Kathleen McLaughlin

While working the streets in downtown Toronto, Kathleen McLaughlin went by a handful of aliases: Katherine Lyle, Katherine Moore, and Katherine Descoteaux.

To her family, she was simply Kathleen McLaughlin, a 33-year-old mother of three.

Kathleen's body was found by surveyors in a cornfield near Warden Avenue, south of Highway 7, in Markham on July 31, 1979. An autopsy later determined that she had died as a result of blunt-force trauma.

She was last seen alive more than one month earlier, on June 27 in Toronto's Cabbagetown neighbourhood, where she worked as a prostitute. Police believe she may have got into a vehicle in a hotel parking lot near Sherbourne and Carlton Streets in the dark of night.

That vehicle, possibly brown or cream coloured, was never identified.

Points of Interest