Phillip Watts, 11, put on his I Love K-Mart t-shirt, donned a jacket and boots and braved the -14C morning in the dark at 5:30 a.m. on January 7, 1977 to deliver a big stack of Montreal Gazette newspapers around his home in St. Laurent.Watts had been delivering newspapers for only a few weeks after taking the route over from one of his five brothers. He sought to make some money for Christmas presents and kept the route after the holidays.
After doing his rounds, Phillip was headed for the Westbrooke Elementary School where Principal Stewart Lough had been planning to recommend that he skip a year, as he was deemed very bright.
Watts had delivered all but four of his papers when he was confronted near his home. Someone stabbed the boy 12 times in the neck at around 7 a.m. and fled.
Watts died at the scene.
The only clue to the killer's identity was a pair of size eight shoes or boots.
One newspaper quoted a police detective saying that the killer's footprints northwest about 400 metres until becoming indiscernible. The police report notes, however, that the footprints became impossible to follow just four houses down at 2110 Patricia, about one minute walk, or about 90 metres away.
The killer seems to have been headed towards busy Henri Bourassa.Neighbour Gerard Belanger was getting ready to go to work when he spotted Watts' 4'9" blood-covered, 80-pound body, with arms crossed over chest.
The child's boots had come off after he was dragged 15 feet to a more secluded area where he was discovered behind 2010 Patricia, about 200 feet from his own home at 2020 Connaught.
Watts had not been sexually assaulted and had no money to rob, indeed he had two dollars in one pocket and one in the other, He had no known enemies.
The boy's father Clive Watts, who worked at the Canadian National Railway, and his wife, the former Noreen Shirley House, were active in Protestant churches, as were their six boys and one girl.House had been battling cancer at the time of her son's death and she died four years later.
Police questioned a number of suspects but all were released without charges.
The Montreal Gazette reported on the death of its newspaper delivery boy, as did other media outlets but a TV show called The Fifth Estate interviewed the family briefly in a segment angled to accuse newspapers of glossing over subjects that might reflect badly on them.
Montreal newspapers later abandoned the longstanding practice of allowing minors to deliver newspapers, Some claim the new policy was a direct result of the killing.
A special coroners inquest looked into the child's death four months later, noting that the boy died of perforations to heart, lungs and carotid artery.
But the murder was never solved.
Sam Watts, who heads the Welcome Hall Mission, was 15 at the time of his brother's death.
He tells Coolopolis that he and his brothers and sister (Esther, James, Stephen, Joseph and Jonathan) never got any insight into who might have committed the grisly and inexplicable act.
The only clue, the size eight shoes, would suggest that the killer was likely small of stature, or might even have been a minor.
If anybody has any clues or information please contact police or write megaforce@gmail.com.