Greg McCart, 24, was the eldest son of Middlesex County Judge (later Ontario Superior Court Justice) John McCart. He drove for London's About Town Taxi. At 2:16 a.m. he radioed his dispatcher saying that he had picked up a fare at the Brunswick Hotel. A witness saw an About Town station wagon in front of its hotel with the top light off, indicating that it had been hired. Mr. McCart did not respond to further radio calls which was unusual for him. Later in the early morning, about 20 to 24 miles away from the Brunswick, a resident woke to the sound of a commotion and heard car doors opening and closing. There was a taxi with its lights out in his laneway and as he watched it eventually drove away in a jerky fashion as if the driver was not used to the vehicle. The taxi, which Mr. McCart had been driving, was later found in the same area. It had been abandoned in a field near the town of Lambeth, southwest of London. The meter indicated that the last trip had covered about 22 miles. Mr. McCart's bludgeoned body was found a day later about five miles away from the taxi. The murder weapon, a short steel stake used on construction sites, was nearby. On the night of the murder similar stakes were lying in front of the Brunswick Hotel where the City of L ondon was replacing the sidewalk. Mr. Mccart's wallet was not found until April, 1980, about 2.4 miles from Mr. McCart's body. The wallet was empty although it was estimated that Mr. McCart would have collected about $95 in fares during his shift. Police began their inquiries at the Brunswick Hotel and learned about a foursome who were drinking together all evening up until near closing time at 2 o'clock Saturday morning. Two of the foursome were a married couple who had met their two male drinking companions only that night. The husband of the couple was a contractor and he offered to hire one of the men as a labourer. The couple lived on Sharon drive in north London and the husband wrote down their address and phone number for the man. The couple left the hotel sometime between 1 and 2 a.m. and went home while the two men, aged 31 and 26, stayed at the hotel until closing time and then called a cab. Mr. McCart picked them up. The men later claimed that the woman of the couple invited them for breakfast and their intent was to go the couple's house in north London. They wound up in south London, near Lambeth due to their own garbling of the address and because there two different Dharon Drives, one in north London and one in south London. Sometime before 5 a.m. the couple from the Brunswick Hotel got a call from one of the men asking if their job offer was serious. The husband told the man to call back later. At 4:49 a.m., the men called for a U-Need-A-Cab from a phone booth near Lambeth. They asked the driver about a "Shaun" Road but he was unable to find it. Instead he took them to the home of a London bootlegger where the pair stayed until 7 a.m. and were seen drinking beer and dividing up Mr. McCart's money. [Next column]

The Brunswick Hotel in 2003. Dating back to 1855, it was demolished in 2008 after a fire. Photo by Dmytro Doblevych. (Source: Curious Facts about London, Ontario) The men were charged with first degree murder and convicted by a jury in November, 1980. The conviction was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal in January, 1983 and a new trial ordered, but one of the men pleaded guilty to second degree murder before the new trial took place in 1986. The second man admitted that he had been with the first man at the Brunswick Hotel and travelled with him all night but that neither of them had been involved in Mr. McCart's murder. He claimed that they had hitchhiked to Lambeth and spent two hours looking for the couple's home before taking the U-Need-A-Cab to the bootlegger's place. The first man's confession undermined this defence, with the result that the second man was convicted again. This conviction, in turn, was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and in May, 1988, the court granted the appeal and ordered a third trial. Rather than prosecuting him for a third time, the Crown accepted a guilty plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter, the accused confessing that he co-operated in a plot to abduct, assault and rob Mr. McCart but not to kill him. In the Ontario Supreme Court in May, 1990, the man was sentenced to life imprisonment. His lawyer, who had argued for a sentence of three to five years in addition to the ten years already served, said he would appeal the sentence.