What Happened to Mickey?. Peter McSherry

      Dedication

      This book is in memoriam of six friends who helped me a lot in life:

      Rick Fielding, Denyse Guite, Bertram J. Hawkins,

      Donald Ardene Heeney, Horst Reim, and Barbara Sears.

      A WORD ABOUT NAMES

      The subject of this book was born Donald John MacDonald, but started calling himself Donald McDonald in his teens, then Michael McDonald in his twenties. After a time he was known as “Mickey.” He married as Donald John MacDonald and was charged with murder and some later offences under that name. His two wives used the name “MacDonald,” never “McDonald,” even when they lived with him while he was “McDonald.” His criminal brothers, Alex and Edwin, always used their proper name, “MacDonald,” but, inevitably, were sometimes referred to as “McDonald” in the press, as Mickey too most often was. Other misspellings of Mickey’s surname — Macdonald, M’Donald — inevitably appeared as well. In this work, I have referred to him as “Mickey McDonald” except when he was otherwise under indictment as MacDonald or there was some other specific reason to do otherwise.

      Similarly, there appears in Part II of this book a character who was born Nicholas Minnelli and later came to spell his name “Minelli.” He was in Kingston Penitentiary as “Minnille” and his name sometimes appeared as that in the press. In this book he is “Minelli” except where it is otherwise warranted.

      Four of the names used in this work are pseudonyms. Their use in the text was part of the cost of getting information that would otherwise not have been available. Jenny Law, who was a major source for my first book, The Big Red Fox: The Incredible Story of Norman “Red” Ryan, Canada’s Most Notorious Criminal, had things to say about Mickey, too, and though she has long since passed away, I have continued our pact regarding the protection of her real identity.

      The name of Roy “Binky” Clarke, who was undoubtedly the most valuable and enduring source in this work, is also a pseudonym. He passed away in 2011 after being a constant source of information, a close advisor, and a personal friend for 33 years.

      Of those I approached who were associates of Mickey few would talk at all, and none of the MacDonald family, understandably, was interested in participating. Ulysses Lauzon, one of Mickey’s partners in the Kingston Penitentiary escape of August 1947, had previously robbed banks with a youth who I have given the name “Joe Poireau.” Joe, who has long-since rehabilitated himself, spoke with me forthrightly but wanted his family protected with a pseudonym — and, tacitly, that included the name of his sister, Elaine, who was involved in the story as well.

      BOOK I

      Gangland Toronto, 1939:

       The Days of Mickey

       and Kitty Cat McDonald

      CHAPTER ONE

      The Murder of Jimmy Windsor

       (Saturday, January 7, 1939)

      The murder of Jimmy Windsor, bookmaker and racketeer, on Saturday, January 7, 1939, frightened the City of Toronto as few other murders have ever done.

      So far as the Toronto Police knew, Windsor was merely one of the city’s estimated 1,500 bookmakers, bigger than most, smaller than some. By reputation, in a dozen years of operation, he had not once been convicted of registering and recording bets. In August 1938, the police had raided Windsor’s home at 247 Briar Hill Avenue in North Toronto, but they found no evidence of anything illegal. According to Inspector of Detectives John Chisholm, James Windsor did not have a police record.

      Windsor worked his handbook business from the White Spot Restaurant at 530 Yonge Street, a block south of Wellesley Street West.[1] He took few wagers directly and only accepted bets on horse races. He insulated himself by using runners who worked on commission to pick up bets at factories, barber shops, and cigar stores, where most of his “action” was actually placed. Six days a week, he would meet some or all of his commission men, usually at the White Spot, usually in the late morning. Information and money were guardedly exchanged over coffee or a light meal. If such a meeting lasted three quarters of an hour, it was a lot. This was in 1936, 1937, and 1938.

      He was a dapper little man, jaunty of step, always well-turned out in a tailored suit and well-polished shoes. To a lot of people, he was “Mister Windsor.” Sure, he was friendly enough; he would toss off a “Hi, how are you?” to almost anybody who spoke to him, but that was usually the end of it, unless, of course, there was some business to conduct. He seemed, though, to badly want people to know he was doing well — or so some who knew him said, then and later. There was all the jewellery that he wore — a gold diamond-studded wristwatch, a diamond tie-pin, and a gold ring with a large diamond centrepiece. At times, he was indiscreet enough to flash a fat roll of bills in public. He seemed not to see the hungry eyes of some of his casual watchers or, if he did see, didn’t mind dangling his own success, real and imagined, before them.[2] This, in a Yonge Street walk-in-and-eat-for-15 cents restaurant, at the tail end of the Great Depression, when unemployment was everywhere, when wages were nothing, and relief was a bag of rolled oats and a few tins of whatever was cheap.

      Saturday, January 7, 1939, was the last day of James Windsor’s 46 years of life. Before noon, he drove his 1937 Chrysler Imperial downtown from his North Toronto home and parked not far from the White Spot. Then, together with Lorraine Bromell, his 19-year-old live-in girlfriend, Windsor went in to collect from “Mr. Phillips” and one or two of his other bet runners. The restaurant clientele surely noticed, as before, Lorraine’s attractiveness, the manner in which she wore fine clothes, the jewellery she was dripping, and must have concluded, as at other times, that “Mr. Windsor” was a man of accomplishment.

      In another compartment of his life, the bookie owned the Windsor Bar-B-Q, a barbecue-dance hall that his adult son, Jack, operated on Yonge Street north of Sheppard Avenue, in the suburban Village of Lansing.[3] This business, which opened in 1936, had acquired an unsavoury reputation due to noise and fighting around it late at night. After the tap rooms in the city closed at midnight, big cars full of men, including many Italians, often showed up there in search of whatever was on offer. On the recommendation of North York Chief Constable Roy Riseborough, the North York Township Council had recently “blue lawed” Windsor’s business.[4] Thus, an 11:45 p.m. closing on Saturday nights, and a 12:45 a.m. closing during the week, were now being rigidly enforced. The slot machines that Windsor previously had there had already been forced out. All of which meant the Windsor Bar-B-Q was leaking money badly.

      This last day, Windsor made an afternoon call at the home of Morgan Baker, member of the provincial legislature for North York, in the Town of Stouffville. He went there asking for Mr. Baker’s help in getting a wine and beer license for the barbecue-dance hall. For a full hour, between 3 and 4 p.m., Windsor appealed to Baker, calmly, coolly, affably, while Lorraine sat alone, outside, in the Chrysler Imperial on a frosty January afternoon. He got nowhere. Baker spoke of the bookie’s “downtown business,” which he maintained was much-talked-about in Lansing, and said that North York already had too many licensed establishments. He advised Windsor to take the matter up with the liquor board himself.

      Windsor’s last stop of the day was the barbecue. Whatever else he went there for, he took a few minutes to sing songs with his son, Jack, and two employees. “A regular barbershop quartet,” one of the participants later said.

      At 7:20 p.m., James Windsor was comfortably seated at the kitchen table of his North Toronto home, in company with his two married half-sisters, Evelyn McDermott and Edith Warner; his young brothers-in-law, John V. “Jack” McDermott and Edward Warner; and Lorraine Bromell. The household was just