Shoeshine Boy. The Murder of Emanuel Jaques in 1977

The existence of massage parlours and the murder of "The Shoeshine Boy" were interwined in many peoples minds for decades. Now, 33 years later, the story is largely forgotten.

Emanuel Jaques (1965 - 1977) was a shoeshine boy in Toronto, Ontario, whose sexual assault and murder shocked the city in August 1977.

Emanuel Jaques was the son of impoverished Portuguese immigrants from the Azores. On July 28, 1977, 12-year-old Jaques, who worked daily shining shoes on what was then the seedy Yonge Street Strip, was lured into an apartment above the Charlie's Angels gay body-rub parlour at 245 Yonge Street with the promise of $35 for help moving photographic equipment. He was then restrained and repeatedly sexually assaulted over a period of twelve hours before being strangled and drowned in a kitchen sink.

Several days after Jaques's disappearance, well-known Toronto gay activist George Hislop received a late-night call from Saul David Betesh, who confessed to the murder and told Hislop that Jaques's body had been hidden under a pile of wood on the roof of the building at which he had been abducted. Hislop arranged for Betesh to hire a lawyer, contacted Metropolitan Toronto Police and then persuaded Betesh to turn himself in.

On a tipoff from Betesh, three other men - Robert Wayne Kribs (41), Joseph Wood (26) and Werner Gruener (28) - were arrested on the Super Continental train to Vancouver as it passed through Sioux Lookout Ontario. The three were employed as security doormen at Charlie's Angels. The four were charged with Jaques's murder. According to evidence introduced at trial, Betesh held the boy under water until he drowned while Kribs restrained Jaques's legs. In 1978, Kribs pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and a jury found Betesh guilty of the same charge, while Woods was convicted of second-degree murder, and Gruener, who had held open the door of the body-rub parlour to allow Betesh to bring the boy in, was acquitted.

Jaques's murder stunned and outraged the citizens of Toronto since a crime of this nature was considered unthinkable. It caused many to question how safe the city, and more specifically Yonge Street, really was. Some marked this as the point where Toronto lost its innocence and that its downtown was becoming too squalid.

Numerous protests and marches occurred, demanding that the city clean up the Yonge Street area. Alderman Ben Nobleman of York sent telegrams to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the media encouraging the return of capital punishment.

These protests became a catalyst for shutting down the numerous adult stores, body rub parlours, and shoeshine stands along Yonge Street. Over time, Yonge Street would become a more people-oriented district and new developments such as Dundas Square would revitalize the area.

In October 2002, twenty-five years after the murder, Robert Kribs was denied parole. He is still in jail in 2011 but seeking better conditions such as a trasfer to western Canada.

A touching video was made about the Sunshine Boy and is available at Portuguese stores.
It was produced by Vista Global films and has Dale Brazao as the presenter.
The video does a great job showing the city how it was in 1977.
Many of the buildings have been replaced with newer ones.
The Burger King at 243 Yonge still remains.



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