On the evening of August 26, 1983, Philip Davidson, 37, was approaching the Long Branch Loop cab stand when he was hailed by two men. One man sat in the back seat and directed Mr. Davidson to drive to the Transpo factory on Milvan drive in an isolated Etobicoke industrial park. When they arrived the other man got out of the car. The man in the back seat handed Mr. Davidson $20 and then stabbed him once in the neck. The attack occurred at about 9 p.m. Mr. Davidson had driven a taxi for only four months. He called for help over his radio but was too weak to make himself understood. When police found his car it had run into a pole, suggesting that Mr. Davidson had tried to drive from the scene. About an hour later one of the two men telephoned the police and told them about the stabbing. He subsequently met with two police officers and identified the other man as the killer. On May 31, 1984, the man who stabbed Mr. Davidson was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for 25 years. The accomplice who tipped off the police was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for 10 years. Following Mr. Davidson's death the Metro Taxi Drivers Association called for protective wire screens in taxis as it had following the death of Gordon Stoddart. The week after the murder the Metropolitan Toronto Licensing Commission asked the Taxi Advisory Committee to recommend ways of protecting cab drivers and to submit a report by September 29, 1983. The issue of screens was debated before the Licensing Commission for the second time in seven years, but no action was taken. "They're so busy trying to build a domed stadium, they can't spend a couple of dollars on the cabs," commented Mr. Davidson's widow. The accomplice confessed to being a willing participant in the robbery. He had also been present when the killer bought a hunting knife with a five-inch blade a few hours before the robbery, and he heard the killer say that he intended to "dummy" (kill) the driver in order to eliminate him as a witness. In his statement to police the accomplice admitted that he knew in advance that the taxi driver would be killed. However, at his trial, he claimed that he did not believe that the killer would actually go through with the murder. The accomplice was convicted under (then) sections 21(2) and 213 (d) of the Criminal Code, the jury concluding that he had planned the robbery with the killer, that he knew the killer was armed with a knife, that he "knew or ought to have known" that the use of the knife was probable, and that Mr. Davidson's death was caused by the knife. In 1987 the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Vaillancourt ruled that the "ought to have known" provision of section 213 (d) was constitutionally invalid. As a result the accomplice appealed his conviction. On April 10, 1989 his appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered. The killer also appealed his conviction for first degree murder, claiming that he had been denied his right to counsel and that as a result incriminating statements that he made to police should have been excluded from the evidence presented at his trial. When he was arrested, police officers had cautioned the killer about making statements but then quickly asked him if he had "stabbed a guy" earlier In the evening. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the suspect should have been allowed a reasonable time to consider the implications of making any kind of statement but accepted the police explanation that they had asked the question simply to ensure that they were arresting the right person.

Philip Davidson. (Source: Toronto Star, August 29, 1983, p. 1) Later, police asked the killer to sign a voluntary statement before he had talked with a lawyer. The court ruled that the request to sign the statement should not have been made, but that the statement itself was voluntary and therefore admissible as evidence. Over all, given the amount of other evidence against him, the violations of the killer's civil rights were not deemed critical enough to overturn his conviction (the killer had left the knife sheath with his fingerprints on it at the scene of the crime, and later led police to the spot where the hunting knife had been discarded). His appeal was dismissed on April 10, 1989. In July, 1989, the killer was transferred to the medium-security Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. On December 13, 1990, after being refused a day pass to attend his brother's wedding, he made himself a pole and grappling hook which he used to scale a seven-metre (25 foot) concrete wall. As guards fired warning shots he escaped in a car driven by a fellow inmate who was out on a three-day pass. The pair broke into a Kingston house and hid in the attic under batts of insulation. The home owners reported the break-in, but although police made a cursory search of the attic they failed to find the escapees. The next day the woman of the house heard noises in the attic and found the attic door ajar. She ran to a neighbour and called police who arrested the pair without incident in a nearby back yard.