Narine Ronald Bassit, 39, was reported missing after he failed to return from his shift at 6 a.m. on Friday, May 24, 1984. His last known fare had been at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night, but police later learned that he might have taken another fare to the Big Hill Springs subdivision in Airdrie. At about 2 a.m. on the following Sunday a Shamrock taxi with Mr. Bassit's body inside was discovered in downtown Calgary near the old bus barns. He had been stabbed multiple times. Mr. Bassit, married with a three-year-old daughter, had come to Canada from Guyana with his wife about four years earlier. Soon after his arrival he began driving taxi part-time, but switched to full-time after being laid off from his job as a computer technologist about a year earlier. Fellow drivers described Mr. Bassit as a popular, happy-go-lucky guy who was always telling jokes, but he disliked driving on the night shift and had planned to quit on what turned out to be the day of his funeral. On that day about 300 cabs joined the funeral procession. On Sunday afternoon a 20-year-old man turned himself in to Calgary police who arrested a 21-year-old suspect on Sunday evening. The men had directed Mr. Bassit to the Calgary suburb of Big Hill Springs where they stabbed him to death. The two then drove the cab back downtown where they abandoned it and went to a bar. The robbery netted them $78. The 21-year-old was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for 25 years. In 2002, after serving 17 years of his sentence, he sought court approval to apply for early parole under the Criminal Code's so-called "faint hope" clause.

Narine Ronald Bassit. (Source: Calgary Herald, May 27, 1984, p. A1) Following the murder the Calgary Taxi Drivers Association announced it would lobby city council to pass a bylaw making shields and flashing distress signals mandatory in taxis.