Uncover - S3 "The Village" E5: Last Call At David's Disco

Episode Date: April 6, 2019

The Village, Episode 5 - Justin traces Sandy Leblanc's steps from beloved brother with humble beginnings to well-known discoteque owner in the Village's burgeoning club scene. When he's killed, rumours are rampant about who was responsible. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-3-the-villiage-transcripts-listen-1.5128216

Hi, I'm Caitlin Prest, and I am here in your ear to tell you about a very incredible show called Asking For It. Asking For It is a darkly comedic series that follows a queer femme singer whose herstory of violence finds her no matter how many times she runs away. It has an original soundtrack, and it'll make you laugh laugh, cry and feel a little bit less alone. Asking for it. Subscribe now. This is a CBC Podcast. Previously on The Village. In the homosexual community, I did about half a dozen homicides. Never solved any of them.

In the late 70s, people were beaten up. Gay bashings happened. Gay people were murdered. Walked into the place. It was covered in blood, and Sandy was in the bedroom, stabbed at least 70 or 80 times. To me, it was personal.

My name is Justin Ling. This is Uncover the Village. Getting killed. Those are the two words in huge letters on the front cover of the February 1979 edition of The Body Politic. The article inside capped off years of homicides targeting gay men. One of the last was the 1978 murder of Sandy LeBlanc. He was the second gay man killed in Toronto that week. There's little doubt that the current spate of homosexual murders are causing a great deal of concern in the gay community of Metro Toronto.

A few months earlier, another gay man had been murdered just next door to Sandy's apartment building. The question is being asked now, will they continue, and perhaps who will be next? The article was called Overkill. The author was a young writer named Robin Hardy. Yeah, Robin Hardy was a friend of mine. Unfortunately, Robin Hardy died in a hiking accident in the 90s. But I reached Robin Rowland. In the 70s, he was a young journalist working for the CBC.

And there was a bunch of us who were young journalists hanging out together, and we would talk shop, so that if there was a murder or something, we'd talk about it. And people were beginning to think there was a serial killer, or maybe serial killers, targeting gay men. Basically, Robin Hardy's story confirmed what the rumors were. It was after Zannie LeBlanc that people, at least in my circle of friends, started calling him the Mad Stabber. The story details the fear and the paranoia that gripped the community. There's a note scrawled on the bathroom wall of the St. Charles Tavern reading,

I'll kill again Saturday night. There's a threatening letter sent to a politically active and openly gay professor promising, You're next. They're probably dark pranks, but it was all part of this climate of anxiety which hung over the community. The story reads, quote, With eight of the 14 murders unsolved, belief in the existence of a single psycho killer is widespread. One that is coldly anticipating a victim every six months. Today, we'd call this a serial killer.

But this article also raises something maybe even more unsettling. Quote, there could be 14 murderers, a terrifying indication of homophobia. After the LeBlanc murder, the DJ would start the music, say once or twice a night, and say, if you're going to go home with somebody, make sure you introduce this guy to your friends. So if you meet someone new... In one kilometer, the destination is on your left. In one kilometer, the destination is on your left. Sandy, a 29-year-old club owner and an openly gay man, is one of the most mysterious and frustrating cases.

So, I want to know, who killed Sandy LeBlanc? Alright, over here. Sandy's family has been wondering the same thing for 40 years. Most of them are still around. He's got three siblings in rural New Brunswick, and they're eager to talk. Hi. Hello. How's it going?

CBC? Yeah, what's up? Come on in. I'm Justin. Nice to meet you, Justin. I'm Alice. I Come on in. I'm Justin. Nice to meet you, Justin. I'm Alice. I'm Joanne. Justin.

This is Ted. Hello. This is Justin. Justin, nice to meet you. Sandy's siblings welcome me in, and before I know it, I've got a glass of red wine in my hand, and we're sitting in a circle in the living room. But when this MacArthur came up in January, and it brought it all back to me about sanity, of course.

That's Joanne. I mean, you don't think about him every day, but you do think about him, especially when his birthday comes, stuff like that. And then when it had it on the TV that they're going back to cases in the 70s of unsolved gay murders. What is he, 70 years old, this MacArthur guy? So, which means he's about our age. So the first thing I thought, oh my gosh, he could have murdered Sandy. Right away, I thought that if he just started murdering gay men in the 70s, he was a young man himself. He wouldn't know how to get rid of bodies. He wouldn't know what to do with it.

And I called this detective. I think it was Stacy somebody. It was Detective Sergeant Stacy Gallant, the head of the cold case team for the Toronto Police Service. The guy who isn't reaching out to friends and families. So I contacted him. Sandy's family has a lot of questions. And lots to share. There are memories they're dragging out for the first time in decades. And the siblings have, quite literally, dug out boxes of photos and postcards

and even an essay Sandy wrote when he was in high school. He was very good in school. He excelled in everything he did. They offered grade 13, which is equivalent to first year university. And because we're seven children in the family, our parents couldn't afford to send us to university or college. So he was very fortunate. He's the only one of all of us that got to, like, almost equivalent first year university. And in 1967, he entered a competition, why I would like to visit Expo 67. That's Alice, Sandy's older sister. So he wrote this, and he won a trip to Expo.

Can you imagine a little country bumpkin out here in this little village of St. Antoine winning this free trip to Expo? Did you ever read it, Ted? No, I this free trip to Expo. Did you remember me and Ted? No, I don't. I don't remember that at all. And Ted, the baby of the family. It was an excellent, excellent essay. This was Sandy's graduation with Mom and Dad. And this is a family photo.

And this is me and this is Sandy. I think Sandy is grinning in just about every photo I see of him. And there are a lot. His high school graduation photo, one on the farm that his family owned for a time, one with his siblings. This is Sandy with Ted. Big grin, big forehead, big poof of dark hair. Obviously, big personality. Anyway, once a year,

and I don't know how many years this would go on, they'd have a talent show. So Sandy and I would sing. We were about nine and ten. And believe you me, I couldn't carry two in the bucket. But I remember us singing Bye Bye Love by the Everly Brothers. Bye Bye Love

Oh my God. Bye Bye Happiness Hello Loneliness I think I'm gonna cry Bye bye love. Bye bye happiness. Hello loneliness. I think I'm gonna cry. Bye bye love. Sandy left home for Ontario when he was 17. And I get that. It's not easy coming out in a small town, much less in the 1960s. And when I found out that he was gay, I was very surprised,

very surprised. And I remember him coming in the back door with mom. I gave him the biggest hug, like I just hugged onto him. And I didn't say to him, but I wish I had have said, Sandy, it doesn't matter what kind of lifestyle you're living. I love you. You're my brother. I will always love you. And I was so glad I came to terms with that when he was still living. Ted learned about his brother's sexuality when he and his girlfriend visited Sandy's club in Toronto, David's Disco.

What do you remember about the club? Well, it was pretty different when you're in a little community like St. Anthony. You come down here and you go to the big city. One of the bouncers, we were his detail. He kept an eye on us the whole night. He didn't let us out of his sight. And you guys can dance, but don't dance together. I can still remember Sandy telling me that.

So, yeah, that was pretty different. Did you know when you went up there that he was gay? I found out when I got up there. He told you? Yeah. Did you hear what he said? This is my club. So now you know what's going on.

This is what I own now. This is where I work. Obviously, that's why he went away. Back in the 60s, it was all in the closet. Nobody told anybody that they were gay. And it's just something you didn't talk about. I mean, my parents were devastated when this happened. Sandy's parents learned about his murder and his sexuality on the same day. It just wasn't, it was disgraceful.

It was disgraceful to the family. Mom always wanted to talk. Mom would always talk. Yeah, and I think she accepted it. And I remember Mom telling one of her friends one time, she was describing this to somebody, how Sandy died, and she said, that's one of those awful gay murders. That's exactly what Mom said. It was an awful gay murder.

It's as if a gay murder was worse than an ordinary murder. Just like Alice, I'm stuck on the fact that even for Sandy's mom, who seemed to accept his sexuality, his death was still a gay murder. As though that name was, in and of itself, an explanation. Even still, I can only imagine how hard this must have been for Sandy's parents. And his siblings. I thought, oh God, this is just a nightmare. Like, this can't be happening.

How could this be true? Sandy's gone. I'd just seen him like in April, and he was still alive, laughing and talking, and just himself. It was just like, oh, I had such a hard time to deal with that. I didn't want to face it. I didn't want to go through that horrible, that horrible feeling that I thought I'd never ever see my brother again. So by not trying to feel and over the years I wouldn't look at anything anybody sent me or anything about him. Over the years, I wouldn't look at anything anybody sent me or anything about him.

I couldn't handle it. So, I'm sorry. He deserved to have a full, happy life. Yeah, he did. If anybody ever deserved to have a full, happy life. I can't imagine. I mean, we just can't believe that anybody hated him to that extent to do what they did to him. There is one piece of information that has always underscored the mystery for their family. And this was public knowledge to all of us,

that he had life insurance policy for my mother, in my mother's name. So if anything happened to him, she would be well looked after the rest of her life. Sandy was 29 when he died. He wasn't supporting his parents financially. So what exactly did he think was going to happen? Alice wonders the same thing. I wondered after that, I thought, jeepers, did he think his life was in danger? That insurance policy, though, never paid out.

They were told by this insurance company that he hadn't kept up his premiums. So there was no money for him. It's one of a few clues that suggests Sandy was in trouble financially. Sandy's siblings are torn about whether his finances had anything to do with his death. So I'm thinking maybe he had broke up with somebody and was with somebody else, and this person was upset about it. I just think it was the lover's quarrel that went wrong. I think it has to be more than that.

I think it has to do over financial problems or... The club? Yeah. In my mind, I think it had something to do with the club. What do you think? Well, my fear is maybe there was some money outlying there that maybe somebody didn't collect or couldn't collect. Something there.

I think that was what I felt at the time. I still think that today. He was such a young man. He had so much to live for. Everybody loved him. He was so smart. I would be happy if somebody paid for that. I'd be very happy.

If somebody was charged. Charged. Paid for it. Yeah. It's becoming obvious that to find out more about Sandy's murder, I need to find out more about the club. David's. Luckily, there's someone who can help me do just that. Someone who can help me do just that.

Well, when you came into the club, you walked down a long hallway to the... His name is John Weber, and he was one of the club's original DJs. There was couches, like living room couches, on one side of the wall. John worked for David's in the mid-1970s. He's pulling out some old photos and is giving me a mental walkthrough of the club. There was a staircase around the statue of David, and you went down it on both sides to the dance floor. David's had a life-size statue of Michelangelo's David in the middle of the dance floor. It was a working fountain.

And I realize that sounds a bit tacky, but I wish so badly this place was still open. This would be my kind of club. This was a picture in the dressing room upstairs. That's Shirley and company who did the song Shame, Shame, Shame. Shame, shame, Shame, Shame. Michelle DuBarry. Oh, goodness world's oldest living drag queen. Michelle DuBarry is the one

who remembers getting harassed on Halloween night outside the St. Charles. She performed at David's too. But the dance floor, there was a portable stage that was pulled out on usually Saturday nights for a drag show at 2 o'clock in the morning. There was a platform for a couple of go-go dancers to dance on as well. It was about 10 feet from the front of the DJ booth. Clubs like David's Discotheque were a real contrast to the grungy, straight-owned beer halls where gay men had been meeting. Places like the St. Charles and the Parkside Taverns. And they became places to organize.

At David's, there was a banquet to raise money for a civil servant fired for his sexuality. In 1977, the club hosted an all-candidates debate for that year's provincial election. More than 100 people showed up. They grilled one candidate for his opposition to gay rights. It was an early indication that the queer community could have political power. But, of course, it was also a disco. This is something from Davis as well. This is one of their ashtrays.

Oh, that's so cool. John's apartment is absolutely blanketed with records, pictures, memorabilia, and awards. He is a huge music nerd, especially disco. I left home at the age of 15 because it just wasn't, was too uncomfortable because it was found out that I was gay at that time.

And there was a group called CHAT, the Canadian Homophile Association of Toronto. And I can't remember who took me there, but I know that George Heslop was a very big part of that. And I volunteered to DJ there before that. George Hislop, the unofficial gay mayor of Toronto. Or maybe he's the unofficial mayor of gay Toronto.

Either way, he was a big deal. His organization, CHAT, held dances. That's where John got his start DJing. I guess that was my outlet to deal with my own internal pain, is sort of get lost in the music. I was underage at the time, like by maybe about six months before I'd actually turned 18. I lied about my age at the time because I wanted the job so bad.

John knew firsthand how hard it was to be an openly queer person in the 1970s. When I got my first apartment that I put my name on a lease, I was told not to acknowledge that I was gay. Because back in that time you could be refused housing just for being gay. So that's the type of fear that you just lived with. Like, that was normal back then. Did you end up having any bad encounters? It sounds like a lot of people, you know.

Oh, I did. I remember one time specifically, and I was walking down Yonge Street one night, and the traffic was at a standstill, and this guy on the passenger seat in the car asked me the directions to some place. So I was giving the directions, and then the person in the back seat asked me about another place, and unbeknownst to me, the guy in the front seat had pulled up a metal bar, and just, I took it right across the chest. And it was like, you fucking faggot.

For John, disco was more than something to dance to. It was a coping mechanism. And I think that it was a great way to go out and escape what's going on in the world when you're a gay person because it was happy and uplifting. That love led to a career in the music industry and some amazing stories.

The Supremes, after Diana Ross left, still continued for quite a while and they fit into the disco category on some of their stuff too. The Supremes were in Toronto for a series of shows. Diana Ross had left the group in 1970, but they were still, you know, the Supremes. John went to see every night of their show and ended up meeting the group. I don't know where I got the balls to say what I did, but I said to them, there were a group of female impersonators that did the Supremes, and

would they be interested in coming to see the show at the club that I DJed? And so they came along for the ride, and I brought to a Supremes drag show. Yeah. But I'm not here to talk about disco or drag shows. Okay, well, I sort of am, but I'm mostly here to find out what happened to Davids.

And Sandy. And as I talk to John, memories are resurfacing. Because I would play till six in the morning and sometimes stay afterwards and vacuum the club afterwards as well. And there was a couple of times where there was an envelope, I'm assuming that had money in it, that I was left to hand over to somebody that showed up at the door that I did not know. So tell me more about that. So Jay tells you, okay, there's an envelope full of money in the safe or on the counter or whatever. Sandy had a business partner at the time named Jay, who's, unfortunately, no longer alive.

I assumed it was him giving the instructions. When Guy shows up at, you know, 7 a.m., you got to hand the door. It was actually Sandy. Oh, Sandy told you that? Yeah. They both, I remember one morning, they both called frantically and they just said, John, what happened? The guy was there and you didn't answer the door. And I had fallen asleep after I'd vacuumed on one of the sofas. And so I stayed up and I remember like they said, he's coming back. Don't fall back to sleep. a club in the 70s was paying someone cash.

Though, giving out envelopes of money at 7 in the morning does seem unusual. And, just like Sandy's siblings, John wonders if Sandy's business dealings had something to do with his death. When I started running things back in my mind after finding that Sandy was murdered, that came back into my mind. And I was wondering, well, was it a money thing?

Sandy was 29 years old when he died. His family wasn't rich. David's was no dump. The lights, the statue of David, the retractable stage, that all costs money. So where did he get that kind of cash? John does have a suggestion as to where the money might have come from. Sandy's other partner, an American named Mark.

He was a really nice guy as well. He usually came up most weekends from Detroit to help with the running of the club as well. So do you have any sense of why Mark was involved with the club? I mean, this guy's not even living in Toronto. He's coming up every weekend. I think that it was probably financial support from him. In the LGBTQ2 plus archives, there's a folder devoted to David's.

I find an old tabloid with a picture of Sandy. It's from 1977, two years after David's opened. In a photo, Sandy's wearing a patterned shirt with a huge pointy collar and a big grin. He's in front of a disco ball. The article says David's has had its struggles. It was expensive to open. Some nights, they were barely paying for the electricity. There's competition from other clubs.

Sandy's first partner had opened a new place, Studio 2. Studio 2, David's, the St. Charles and the Parkside Taverns, they were all within about five blocks of each other. The building which housed Studio 2 would change a lot over the years, but eventually, it would become Zippers. That bar where Skanda, Bruce MacArthur's first known victim, was last seen on the night of his disappearance in 2010. in 2010. At David's,

Sandy and his American partner Mark were trying to bring in a bigger crowd. Where once it was for gay men only, they soon opened the door to lesbian and bisexual people too. They even opened up a restaurant next door. The tabloid story ends on a positive note. Quote, A year later, he was murdered.

John vividly remembers the fear he felt after Sandy's death. It was a scary time for me, still being that young. And for the longest time afterwards, after I found out that he had been murdered and how brutally he had been murdered, I was afraid to even walk home, so I would take a cab home. It really bothered me that he was killed the way he was. Like, nobody deserves that. In the archives, there are hours and hours

of oral histories. Next story. Did you ever meet Sandy? Sandy LeBlanc? Yes, I knew Sandy. I saw him the last night he was alive. You remember he was murdered the morning after the second anniversary of the opening of Studio 2. So the anniversary was a formal occasion. Everybody came all dressed up. And Sandy was in a tuxedo giving out free champagne and all this kind of stuff.

Uh-huh. Yeah. giving out free champagne and all this kind of stuff. Uh-huh. Yeah. As I listen through, it quickly becomes clear just how much people were searching for answers about what happened to Sandy. Have they solved that crime yet?

I don't think so. I wondered if you had any insights. I never had any, but we have an idea who might have done it because we know he's involved with certain individuals. I don't know what he means by shenanigans, but I do get the impression that there were lots of different types who hung out at David's. From queer activists, to closeted business people, to, well, maybe some less savoury types. Was it true that he was involved with the mafia?

No, I wouldn't say anything as respectable as that. While I'm sifting through boxes of notes from the body politic, I find two typed pages. These appear to be a reporter's notes, a summary of all of the interviews they've done around Sandy's murder. Sandy LeBlanc murder continued. His body was found on Monday by friends. He had been stabbed 100 times from head to toe. Footprints in red led across the bedroom carpet to a window someone asked how did you get home in those bloody clothes a lot of people hated sandy look long because of his business dealings he would compete with other owners of gay bars or discos, and he'd throw people out of places he owned.

A year ago in November, one man heard from the street that there was a contract out on Sandy LeBlanc. There was a contract out on Sandy LeBlanc? I'm starting to wonder if the village rumor mill was just working overtime on Sandy. Sandy gave his friend hell and said, don't pay attention to those stories. Then he went back and sat with the two detectives he'd been talking to. Everyone saw Sandy at the Studio 2 anniversary party,

and he left there around 3 a.m. Ida, the donut shop lady, was working the midnight shift. She saw Sandy drive by in a station wagon that night. That's it, I think. Business enemies, a contract on his head, and conversations with the cops? Most of this stuff never appeared in the body politic articles about Sandy. So maybe it was dismissed by the reporter as just rumors and innuendo.

There's somebody who might be able to help me clear things up. Edna, another sister of Sandy's who lives in Ontario and the only sibling who spoke to police after Sandy died. One afternoon I decided to call the police to see if they had any leads or anything.

Two years after Sandy's death, Edna spoke to a detective investigating Sandy's murder. One thing he did tell me was that Sandy was known to police. He said, Sandy has helped us several times. So I think just the fact that he was in a gay village, he was familiar to the police. They maybe came around and talked to him because he did have a club. There's something Edna wants to share with me. It's from her mother's old paperwork. Amongst that information was the name and address of a woman.

This Darlene, I think that, yes, she knew Sandy. This name, Darlene, who she was, what her connection was to Sandy, it's a mystery that Edna has carried with her for decades. Oh, yes, I've had this for, well, I would say 39 years. It's an old piece of paper, yes. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. He was good. He was a good guy. This is Darlene Saylor.

In the 70s, Sandy hired her as a bouncer at David's Disco. He had a good heart. He was there for you. He wasn't scared. He wasn't scared. I know he fought to the end. I know he fought to the end. I know he fought to the end. When I arrive at Darlene's house, she's already buzzing with activity. Oh yeah, you can go through the album. That's that, and then this is the bar,

and that's the people that were sitting there at the time. That's Phyllis. And there's Sandy there. She's pulled out old photo albums. And then there's a dance marathon. Yeah, well, what do you expect? Yeah, go ahead, love. there. She's pulled out old photo albums. And then there was a dance marathon. Very 70s hair. Yeah, well, what do you expect? Yeah, go ahead, laugh.

Laugh! And newspaper clippings. And then that's about, you know, the killings. It's a carriage house. One thing I want to know about is Sandy's relationship with the police. They weren't very trusted out there at that time, you know. It was a hard time.

That's what would be kind of odd, I think, to see cops hanging around. They hung around. All the time. All the time, what do you mean all the time? Every night. Every night? There was cops there every night. At David's.

At David's? Yeah. Doing what? Just coming in, having a coffee, talking to Sandy, and then leaving. That would happen all the time. Do you remember what those conversations were like? I can tell you who the guy was. Marvin Blaha.

Marvin Blaha? Yeah. He was just a cop. He was going to find out stuff, and he was trying to find out stuff for me. He came to me at one point and said, There's nothing I can do. I said, Really? He goes can do. I said, really? He goes, no.

He said, it's a dead end, so let it go. That's what he said. I know, but I thought, okay, maybe there's a dead end. Maybe they can't find anything. Darlene has lost track of Marvin Blaha. So I don't know if he moved to another district. I don't know what happened to anybody. But he is definitely a cop I want to find.

Darlene has thought a lot about Sandy over the years. Recently, memories of his death have come back into sharp focus. Skanda. I knew Skanda. Andrew was a really good friend of mine. That's crazy, eh? I worked with Andrew and he was one of the greatest guys I ever met. He was so sweet. How did you know Skanda? I knew Skanda good friend of mine. That's crazy, eh? I worked with Andrew and he was one of the greatest guys I ever met. He was so sweet. How did you know Skanda?

I knew Skanda through friends of mine in Toronto. And he was a great guy too. I'm stunned when Darlene tells me this. She knew Sandy, who was killed in 1978. But she also knew Skanda, who was killed in 2010. And Andrew, who was murdered in 2017. She also knew Bruce MacArthur. I only met him twice.

Yeah. Yeah, I only met him twice. And he was on his best behavior, probably, but he was so quiet. You know, and sweet. Oh, maybe eight, nine or ten years ago when I first met him. Right, so actually I would have been around when Skanda went missing.

Yeah. Yeah, because Skanda went missing and we were all worried. And he was concerned, telling people, oh, you know, we've got to look for him. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I remember watching the news, and this picture come up, and I thought, I know him. Where do I know him from? And then the name, I thought, I know that name, too. And then I get a phone call, and then they're telling me, did you see the news? And I said, yeah, who is that guy? And they said, it's Bruce. And I went, Bruce, Bruce, he goes, the gardener. I went, Bruce, Bruce, he goes, the gardener. I went, shut up.

Darlene is wondering the same thing I am. Could Bruce MacArthur have been responsible for Sandy's murder? I show her MacArthur's high school graduation photo. He's maybe 18 years old. It was about five years before David's opened. Oh. I don't know if that would be his type. I don't think that's his type. Sandy liked him, like, I don't know. Darlene knew Sandy for about a year. She worked at his club

and she also cleaned his apartment. But she has no memory of seeing MacArthur around David's disco or Sandy in the 70s. But she admits she didn't know all the details of Sandy's private life. But then again, Bruce was a real good talker

and he had conversation with him because Sandy was like that too. He liked good conversation, and he'd go from there. This is like a 41-year-old circle. Yeah, okay. Right? It's crazy. Before Sandy died, Darlene remembers a change in the club, in the crowd, and in the acts Sandy was bringing in. It was going totally different.

It wasn't disco anymore. It was punk. That's what it was. I knew it was something. It was awful. I find some old posters from David's. They're for bands. Bands with names like Monster Children,

The Ugly, The Vile Tones, Cardboard Brains. A bunch of punk bands. I think the disco thing was maybe a little bit slow, and so we just thought, well, our old friend Sandy maybe let us have our punk nights at the club. Tibor Tkacs is a Los Angeles-based director now, but in the 1970s, he produced punk bands. That's a pretty big jump, though, to go from disco to punk.

Is it a natural fit for it? Natural in the way that it's sort of a rebellion of some kind, I think. You know, it's like an underground scene. I think they're connected that way. You know, alternative, different people who just have a different lifestyle than the normal. The punk scene was a bunch of outcasts and rebels. Honestly, just like the queer community. They reminded me of, you know, the village people sometimes.

They were dressed up. Do you remember the village people? I remember the village people. Well, the guys would hang around and they would have one of those, you know, those captain hats on, you know, with bangles and silver jewelry and tight leather pants. Sandy and Mark were trying to keep things going at David's. So they tried to bring in a new audience. Tibor says they even brought up bands from Detroit to play David's. So do you remember anything about Sandy's Detroit connection?

Not really, no. Maybe his partner was from Detroit. He had a partner, didn't he? Yeah, did you ever meet him? No, maybe once, but Sandy ran the show, so. We had set up this New Year's party, and it was quite successful. A lot of people packed, the place was packed.

And then we went home at 3 in the morning or whatever, and next thing I hear, the place burned down. With all our equipment in it, because nobody brought their equipment home. On New Year's Day, 1978, just nine months before Sandy's murder, his bar burned down. And those punk bands lost thousands of dollars worth of gear.

Like, it was, the place was gutted, you know. The roof had caved in. There's holes in the roof. Light was coming through. This is no small fire. No, no, no. It was huge. I go hunting for more details, and I find this. And we're very pleased to have with us in the studio tonight

the outlaws of the underground, The Ugly. It's an interview The Ugly did in 2007. You guys played New Year's Eve, 77-78 at Club Davids. The Ugly. It's an interview The Ugly did in 2007. You guys played New Year's Eve 77-78 at Club David's. That was the infamous night where the club actually burned down that night after the gig was over. You remember that night

Sandy was telling us, you guys should take your stuff home tonight. Yeah, you left your guitar on the stage. And we just went, it's New Year's, Sandy. Like, we're going to a New Year's party. Like, can we just put a few things upstairs? He kept going to me like, you should take it home.

Take it home. Like, take it away. He knew that. Okay. He knew that. Did Sandy know the fire would happen? It's not the first time I've heard that. They tell me, and I don't want to be quoted on this,

but they tell me that he set fire to the building that he owned in order to collect the insurance, which I can't prove one way or the other. But that happened a short time before his demise. Oh? Money troubles. An unexplained fire. Did Sandy torch his own bar?

During that time, then he was murdered, the manager for the... Yeah. So maybe Ted, Sandy's brother, was right. Maybe Sandy did owe people money. Damage at the club was estimated at $100,000. And it doesn't appear Sandy collected any insurance money after the fire. Sandy collected any insurance money after the fire. Tibor, the band promoter, was still trying to collect when Sandy died.

I went to his apartment looking for him, knocking on the door, and I'm sure it was like we were trying to figure out this insurance stuff. And I think I made some calls, some inquiries, and then I heard that he was murdered. So the club burns down January 1st. Nine months later, Sandy's out at a party. The next day, he's murdered. The punks in that interview fixate on one thing in particular. The ashtrays from David's.

The same kind of ashtray that John Weber still has in a box in his apartment. They say the ashtrays turned up at a gay bar turned punk bar in Detroit after the fire. Detroit, where Sandy's business partner, Mark, was from. Why do you think we went to Detroit and we seen Club David Ashtrays on the table? Yeah. Think about it. And the connection was, I think... Stateside money. That Sandy owed money.

At this point, I'm left wondering, what the hell happened to Sandy LeBlanc? For all the people I've spoken to, I'm still not sure what led to Sandy's murder. But there is one person I really want to reach. Someone who might be able to tell me something about the final days before Sandy's death. And his business dealings. Mark, the American partner.

Trouble is, I'm having a hard time finding any trace of the guy. It seems the business records for David's are long gone. So I try another tactic. I find a Facebook group where people chat about the good old days of gay Toronto. And I get lucky. Hello. Hello, is Justin Ling there? Yeah, that's me.

This is Mark. But not the Mark I'm looking for. He's Mark Stoddard. He and the American Mark were roommates. I actually moved into his room temporarily because he was only using it on the weekends. He had already furnished it with stuff out of David's. Like, I mean, the red carpeting, some couches, a couple of dressers and stuff like that. And they'd obviously been through a fire.

There was char marks on everything. But I mean, not bad enough that they were unusable. Just they were scorched, right? This must have been after the David's fire. Right. Like, I think he had money that he sort of spread around. But I don't know where the money came from exactly. He never talked that much about what he did in Detroit.

So he was sort of secretive about it. So maybe that was intentional. That's the way I'm reading it. On one weekend in the fall of 1980, Mark didn't show up at the house. We hadn't seen him in a while. He hadn't come in to Toronto. And one of the guys got a phone call and said he's been killed in Detroit. Killed in Detroit. Mark was murdered.

Coming up on The Village. I felt like my heart had been ripped out. Eight years of my life was gone. How did you track me down? You might have opened up a can of worms here. I love a can of worms. I had an idea who did it. Really?

No way you could prove it, not in a million years. I don't even know if he's alive. The Village is written and produced by me, Justin Ling, Jennifer Fowler, and Aaron Burns. Cecil Fernandez and Mitch Stewart are our audio producers, and Sarah Clayton is our digital producer. Thank you to CIUT at the University of Toronto and Stephen Perry of the show Equalizing and Distort for their audio from the interview with The Ugly. Tanya Springer is the senior producer of CBC Podcasts, and our executive producer is Arif Noorani. To read more about the series or see photos of people in this episode,

check out our website at cbc.ca slash uncover, or join the Facebook group Uncover to be part of the conversation. part of the conversation. Uncover the Village is a CBC podcast. Another show we think you might like is Alone, a love story. An award-winning memoir about love, marriage, and life after betrayal by Michelle Parisi. The third

and final season is available now at cbc.ca slash alone or wherever you get your podcasts. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.