40 years ago: Sodomites in Toronto torture and murder a 12-year-old shoeshine boy

On July 28, 1977, Emanuel Jaques, the 12-year-old son of Portuguese immigrants, was working as a shoeshine boy on Yonge Street in Toronto when he was lured into an apartment with the promise of money for help in moving photographic equipment. Over the next 12 hours, he was tortured and sexually abused by four sodomites before being strangled and drowned in a kitchen sink. One of the killers turned himself in several days later; Emanuel's body was found on the roof of the building where he was killed, and the other killers were arrested at Sioux Lookout, Ontario as they were travelling westward by train.

Details of the crime shocked Toronto and the rest of Canada. The main thing I remember is that the mainstream media as late as 1977 didn't shy away from mentioning the homosexual aspects of the crime; it would never be covered like that now. Homosexual acts were legalized by the Canadian government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1969, and by 1977, police in Toronto were no longer hassling sodomites along the Yonge Street strip. This blogger wonders if Emanuel Jaques might still be alive if police in Toronto had continued their previous policy.