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1D. Gender of Drivers and Suspects
Contents
For the sake of putting gender-related discussion in one place, this page covers gender as it relates to victims, suspects and others involved.
Female Homicide Victims
Homicide victims are overwhelmingly male, probably reflecting the fact that only a small percentage of drivers are female. Only six women victims have been identified, representing 3.7 percent of the 164 drivers in the list and 4.1 percent of 147 Category A homicides:
Whether or not these homicides are out of proportion to the number of women employed in the industry has yet to be determined. Conventional wisdom suggests that sexual assault would be a major motive for attacks on women drivers, but this seems to have been the case in only two instances (Jeri Kruidbos, Glenda Ferster). Nevertheless it is hard to discount a sexual motive (e.g., misogyny) in the other four cases, especially considering the extreme savagery of the attacks on Lucie Turmel and Charmayne Manke. Although sexual assault is almost always perpetrated by male criminals (usually on female victims), Robert Pearson was the victim of sexual assault committed by a female.
Female Killers
Killers and accomplices in taxi driver homicides are overwhelmingly male, a commonplace of practically all violent crime. Women were convicted of murder or manslaughter in the following cases:
Other Suspects
Women were charged with or suspected of being accomplices in the following cases:
Overall, women have had relatively little involvement as killers or other suspects in Canadian taxi driver homicides. So far from presenting a threat, taxi drivers may regard the presence of women in male-female couples as a safeguard against violence. This tendency is suggested in an article by Nancy Massicotte about drivers in Trois Rivières QC ("C'est rare qu'on a des doutes sur un couple" ["It's rare that you have doubts about a couple"], La Nouvelliste (Trois Rivières), Nov. 26, 1999). The supposition is presumably that people who are preoccupied with themselves are unlikely to cause trouble. Criminals may take advantage of this tendency. In the Jack Green case the media referred to the killer's female accomplice as a "decoy", the implication being that her role was to lull the driver's suspicions. It is also possible that male-female dynamics may put a driver at risk. Many homicides involve more than one suspect and there are indications that even where they do not directly participate in an attack the secondary suspects may, wittingly or unwittingly, contribute to the conditions that lead to homicide. They may function as enablers who consciously or unconsciously validate the killer's actions, or as an audience for the killer's drama, or as victims whom the killer hopes to overawe and control through acts of violence against others. Any or all of these conditions can be present in a dysfunctional relationship and a couple can bring them into a taxi like a bomb with a lit fuse. As a footnote, this kind of danger need not depend on dysfunctional male-female relationships. Problematic same-sex relationships may have helped trigger violence in three cases. The killer of Ken Spoonheim claimed that a humiliating homosexual encounter with another man earlier in the day caused him to explode when the taxi driver happened to touch him. The murder of Fernand Talbot was the second one that the killer carried out in the company of his male lover, who he later stabbed to death. Robert Pearson's killer, a 16-year-old female, mutilated him to further her sexual relationship with another girl. As noted, these specific hazards have accounted for only a small number of homicides but they illustrate the kinds of volatile situations which put drivers at risk and which are hard to anticipate and defend against. See also:
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