Claudia Geburt
Claudia Geburt
Metro’s unsolved murders – Claudia Geburt, who was also spotted by her killer while she was sunbathing, was not as lucky.
Police think someone who watched her sunbathing on the deck of her Leslie St. home in July 1982, attacked her and stabbed her to death. A former boyfriend found her blood-spattered nude body in an upstairs sitting room.
Her fiancé, Charles Boyd, 35, was devastated by the murder. So was Terri Lukow, a close friend of Geburt’s. Two months later, Boyd and Lukow were found dead in a basement apartment on Darlingside Dr. in Scarborough.
Police say Lukow had shot Boyd and then taken her own life. Both had been morose since Geburt’s slaying, friends said.
TO Star February 24, 1983 A17 (10)
Bride-to-be just turned 21 fatally stabbed at her home – But yesterday, on her 21st birthday, a former boyfriend, Martin Beasant, 23, of Brooklyn Ave., called police to say he had found her blood-splattered nude body in her east-end home.
She had been stabbed several times.
Sgt. Don Bell, one of the first detectives on the scene of the slaying, said Beasant told them he had talked to her on the telephone earlier yesterday, then went to see her shortly after 3 p.m.
He said the young man found “all the doors open” in the Leslie St. house, six doors south of Dundas St. and when he went upstairs he found her face down on the floor of a sitting room.
Additional police were called to the area in the later afternoon and searched the yards, bushes and a rear alley for the murder weapon. They questioned neighbours and took (
TO Star July 13, 1982 A1) Beasant and Boyd to 55 Division station at Coxwell Ave. and Dundas St. for questioning.
The old Leslie St. house where Boyd and Geburt had lived for past five months had been broken into twice in the past two or three weeks, her father said. A stereo system, television and Claudia’s jewelry, some of it irreplaceable gifts from her parents, had been stolen.
She had recently quit her job as a computer technician at Marathon Realty in the Toronto-Dominion Centre on King St. W. Boyd, a computer analyst, works there.
The old house where Boyd and Geburt lived had been renovated just before they moved into it and Jim McIndoe, another neighbour, said the improvements might have made it an attractive target for break-ins.
TO Star July 13, 1982 A4 (11)
Fourth slaying in six weeks. Woman stabbed in east-end home – Claudia Geburt, who was naked, face-down, with many stab wounds, was found in her apartment by her former (former?) boyfriend, said Sergeant Donald Bell of Metro Toronto Police.
The former boyfriend, who police said had received a telephone call from Miss Geburt earlier in the day, had gone to the apartment on Leslie Street near Dundas Street at mid-afternoon.
Sgt. Bell said there was no apparent forced entry to the house and the dwelling had not been ransacked. He did not say how long Miss Geburt had been dead. The body was found shortly after 3 p.m., Sgt. Bell said.
Shortly after 6:30 p.m., after police had removed the body from the apartment, two policeman took 9-year-old Danny Wilson of Curzon Street away in a cruiser. One source said Danny told some of the children in the crowd that he had seen a man in blue jeans running from the house yesterday.
Alex Carlos, 24, who lives beside the home, said police went to the Leslie Street apartment two weeks ago. A woman in the home told Mr. Carlos that a television and a radio set had been stolen.
Levy Mayuku, a next-door neighbour confirmed that police had been in the neighbourhood two weeks ago when a number of residents had reported break-ins.
John Kelleway, 15, who lives next door to the home where the woman was killed, said he has seen young people in their 20’s coming and going at all hours to and from the dwelling. “There is a bunch of different people there all the time.”
Globe & Mail July 13, 1982 pg. 5 (5)
Likely will seek bail. Man, 28, is remanded in pantyhose murder – A homicide investigator said both Miss Geburt’s fiancé, Charles Boyd, 35, of Toronto, and her former boyfriend, Martin Beasant, 23, of Toronto, have been questioned by police.
After receiving a telephone call from Miss Geburt earlier in the day, Mr. Beasant went to the Leslie Street apartment where he found the body, police said. Mr. Beasant found several doors to the dwelling open when he arrived.
Globe & Mail July 14, 1982 pg. 4 (7)
Girl, 17, slain in lovers’ lane murder weapon undetermined – Claudia Geburt died on her 21st birthday of multiple stab wounds as a result of what police describe as a vicious attack in an upstairs sitting room of her Leslie St. home.
TO Star October 10, 1982 A7 (8)
Police don’t link break-in, murder – A Toronto man has been charged with breaking into the home of Claudia Geburt, 21, who was stabbed to death in her Leslie Street apartment last week. The apartment, which Miss Geburt shared with her fiancé, was broken into twice last month and jewelry, a stereo and camera equipment stolen. A police spokesman said the man, who also faces four counts of possessing property obtained by crime, is not a suspect in the murder.
Globe & Mail July 20, 1982 pg. 4 (1)
Man charged with theft from slain women – Police have arrested a neighbour of slaying victim Claudia Geburt and charged him with stealing property from her house.
The 23-year-old man was arrested Saturday after police used a warrant to search his home.
A week ago, on her 21st birthday, Geburt was found stabbed to death in the Leslie St. home she shared with her fiancé, Charles Boyd, 35.
Their home had been broken into twice last month and a stereo, camera equipment, Geburt’s jewelry and other items worth $7,770 stolen.
Charged with break, enter, theft and with possession of property obtained by crime is Peter Arthur Clarke, of Leslie St.
TO Star July 19, 1982 A7 (13)
Reasons behind shake-up won’t be revealed – The homicide squad has been under intense pressure to find the killers of Argo cheerleader Jenny Isford, 19 (William Brett Hanson convicted in 1997; Welsh nanny Christine Prince, 25 (unsolved) and Claudia Geburt, 21, who was raped and stabbed to death in her home on July 12.
TO Star August 8, 1982 A3 (2)
$100,000 reward in Isford slaying – Metro police have almost ruled out the possibility that the same person sexually assaulted and killed Isford and two other Metro women, nanny Christine Prince and 21-year-old Claudia Geburt.
Although police will not discuss specific evidence, The Star has learned that laboratory tests of semen indicate the young women were attacked by different people.
TO Star July 16, 1982 A1 (12)
Knew murder victim, couple die in shooting - Miss Geburt died from multiple stab wounds and it was believed she had been raped. Her nude body was found by a former boyfriend, whose name has not been released. She was murdered on her 21st birthday and was to have been married to Mr. Boyd this month.
The former boyfriend had gone to visit Miss Geburt after receiving a call from her earlier in the day. Police said then that there was no forced entry to the east-end house and Miss Geburt’s second-floor apartment had not been ransacked.
Globe & Mail September 3, 1982 pg. 5 (6)
Killing ‘such a waste, such a tragedy – But Geburt said he had been concerned about Boyd since his daughter’s death. First there was Boyd’s attempt to kill himself with a Valium overdose two weeks ago and then puzzling statements he had given in an interview with The Toronto Sun.
“He said he went four times a week with a bouquet of white roses to visit Claudia’s grave. To the best of our knowledge he never went there. We went daily. We never saw him there. The only flowers on the grave were ours.”
A month ago Boyd left Marathon Realty Co. Ltd. where he had been director of management and information systems. He joined Greymae Mortgage Corp. where he was also working as director of management and information systems.
A friend at Marathon said,, “He told us he was leaving for a better job.”
Lukow had rented a room in the Leslie St. house but moved out about the time Boyd and Geburt became engaged.
TO Star September 3, 1982 A4 (15)
The night Terri failed to to call home. 6 months after suicide pact, grieving dad ponders mystery – When the police told Stan Lukow she was dead – and that she had rigged a rifle to kill herself after shooting her friend Charles Boyd – it began a nightmare of grief that still puzzles and unnerves her father.
“Everything is so bizarre,” he says. “We never had a gun. She wouldn’t know one end of a gun from the other. How would she figure to put a gun on a chair and use a stick to pull the trigger?”
Terri (Luckow), a computer clerk for a Toronto firm, had rented a room for three months in the Leslie St. house Geburt shared with Boyd. The Oshawa woman, a former figure skater and skating teacher, moved back to her parents’ home six weeks before Claudia’s murder, and commuted to work to save money for her own wedding planned for August.
Terri and Boyd were both distraught after the murder. Boyd, 35, had attempted suicide with an overdose of Valium and Terri spent many hours looking after him.
The bodies were found in the basement, both shot in the heart. Suicide notes and empty liquor bottles were nearby.
Police believe Terri used a piece of wood to activate the trigger of the .303 rifle set up on a chair and pointed at her.
Other odd factors haunt Lukow. “I named her Terry with a ‘y’ at the end. But she later changed it to Terri with an ‘i’. Her note was scribbled with different ink, like she wrote it at different times. And she signed it “Terry.” I keep wondering why?”
Terri was to be formally married to Steve Joness last August 14. She’d dated him for four years, and they had secretly married last June in Toronto City Hall, but the large wedding was planned to please her family.
Terri spent her vacation running back and forth to Toronto, taking Chuck to his psychiatrist appointments.
“We could see she was running herself ragged. She was worried about Chuck and worried about how Steve felt about it all.”
Terri postponed the big wedding a week before its date, but went ahead with choosing an apartment in Kitchener to live with her husband when he went back to University of Waterloo in the fall, Lukow said.
Four days before her death she went to a Oshawa doctor for “nerve pills.” Lukow says the doctor told his wife Terri planned to get away for a week by herself. She told the doctor that Boyd was dragging her down.
TO Star March 7, 1983 A3 (14)
Daughter would not kill self unless told to, father says – Stanley Lukow can only believe that his daughter, Terri, shot her friend to death and then committed suicide because the friend told her to.
Her friend, Charles Boyd, was also found dead in the same Scarborough house. Metro Toronto Police say Miss Lukow shot Mr. Boyd through the heart with a high-powered rifle, then turned the gun on herself, shooting herself in the chest.
Police say both of the deceased had been extremely depressed since the death of Claudia Geburt.
Mr. Boyd, 35, was to have married Miss Geburt later this month and had been sharing an apartment with her on Leslie Street at the time of her death. Miss Lukow, 21, was one of her closest friends and at one time also lived in the Leslie Street house.
Mr. Lukow said his daughter moved back to the family’s home in Oshawa about six weeks before Miss Geburt was murdered. Miss Lukow, who was secretly married to a Whitby man in May, has planned to have a church ceremony on Aug. 14. The wedding was called off because of Miss Geburt’s death.
“Terri was very close to Claudia,” Mr. Lukow explained.
According to Staff Inspector Wally Tyrell of the Metro Police homicide squad, Mr. Boyd was at work the day that Miss Geburt’s body was found.
Mr. Lukow said Mr. Boyd was depressed and would talk of suicide.
Staff Inspector Tyrrell said the notes found at the scene “will give us nothing new” to help solve the Geburt murder. One note was written by Miss Lukow, and the other by Mr. Boyd.
Globe & Mail September 4, 1982 pg. 5 (4)
‘Quite often very boring’ Solving Metro murders unlike TV police work – A well-known 1982 case most probably falls into the love-triangle category, Staff-Sergeant Jack Press of the Metro Toronto Police Homicide squad says.
“There’s a lot of tragedy associated with that one, that’s for sure – about a month later her fiancé and best girl friend were found shot to death. It probably goes without saying, there’s not a lot of leads left on that case.”
Globe & Mail, September 2, 1986 pg. A15 (9)
Convicted sex offender charged in 1982 killing – Ms. Geburt’s homicide, though not officially solved, was linked to a love triangle after her fiancé and a close girlfriend were found shot to death in an apparent murder-suicide a month later.
Globe & Mail May 19, 1995 pg. A9 (3)
Notes and questions:
- How was entry made? “No apparent forced entry to the house and the dwelling had not been ransacked” Apartment was on second floor. According to the ex-boyfriend who found her, he “found several doors to the dwelling open when he arrived.” Globe & Mail July 14, 1982 pg. 4
- If it really was rape as reported in the TO Star August 8, 1982 that means a male was involved. So if her friend Terri Lukow was the killer, who was the male? Can’t be her fiancé, Charles Boyd as he was at work. Globe & Mail September 4, 1982 pg. 5
- Where was Terri Lukow at the time of the murder?
- Who was Terri Lukow’s husband? Answer: Steve Joness
- Where was Steve Joness at the time of the murder and did he know Claudia? If he was dating Terri for that long (4 ½ years) he probably did.
- Why was there no further report of the “man in blue jeans running from the house yesterday.”? It was the day before so was that another robbery attempt? Globe & Mail July 13, 1982 pg. 5
- “Young people in their 20’s coming and going at all hours to and from the dwelling.” Was someone dealing drugs? Globe & Mail July 13, 1982 pg. 5 Big question is, who were these young people coming and going and why? Seems only her ex-boyfriend who found her may be able to answer that.
- Another article Globe & Mail September 3, 1982 pg. 5 states “Miss Lukow was a friend of Miss Geburt and living with her at that time of her death.” Meanwhile other articles state “Mr. Lukow said his daughter moved back to the family’s home in Oshawa about six weeks before Miss Geburt was murdered.” Globe & Mail September 4, 1982 pg. 5 So was Terri Lukow living with Geburt or with her parents? Seems she moved out about six weeks prior to the murder of Claudia.
- Seems there was a sample (semen) that was found. Is there enough to have been tested for DNA and if so is it in the ViCLAS database? TO Star July 16, 1982 A1
- If Claudia quit her job recently, did she have another job lined up?
