Murder of Patricia Ann Lupton
The murder of Patricia Ann Lupton was the unsolved killing of a 12-year-old girl in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, on March 9, 1959. Lupton left home after a man who identified himself as "Mr. Johnson" telephoned her about a babysitting job. She was found strangled beside McCowan Road less than two hours later. No one has been arrested in connection with her death.
The case is the oldest homicide in the Toronto Police Service's cold-case files for which sufficient records remain to support a prosecution.
Luring and murder
Lupton had placed her name on a supermarket bulletin board seeking babysitting work. On the evening of March 9, a man responding to the notice called her family's home and addressed her by name. Contemporary reporting placed the call at about 6 p.m. and said that Lupton left approximately half an hour later to meet him at a nearby store. According to a later account by the Toronto Police Service, she was last seen leaving her residence for Kennedy Park Plaza sometime after 5:30 p.m.
The caller identified himself as "Mr. Johnson" and told Lupton that he would collect her from the store, take her to babysit his children and return her there later that night. When Lupton did not return home, her family contacted police.
At about 7:05 p.m., police responded to an emergency call on McCowan Road south of Ellesmere Road. Lupton was found off the roadway with severe injuries. Emergency personnel attempted to revive her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Contemporary reports stated that she had been beaten and strangled and that her body was still warm when it was discovered in a snowbank.
Lupton's clothing was disarranged, although investigators found no evidence that she had been raped. Police said that there were signs she had struggled with her attacker. A broken automobile horn ring was found near her body, leading investigators to consider whether she had been killed inside a vehicle and the ring had broken during the struggle. Items of clothing were sent for forensic examination.
Lupton was buried at Woodland Cemetery, located at 700 Spring Garden Road in Burlington, Ontario.
Investigation
The initial investigation did not identify the caller or produce a witness who could say that they had seen Lupton with him. By 1961, her police file recorded that all leads and possible suspects had been checked without result. The killing consequently became a cold case.
In 2016, Lupton's case was included on a new Toronto police cold-case website intended to generate tips from the public. At that time it was the oldest case listed on the site. The police cold-case unit was digitizing older files and re-examining retained evidence with the Centre of Forensic Sciences to determine whether newer forensic methods could produce leads.
Toronto cold-case detective Steve Smith said in 2021 that the passage of more than six decades made the case difficult to solve, but that police did not consider it closed. As of 2026, the Toronto Police Service continued to list Lupton's death as homicide number 2 of 1959 and appealed for information from the public.
See also
- List of unsolved murders
- Murder of Alison Parrott, the 1986 murder of another Toronto girl who was lured by telephone