Toronto man sentenced for murdering 66-year-old in apartment building elevator

Warning: This story contains graphic content that some readers may find disturbing.

Margaret Cameron’s two sons never attended Toronto’s Superior Courthouse for the trial of the man accused of murdering their mother in 2019, but on Monday, they both had harsh words for Karl Hoyes, 51, as he was sent away to start serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

“I hope you spend the rest of your life staring at the ceiling being haunted by what you have done. You have taken away a mother, a sister, aunt and grandma from this earth but you can never take her from our hearts. Where you are going, you will never be able to put your hands on another woman again,” Crown prosecutor Rob Kenny said, reading the victim impact statement written by Cameron’s son Gabriel.

Karl Hoyes was a drifter who frequented the Weston and Lawrence Area and who was seen on surveillance video prior to the murder, at a bar just up the street from Cameron’s apartment building, on the afternoon of Dec. 20, 2019.

Margaret Cameron was also there, and at one point, the two appeared to be talking to one another, but Hoyes leaves. Hoyes is later seen returning to the bar and when Cameron gets up a few minutes later, he is seen following her down Weston Road to her building, and onto the elevator with Cameron and another man, ignoring her.

After the other man gets off, and as the elevator approaches the 23rd floor where Cameron lived with her adult son, silent video shown to the jury captures Hoyes smoking a cigarette and talking to Cameron before he unzips his coveralls and approaches her with his penis in his hand. As she tries to defend herself from his advances, he begins to push her, then punch her, before kicking her to the ground, and sexually assaulting her.

Assistant Crown attorney Michael Coristine told the jury in his closing address that Hoyes “pressed one or more elevator buttons approximately 12 times to keep the elevator moving and occupied during the attack” before eventually getting off at the 25th floor and continuing the sex assault which lasted 18 minutes in total.

Hoyes ran off only after another resident interrupted the assault. A bloody picture of Margaret Cameron’s badly beaten body was shown to the jury. She had suffered bleeding of the brain, a fractured throat, bruising of the front neck with underlying muscle hemorrhages, a fractured nasal bone, a bruised lung, multiple fractured ribs, and bruising and hemorrhaging of the eyes and forehead. She was rushed to hospital without vital signs and was later pronounced dead.

Hoyes, who was arrested in a downtown Toronto homeless shelter about six hours after the attack, was still wearing the same coveralls he was seen wearing in the surveillance video from Cameron’s apartment building, and had Cameron’s DNA on his left hand and on the back of his right sleeve cuff.

The jury took less than 30 minutes to reach a verdict of first-degree murder, determined because he committed the murder while forcibly confining Cameron into an elevator and during the course of a sexual assault.

“It was probably one of the most gruesome murders I had seen during my eight years in homicide,” Det. Sgt. Rob North told Global News about the murder investigation, adding it’s likely why Margaret Cameron’s sons avoided coming to court.

The jury was also told it was never clear how well Ms. Cameron and Mr. Hoyes knew one another, something police were unable to establish.

Prior to sentencing Hoyes to the mandatory life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, Madam Justice Jane E. Kelly asked if the 51-year-old wanted to say anything. Hoyes responded, “no.”

Hoyes was also given a weapons prohibition for life, ordered to submit his DNA to a databank, and prohibited from having any contact with Cameron’s two sons. Kelly called Hoyes murder “a horrific crime that he committed in our city.”

Gabriel Cameron had these parting words for his mother’s killer who he called “evil.”

“My heart is broken and we lost our mother to a heartless cold murderer with no care for anyone’s well being,” Cameron said.