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Death of a prizefighter: Ricky Zarbatany, jovial journeyman boxer and mob...
Ricky Zarbatarny, a fast-living, hard-slugging, jovial father-of-two and former middleweight prizefighter, who in later years became a henchman for mob real estate developer Tony Magi, died recently...
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How Douglas Dillon, 7, was swept away to sea chasing a hay wagon at Pap and...
Douglas Dillon, 7, the youngest of a family of 10 kids, dashed from his home on Dorchester near Papineau to grab hay from a passing wagon at 11:20 a.m. on a Monday morning 5 January 1925....
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When Montreal's best-known dentist was a Nazi spy
When not pulling teeth, Montreal's best-known dentist plotted fascist victory in Canada and secretly chatted with Germans hovering outside of Montreal in submarine. Dr. Noel Decarie (1893-1968)...
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Botched abortion likely turned Dr. Paul-Emile Lalanne into a raving Nazi...
Abortionist and Adolf Hitler enthusiast, Dr. Paul-Emile Lalanne (1883-1951) was born into a well-to-do Montreal family of five kids. He returned from studying in France in 1911 to open his own...
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Tony Demers: when hard-shooting, hard-drinking former Canadien beat his lover...
Former Montreal Canadien right winger Tony Demers, 32, beat Anita Robert, 32, to death in the Eastern Townships on the night of September 15, 1949. The shocking event was a jawdropper, as the 5'7"...
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Montreal's naked gangster: Ziggy Wiseman insisted on full nudity at top...
Richard Siegfried Wiseman, aka Ziggy Wiseman, met police Sgt. Michel Lepine in a room at a South Shore motel in 1977 and he started stripping out of his clothing. Wiseman then nodded to Lepine to...
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Recent Montreal shocker: Middle-aged man imprisoned for sexual relationship...
Recent court documents shed light on a shocking recent case of a young girl who suffered unimaginable abuse throughout her childhood. Somewhere in Montreal now lives a young woman in her...
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Lake St. Peter is too shallow: how a section of the St. Lawrence has rendered...
Lake St. Peter, aka Lac Saint-Pierre, is different from most lakes insofar as it sits in the middle of a river, namely our St. Lawrence River, the lifeline to Montreal's traditional meal-ticket as a...
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Verses for murder victims: Poetry for people killed in Rosemount
Colombe Nepveu was a 24-year-old blonde who stood 5'4" and weighed 115 lbs and worked at the Provincial Bank at the busy corner of Dollier and Jean Talon East in St. Leonard. On Saturday 3 June 1972...
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Rebel Montreal sea captain Brian Erb's dramatic flight from the Coast Guard -...
Brian Erb's mysterious fate befits his grandiose career as an undersea treasure hunter who once led a dedicated crew to flee the RCMP in an 11-day pursuit up the St. Lawrence River. Erb was born...
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Late great Montreal musician Kenny Hamilton on old time Montreal pimps,...
Kenny Hamilton knew the score. Hamilton who died on October 12, 2017, was not only an accomplished pop musician but he knew all the grittiest Montreal stories and helped immensely making Montreal...
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Mansion-owning hash importer and Verdun trucker's feud over painting by...
Jeffrey White was at home on Bannantyne with his kids one day in 1997 when his father brought over a 10-foot by 4-foot painting. White's father said that he had received it from someone who no...
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Hockey's steal of the century: Why the Lafleur deal might have been crooked
The Montreal Canadiens pulled off the most brilliant deal in NHL history on 22 May 1970 which led them to get the most coveted junior player of his era, the future superstar Guy Lafleur. But did...
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William Mulcahy made international news from a rooftop at Jarry and St. Denis
Montrealers will recognize the distinctive vintage, rounded glass-brick corner that adorns the sturdy structure at the northeast corner of Jarry and St. Denis and from now on you shall think of the...
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Ancient houses on Berri Street tell of a place where hard-drinking stone...
Montreal's fabled Pieds Noirs - Blackfeet - French-Canadian stonemasons from the 1800s, were named in honour of the dirty feet they'd prop up while drinking after a hard day of work. Their story...
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Montreal's elevator thugs: English-speaking union goons thrived in a cesspool...
Warner Baxter elevator union bossIn 1974 a work crew typically needed one or two days to install an escalator. In Quebec, the same job would take up to three months and cost 50 percent more....
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When Montreal police chased and opened fire on a school bus
Police opened fire on a van filled with a dozen young school children on the afternoon of Wednesday 1 October 1975 near the intersection of Pie IX and Ontario, in an incident that left Rouis Sa, 6,...
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Men died so you could ride the Montreal Metro
Construction for Montreal's metro system began in 1962. Massive amounts of digging and building and concrete pouring ensued and it didn't all work out so well for everybody. Here's a list of those...
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That day in 1948 when 2 teens were tragically killed in separate reckless gun...
Saturday 28 August 1948 saw one of the.. nah.. two of the most heartbreaking gun deaths of all time in separate incidents not too far from one another in Southwest Montreal. Alexandre Ayotte, 51,...
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Kevin O'Brien and Jimmy O'Brien - Montreal brothers proved notable for...
Kevin O'Brien in 1972 Kevin O'Brien grew up as part of a four brother-family in a modest home near Campbell Park in Little Burgundy and went on to one of the lengthiest, most successful and yet...
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