CANADA Canada - Mariam Peters, 16, Toronto, 7 Nov 1975

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https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/homicide/case/44/1975
Cold Case FilesHomicide #44/1975

750370efb2e4ccc1094e34fb19a1bd0a.gif
Mariam DebraPeters
PETERS
Age: 16

Gender: Female

Murdered on: November 7, 1975

Location: 52 Division
Details of Investigation:
On Friday, November 7, 1975, at about 8:20 p.m., police responded to a stabbing at St. Patrick's Subway station (University Avenue and Dundas Street W).

The victim was discovered inside the station, suffering from stab wounds. The victim was transported to hospital, where she eventually died from her injuries on November 11, 1975.
 
https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,3046142&hl=en

From CrimeSolver's post.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sho...19#post2391119
At about 8 p.m. on Friday, November 7th, 1975, 16-year-old Mariam Peters was stabbed 16 times at St. Patrick subway station in downtown Toronto. She died of her injuries in hospital the following Tuesday. Peters had left her home on Bruce Farm Dr. in North York and taken the subway downtown to visit her sickly grandfather at Mount Sinai hospital.
The suspect was described as a Caucasian man, mid-20s to mid-30s in age, 5’8” – 5’10”, medium build, chalk-white skin, clean-shaven, dark hair and eyes, and soft-spoken
 
http://www.torontosun.com/2016/03/05/crime-hunter-hammer-horror-in-florida
March 5 2016
NO ANSWERS IN ’75 SUBWAY SLAYING:

Mariam Peters had everything to live for.

The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she was a sensible city girl, pretty and smart. Barely 5-feet tall and just 98 lbs. soaking wet, Mariam was a self-confessed flirt.

The raven-haired beauty had been on her way from her home in Willowdale to visit her grandparents at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her boyfriend Steve was supposed to go with her but he was sick in bed with a cold — so she went alone.

Mariam Peters’ date with the abyss was Nov. 7, 1975.

Cops were called at around 8:20 p.m. where they found her inside St. Patrick’s subway station. Four days later she died, the cruel slashes too grave to recover from.

The Grade 11 A.Y. Jackson student had been stabbed 16 times in a bizarre random attack on an escalator inside the subway station on a busy Friday night. She was just 16.

“I kept asking God: why did you spare my life and take hers. I must have sinned so badly that my prayers were not accepted,” her father told the Canadian Jewish News a month after the murder.

She clicked in as homicide number 44 that year. More than 40 years later, the slaying remains a blank ... no closer to being solved than that terrible day long ago.

The previous February, the “typical teenager” had written an essay describing herself and her hopes for the future. She said she was “sentimental, kind, nice, flirt, vivacious, outgoing, pleasant, good, compact, big mouth, ugly and lack of self-confidence.”

Her dream was to be a social worker.

“Raising Mariam was like growing a tree,” her heartbroken mom told CJN.

The killer was described as white, mid-20s to mid-30s in age, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, medium build, chalk-white skin, clean-shaven, dark hair and eyes, and soft-spoken.
 
As far as I know the "killer" was simply someone the TTC ticket collector/cashier had seen around that time. The trouble is I can never understand exactly where/how this crime occurred. I know it was a lonely spot in the station and the TTC closed it afterwards but was she attacked 1. on stairs going into the station (in which case the attacker could simply have retreated and the chalk pale man would just be a rider or 2. was it on stairs in the station AFTER you have paid your fare. She was 16 and stabbed 16 times. As far as I know this "killer" did not have blood on him (?) . Interesting but may be a red herring. OK just rereading the above and it seems to imply IN the station. It is tough to imagine anyone having a grudge against this apparently charming spirited and well grounded girl. As for this young man surely we would be covered in blood afterwards. For all the media attention at the time it is very hard to picture the crime. A map would be wonderful.

I think her father had a store nearby on Queen which probably isn't relevant but who knows? It would seem not too many people would have known she was going to that hospital to visit her grandad. Which is why I assume they believed it to be a bizarre random attack. And it does seem she was going straight home dropped off at College by her Dad but maybe it is interesting that she walks south to the subway and not back to College.

As I have said elsewhere her family may have lived earlier on a street behind the SitnEat where Wendy Tedford and Donna Stearne were last seen. But yes the crimes seem very different.

Of course the Clarke Institute was in easy walking distance but surely LE would have pursued that route. If a bizarre random attack how come just this one?
 
Brand new article!!
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...on-is-still-sealed-off-after-1975-murder.html
[h=1]Why part of TTC’s St. Patrick station is still sealed off after 1975 murder[/h]The death of a 16-year-old girl led to a TTC and Metro police study on how to make the subways safer.
It’s been 42 years but the Peters family still can’t bring themselves to exit the subway at St. Patrick station. In 1975, 16-year-old Mariam Peters, was brutally murdered in the station’s darkened passageways.
Mariam, a Grade 11 student at A. Y. Jackson Secondary School, was leaving St. Patrick station on Nov. 7, 1975 around 8 p.m. to visit her sick grandfather at Mount Sinai Hospital when she was stabbed 16 times. Police found her on the escalator and she died four days later from her injuries.
“I’m a father of four girls. None of my girls, none of my family get off at the St. Patrick station. A lot of it due to the memory,” Jeffrey Peters, who was 13 at the time of his sister’s murder, said. “I have one daughter who went to school just south of the Mount Sinai Hospital. She would get off at a different subway stop and walk many blocks to go to school every day in order to avoid that subway station.”
The murder of Mariam, which is unresolved, traumatized the city. A person of interest was identified at the time, and was also linked to another stabbing of a woman that occurred 10 minutes later at Simcoe and Wellington Sts. But no prosecution or arrest was available in either case “due to the lack of direct evidence,” according to Sgt. Stacy Gallant, head of the Toronto Police cold case squad.
 
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...on-is-still-sealed-off-after-1975-murder.html
attachment.php

Mariam Peters, 16, was stabbed 16 times at St. Patrick station on Nov. 7 1975. (Star Archives)
 

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From what I understand the police know who Mariam's killer is, but as he was found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity for an earlier murder he committed, he cannot be prosecuted.

He admitted to the police of killing 3 people, two of which are solved because he admitted to them, one decades later. Perhaps he will take responsibility for taking the life of Miriam one day. On the other hand, as was shown with the murder of Tracy Kundlinger the same year, police may have taken advantage of mentally ill people and fed them information so they could get an arrest.
 
From what I understand the police know who Mariam's killer is, but as he was found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity for an earlier murder he committed, he cannot be prosecuted.

He admitted to the police of killing 3 people, two of which are solved because he admitted to them, one decades later. Perhaps he will take responsibility for taking the life of Miriam one day. On the other hand, as was shown with the murder of Tracy Kundlinger the same year, police may have taken advantage of mentally ill people and fed them information so they could get an arrest.
Thanks for bumping Snively, started a new thread for Tracy, will also post on the Toronto cold cases thread.
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?334294-Tracy-Kundinger-18-Toronto-murdered-20-August-1975&p=13282199#post13282199
[h=2]Tracy Kundinger,18, Toronto, murdered 20 August 1975[/h]
 
another stabbing so close ten minutes later has made me close this in my mind. am i wrong?
 
From what I understand the police know who Mariam's killer is, but as he was found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity for an earlier murder he committed, he cannot be prosecuted.

He admitted to the police of killing 3 people, two of which are solved because he admitted to them, one decades later. Perhaps he will take responsibility for taking the life of Miriam one day. On the other hand, as was shown with the murder of Tracy Kundlinger the same year, police may have taken advantage of mentally ill people and fed them information so they could get an arrest.

thanks do you know which murders?
 
another stabbing so close ten minutes later has made me close this in my mind. am i wrong?
Following article there are comments about the other murder(s)..
The grisly past of St. Patrick Station
by Derek Flack
March 29, 2017
"On November 7, 1975 at around 8 p.m., 16-year-old Mariam Peters was stabbed 16 times inside the station, eventually succumbing to her wounds four days later. Her murder has never been solved.

It's hard to imagine today, but at the time the University Line was regularly a ghost town. Because ridership was so low on evenings and weekends, platforms were often empty or populated by just a few people.

2017329-ttc-st-pat-1960s.jpg
Given that there were no security cameras at the time, this meant that there were spots on certain platforms that were completely blind. Some of the passageways between the north and south platforms were particularly problematic.

Police found Peters on an escalator, though it's likely she was initially attacked in one of the spaces between the platforms. There were three in St. Patrick at the time.

The main cross passages, in both St. Patrick and Queen's Park stations, are home to the stairs and elevators and so they see the most traffic. They're also the closest to the fare collector, and thus less likely to attract criminal activity.

The third passage, on the other hand, was used only for moving between the south and northbound sides and was generally deserted. In the days before the TTC installed security cameras, this created a potentially dangerous situation.
Following Mariam Peters' death, the TTC decided to seal these sections as part of a series of safety initiatives. This is why you see the white panels in the otherwise green station. This is also how the jail-like area at the southern end of Museum Station came to be.

In the years that followed Peters' murder, the TTC heightened security throughout the subway. Now there are thousands of cameras spread across TTC platforms, not to mention Designated Waiting Areas, and the yellow passenger alarm strip.

The subway became safer because it had to after the events of November 1975. With no eyes or cameras on the platform, Peters' killer was able to escape, and police were never able to put together enough evidence to solve the case.

Some of the safety features we take for granted today were born of the tragic events that happened over 40 years ago."
 
Nov 10 2020
750370efb2e4ccc1094e34fb19a1bd0a-e1604951614580.jpg

Mariam Peters, 16, was murdered in 1975. She died after being stabbed 16 times at the St. Patricks Subway Station. The murder remains unsolved. Photo by HANDOUT /TORONTO POLICE

HUNTER: Toronto's cold case page lists 64 unavenged homicides | Toronto Sun
''One of the city’s most notorious unsolved murders was the shocking Nov. 7, 1975 stabbing of 16-year-old Mariam Peters at the St. Patrick’s subway station. She had left her North York home to visit her ailing grandfather at Mount Sinai Hospital.

The Grade 11 student at A.Y. Jackson Secondary School was stabbed 16 times in a savage frenzy of violence and died four days later in hospital from her injuries.

Her killer was described as a soft-spoken white male, in his mid-20s to early 30s, with a medium build, and dark hair and eyes.

For decades there have been whispers about the killer’s possible identity, but so far, no arrests''.
 
mariam-peters.jpg

Mariam Peters, 16
Murdered 7 November 1975


Mariam Debra PETERS
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Murdered on: November 7, 1975
Location: 52 Division

Details of Investigation:

On Friday, November 7, 1975, at about 8:20 p.m., police responded to a stabbing at St. Patrick's Subway station (University Avenue and Dundas Street W).

The victim was discovered inside the station, suffering from stab wounds. The victim was transported to hospital, where she eventually died from her injuries on November 11, 1975.

LINKS:

Why part of TTC’s St. Patrick station is still sealed off after 1975 murder

The grisly history of St. Patrick subway station in Toronto

HUNTER: Cops target quartet of unsolved St. James Town murders | Toronto Sun
 
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