Richard Turkiewicz, 50, fled his native Poland to England in 1936 and served with the Polish army during World War II. He came to Canada in 1957. He had been separated from his wife and four children for four or five years and lived a lonely life in a $20-a-week attic room, cooking his meals on a hot plate in a hallway. He was, however, active in the Polish Legion in Toronto. Sometime after 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 11, 1976, Mr. Turkiewicz picked up a 25-year-old man and drove him to an apartment block on Glamorgan Avenue. The man had been released from Millhaven Penitentiary on October 28. Shortly before his release he reportedly smashed up his cell. A fellow inmate described him as "half nuts" and intensely paranoid. He was kept in segregation at his own request because he felt his life was in danger. As soon as Mr. Turkiwicz pulled into a vacant stall in the parking lot the man shot him in the back of the head with a sawed-off .22 calibre rifle. Mr. Turkiewicz's body was not discovered until Monday evening when the resident to whom the stall belonged looked inside the snow-covered cab. The resident had seen the cab earlier but assumed Mr. Turkiewicz was drunk and did not want to disturb him for fear of getting into a fight.

Richard Turkiewicz. (Source: Toronto Star, January 15, 1976, p. A1.) At about 7 a.m. the killer hailed another cab and ordered the driver, Albert Fagan, to take him to an apartment block at Midland and Eglinton Avenues. When they arrived the killer shot Mr. Fagan in the face. The bullet entered the victim's left nostril and lodged above his left ear but luckily did not cause serious injury. Mr. Fagan staggered to a nearby coffee shop for help while the killer walked off in the opposite direction along Midland Avenue and then turned into Benjamin Boulevard. Here he was stopped by a police officer, but when the officer tried to search him the killer fled and forced his way into a home belonging to Warren and Gertrud Mitchell. While Warren Mitchell distracted the killer Gertrud Mitchell and their two sons, aged 16 and 13, escaped through a basement window and took refuge with neighbours. After a three-hour standoff with police the killer was shot to death while attempting to force Mr. Mitchell into the family car. During the standoff police heard the killer boasting to friends in phone calls that he had slain two cab drivers. At the time of the calls Mr. Turkiewicz's body was not yet discovered. The killer was released from prison under mandatory supervision after serving two-thirds of a 30-month sentence for five break-and-enter convictions. He had a total of 12 previous convictions, including robbery with violence. The chairman of the National Parole Board stated that since the killer had qualified for mandatory supervision due to good behavior in prison, the Board had no alternative but to release him.