CANADA Brian Dana LATOCKI, 25, Toronto, 25 January 1977

Brian Dana
LATOCKI


Age: 25
Gender: Male

Murdered on: January 25, 1977

Location: 53 Division
Details of Investigation:

On Tuesday, January 25 1977, at about 9:40 a.m., police responded to a check address call at 141 Erskine Avenue.

The victim was discovered inside an apartment residence, suffering from stab wounds, and obviously deceased.

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It was a balmy Friday in downtown Toronto in mid-January 1977 and Brian Latocki left work a little early.

The 25-year-old financial planner from Winnipeg told co-workers at the Toronto-Dominion Bank corporate headquarters that he felt ill.

He was last seen much later in the evening of Jan. 21 leaving the St. Charles Tavern, one of Toronto’s most popular gay bars and a location that would become a commonality in at least four of the 14 homicides of gay men in that decade.

When he didn’t show up to work the following Tuesday, Latocki’s boss called the superintendent of his apartment building on Erskine Avenue, near the Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood in Toronto.

When police arrived that morning, they found Latocki tied to a bed. He had been tortured, strangled and stabbed to death.

There was blood splattered on the bedroom’s floors and walls. His head had been badly beaten.

Latocki’s apartment had also been looted.

The autopsy revealed that he had died three days before — sometime on the Saturday after he was last seen.

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At the time, police said robbery was the motive. They released a composite drawing of an East or West Indian man, aged 25 to 27, with thin features and a medium brown complexion. He was spotted leaving the St. Charles Tavern with Latocki that Friday night and allegedly offered to drive him home.

Police posted a $10,000 reward for any leads.
A month earlier, Latocki had been enjoying Christmas Eve in Winnipeg with his family. They made the point to get together every Dec. 24 for Ukrainian food.
His cousin, Nancy Latocki, who was three years older, remembers teasing Brian at that get-together about his three-piece “banker” suit.
“His wardrobe certainly changed after he went to Toronto,” she says. “He looked much more professional.”
Nancy says Brian was more like a brother than a cousin.
His mother had died at an early age and they saw each other at least once a week when they were younger. They celebrated birthdays, took trips together to visit family in California and spent time during the summer swimming.
Nancy says as a young boy and as a teenager, Brian was engaging — someone you wanted to spend time with.
“Everybody liked him,” she says. “He was funny. He was interested in everything.”
The cousins grew up in the era of the British Invasion, and Nancy recalls being a Beatle-crazy teenager. At the age of 14, she and her twin sister were at home recovering from spinal surgeries when an excited Brian called.

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Reports at the time described Latocki as shy and new on the gay scene in Toronto.

Nancy says the family didn’t know Brian was gay until they read about it in the newspaper clippings.

“Back in the '70s, people didn’t really talk about it…. It carried a stigma at that time,” she says.
“That would not be something that you would feel that you could come out and say that that was your inclination. Not at all.”

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