At about 11 p.m. on the night of Thursday, November 21, 1974, Johnson Bleich, the owner of Gravenhurst Taxi, was dispatched to the Albion Hotel in answer to a call from the hotel lobby. A 16-year-old juvenile and a young man were seen to get into the cab, the juvenile in the front seat and the man in the back. The pair came to Gravenhurst by taxi from North Bay on Wednesday evening. They had been staying at the Crisis Centre in North Bay. Their departure from the Crisis Centre was precipitated by a call from the man's former landlady, who threatened to come with some friends to collect $120 in back rent. After spending the night in a motel the man cashed an unemployment insurance check for $138. He and the juvenile then bought a 12-gauge shotgun, two hacksaw blades and some shotgun shells and returned to the motel, where they sawed off the shotgun butt and part of the barrel. The two then went back to North Bay, where the juvenile checked himself out of the Crisis Centre, and returned to Gravenhurst by bus. The same evening the pair cased the Farmer Shaw store with the intention of robbing it but after talking with the clerk and finding that she had children they decided to rob a taxi driver instead. The pair directed Mr. Bleich to turn off Highway 11 onto the 10th Concession Road on the pretext of looking for a girl named Linda who supposedly lived on the road. At a point about 3.7 miles west of Highway 11, between Barrie and Orillia, the man threatened Mr. Bleich with the shotgun. Mr. Bleich grabbed for the gun and during the struggle that ensued the gun discharged into the left rear door panel. At the same time the gun hit Mr. Bleich in the face, breaking his nose and cutting him above both eyebrows. The man regained possession of the gun and ordered Mr. Bleich to get out of the cab and lie down by the side of the road. When they were out of the cab Mr. Bleich allegedly charged at him and was shot in the right side of the face and neck. When Mr. Bleich fell to the ground the killer beat him on the head with the shotgun. The juvenile took Mr. Bleich's wallet. The pair then drove the cab into Barrie, abandoning it at a Kentucky Fried Chicken store at 315 Bayfield Street. They then climbed a fence to the neighboring parking lot, tossing away a shotgun shell and the car keys and hiding Mr. Bleich's wallet in the trunk of an abandoned car. The shotgun discharged while they were attempting to hide it under a tree stump. At about 12:20 a.m. the manager of the Kentucky Fried Chicken store investigated the cab and found bloodstains on the seats. He notified the Barrie police. [Next column]

Albion Hotel, Gravenhurst, Ontario, circa 1950. The hotel has been refurbished and is now an art gallery (Source: Arts at the Albion Gravenhurst Cooperative) Meanwhile the two criminals took another cab to a Barrie motel. When the police canvassed local taxi companies about suspicious fares they were directed to the motel and arrested the fugitives at about 7:20 a.m. Mr. Bleich's body was found on the 10th Concession Road at about the same time as his killers were arrested. He was found to have died from loss of blood due to the shotgun wound to his face and neck. He also suffered multiple lacerations and a fractured skull. Mrs. Bleich had learned about the abandoned Gravenhurst cab sometime after 1 a.m. when she got a call from a Barrie taxi company. The man was convicted of first degree murder on March 24, 1975. The juvenile was also convicted, but successfully appealed on the grounds that the trial judge did not properly charge the jury with respect to sections 21(2) and 213 of the Criminal Code (the sections allowing accomplices to be convicted of murder on the grounds that they "ought to have known" the probable results of their crime). He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years imprisonment on October 29, 1976.