Part 2: The Rogues’ Gallery (Dec 26)
Ranked from bad to worst, the four criminals who scaled the wall of Toronto’s Don Jail and hopped into a conveniently idling cab on the night of December 25, 1981, were Randolph “Randy” Garrison, Brian William Bush, Andre Hirsh, and Terrance “Terry” Derek Musgrave. All of them were in their 20s. All had based their criminous activities in Toronto or neighbouring cities like North York (not part of the city of Toronto at the time), and their combined rap sheets contained more than 80 offences.
Randy Garrison of Toronto, aged 23, had received a three-year prison sentence for robbing a Kingston Road service station in 1979 and was facing a further trial at the time on charges of robbery and assault causing bodily harm.
Brian Bush was a 27-year-old Scarborough man awaiting trial on charges of armed robbery and possession of a restricted weapon. Bush’s claim to fame — or infamy — was his membership of the Dirty Tricks Gang, so called because of the creative diversionary tactics they adopted while carrying out their heists. Their preferred modus operandi when making a getaway by car was to scatter planks or lengths of hose studded with nails on the roadway to puncture the tires of pursuing vehicles. Bush was arrested after an abortive robbery at a Royal Bank branch in Leaside. Metro Toronto Police had received a “vague tip” that something might be going down, and they were waiting outside the bank as the masked bandits fled with their haul of around $24,000. In the firefight that ensued, police shot one of the robbers dead and wounded two others. Bush was arrested in Yorkville after a high-speed car chase through the city.
Andre Hirsh of Toronto, aged 24, was awaiting trial on a charge of first-degree murder after a bungled holdup at a Weston Road jewelry store in May 1981. When confronted at gunpoint during the robbery, the store owner, 38-year-old Frank Abrams, had flatly refused to hand over any money or jewelry. He was shot outside his store while trying to wrest the firearm from his attacker. A group of bystanders chased Hirsh as he fled and brought him down. Hirsh told police that Abrams “had it coming to him,” adding, “the guy had to play Joe Hero.” Abrams had threatened to fetch his dogs, “so I unloaded on him…not in the head or heart but in the stomach.” The truth was starkly different: Abrams was shot three times, including once through the heart.
And at the top (or bottom) spot, at very worst, was self-confessed killer Terry Musgrave, a 25-year-old from North York. The brutal murder had horrified the city back in January 1981. The victim was Catherine Maruya, the 43-year-old owner of a ceramic studio in North York, who was found bound and gagged at her workplace. She had been stabbed 28 times with a pair of scissors and strangled. Musgrave, described by the prosecutor at his trial as “a cold-blooded killer,” had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He had received an automatic life sentence and was being held at the Don pending the judge’s decision as to the minimum time he would serve.
