Ralph Caruso, 26, was a native of Abbotsford, British Columbia. He worked for the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway but took on a second, part-time job as a driver for Inn Cabs in Whitehorse. On the evening of August 11, 1952 Mr. Caruso was dispatched to an address on 4th Avenue and picked up two men. Both were deserters, one from the Canadian Army and one from the Air Force. The 21-year-old army deserter was not only drunk but armed with a revolver. Earlier in the evening he had created a disturbance at one hotel and fired off the gun at another. The army deserter ordered Mr. Caruso to drive them to Prince Rupert B.C., nearly 1,400 km to the south. When Mr. Caruso refused the army deserter shot him twice in the back of the head. The air force deserter struggled with his companion and managed to disarm him, beating him over the head with the gun butt. On emerging from the cab he told bystanders "This crazy ... shot the driver!" "I did not," retorted the army deserter, "You did. You're trying to cover up." Both men were charged with murder. The air force deserter was acquitted but sentenced to three months in jail as an accessory. The army deserter was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. The charge was reduced to manslaughter in June, 1953 and the killer was sentenced to 15 years in penitentiary. The killer was paroled before the completion of his sentence. In January, 1967 he was arrested in Vancouver, B.C. for robbery but found to be mentally ill. He was ordered detained in Vancouver's Riverview Hospital.

Ralph Caruso's gravetone in the Whitehorse Pioneer Cemetery, displaying the emblem of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Mr. Caruso was elected an officer of the Whitehorse Elks Lodge in 1951. (Source: Canada Gen Web's Cemetery Project. Photo by Rod Carty.) In April of the same year he was declared recovered and sent to Vancouver city jail to await trial. The killer died in Vancouver in January, 1981.