappearances in Toronto’s gay community linked to Bruce McAurthur. Evidence found at the homes where the 65-year-old worked as a gardener connected him to the missing men and now police are looking back to see if those unsolved cases from the 70s are linked to the same killer.

As a young man in his 20s, McAurthur held a job at the Eaton Centre warehouse that once stood on the site of the Church of the Holy Trinity. It was there that Hawks was interviewed and photographed.

The fifth estate documentary can be seen here —> Murder in the Village and a feature article can be read here —> It happened before.