At about 7:45 a.m. on Christmas day, Ken Purcell, 62, was dispatched to the Needs convenience store on Highland Park Drive to pick up a fare to an apartment block at 14 Churchill Court. At 8:10 Mr. Purcell radioed the dispatcher for help. He had been stabbed 11 times in the chest. Mr. Purcell managed to drive from the scene of the attack. At about 8:15 he was found in his car in a parking lot at the corner of Raymoor Drive and Main Street in the Westphal area of Dartmouth. Mr. Purcell had been an oil rig worker in the 1970s but quit when his fear of water kept him from completing newly-mandated survival training. He sold taxi dispatch radios for Marconi before becoming a taxi driver. He had nearly 30 years of driving experience and was working for Bob's and Blue Bell Taxi at the time of his death. Police arrested a 17-year-old male and charged him with second-degree murder. The same youth had been convicted of an aggravated assault on September 6, 2002, when he was 14 years old. During a holdup attempt the boy stabbed Halifax cab driver Joginder Singh in the chest with a steak knife. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and a year's probation. Mr. Singh recovered and returned to cab driving. The suspect's mother said the youth had been arrested about six times since summer for carrying drugs or weapons. In November he pleaded guilty to making death threats against his mother and stepfather. Despite his mother's written request asking that he be held in jail or treated in hospital he was released to await a sentencing hearing set for February. "My husband and I have been in the courts for quite some time, all summer long, trying to get them to hold my son and to even give him some kind of psychiatric evaluation," she said. "Our pleas didn't mean anything. It seems as if our Youth Criminal Justice Act protects criminals more than it protects the rest of us in society." She said that at one point a doctor had found a treatment option but her son didn't want to take it, and "by law, he had to be willing to go on his own." Mr. Purcell had three adult children. His two daughters were in Edmonton caring for his former wife, who was seriously ill. His son lived in Ontario. He often volunteered to work holidays to give younger drivers a chance to be with their families. Calvin Demont, an owner of Bob's and Blue Bell Taxi, described Mr. Purcell as a "perfect person" who would never say a bad thing about anyone and would always try to avoid an argument at all costs. "I'm sure if this fellow had demanded money, he would have passed it over," he said. Mr. DeMont noted that the fleet would be equipped with a global positioning (GPS) system starting January 1. He admitted that the system would not have prevented the attack Mr. Purcell but said it might have got help to the man quicker. Mr. Demont said his company had experimented with Plexiglas shields but he had no confidence in them. "We've tried them before, and the customers would phone and say they wouldn't want a car with a shield," he said. "Besides, the shield wouldn't protect you if someone really wanted to get at you." The shields were installed by individual owner-drivers.

Ken Purcell. (Source: CBC News.) Mr. Demont was also skeptical of using credit card machines to cut down on the amount of cash carried by drivers. Mr. Purcell was the second Halifax cab driver to die violently in 2005. On October 3 Satellite Taxi driver John Hibbs was apparently beaten to death after refusing to accept a passenger. A man was arrested and charged with manslaughter. Three other Halifax drivers survived vicious attacks. In March, 2003, Bob's Taxi driver Ronnie Lambert was shot in the head and left legally blind. A 17-year-old male was sentenced to seven years and nine months in prison. In September, 2002 Casino driver Joginder Singh was stabbed in the chest by Mr. Purcell's killer, and in June, 2001, driver Michael Tran was left paralysed with severe brain damage after being repeatedly stabbed from behind. In May, 2006, Mr. Purcell's killer was convicted of second degree murder and in 2007 was sentenced to life in prison with no possibilty of parole for seven years. He was sentenced as an adult because "the trial judge felt a youth sentence would not be sufficient to hold him accountable or give him the treatment he would need." Even though sentenced as an adult, the court ordered a publication ban on the killer's name. In June, 2008, the CBC, CTV and the Halifax Herald successfully appealed the ban in the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. The killer attempted to have this ruling overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, but the court refused to hear the case. In November, 2018, the killer was granted six 72-hour unescorted passes to be taken over the next year, to help him "prepare for his eventual return to society."