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| Collage of Maria Dolores Bravo from a Photo Police photo |
Downtown Montreal was a mecca for nightclubbers in June of 1979 and 17-year-old Maria "Lolita" Dolores Bravo (aka Brava) would regularly taste disco pleasures in spite of her being underage and having to endure an hour-long bus-and-metro trip downtown from her home near Cremazie and Pie IX.
Maria was known in the discos as Lolita, undoubtedly in tribute to her being an alluring under-18-year-old.
She might even have cultivated the nickname, as it became her go-to reference for acquaintances.
On Friday 18 May Bravo traveled downtown to drop into nightclubs containing dance floors swollen with youth gyrating to disco hits like Le Freak, YMCA, Heart of Glass, and I Will Survive.
Lolita was spotted at four places that night: the Oz (Guy just above St. Catherine), Disco Charlie (in the old Windsor Hotel on Cypress near Peel), Le Rendez-Vous (on Ste. Catherine at Peel, later known as 6/49) and PJ's Cabaret on Peel just about St. Catherine. (Read more about each of these places in my book Montreal 375 Tales).
Whether she was alone or with friends remains unknown and the sequence of her visits is also unclear.
One might assume she started at Guy and strolled the eight blocks east to the other three clubs, all concentrated in a small area.
She did not return to home to 7300 21st Ave. in St. Michel that night and was never seen alive again.
Four days later, on Wednesday May 23, 1979 an employee of Lansing Bagnall Company found her 5'2", 122 lbs, body in a box behind their operations at 10255 Cote de Liesse in Dorval.
An autopsy could not prove police investigators' theory that she had been strangled, nor did they conclude that she had been sexually assaulted. Needle marks seemed evident in her arms but no drugs were found in her system.
Her death was not classified a homicide as police fell back on the default interpretation that she had been dumped at the spot after suffering an overdose.What became of this young woman remains anybody's guess.
Violent gang rapes of women found in nightclubs were not uncommon in those days.
Indeed five men, some with ties to the Irish West End Gang, were nabbed a few weeks later after an organized rape of two young women.
Their capture might have put the brakes on a tradition of sexual assault among that circle.
The always-excellent John Allore points out that Bravo's body was found in the same area as young Tammy Leakey, discovered less than two years later off Lindsay St. in Dorval.
If anybody knows what happened to this young woman please send info to megaforce@gmail.com