Ivan Lawrence Wheeler, 27, was working as a taxi driver in London, Ontario, when he was found slumped over in the driver’s seat of U-Need-A-Cab No. 457 in the parking lot near the Highbury Racquets Club during the early morning of February 18, 1977. A patrolling officer discovered the cab at about 5:15 a.m.; at first the scene did not read as an obvious homicide because his parka hood concealed the head wound and a coroner at the scene initially thought he might have had a heart attack. An autopsy revealed a fatal small-calibre gunshot to the back of the head and police later classified the death as a homicide.

The fatal shot entering the back of Wheeler’s head led investigators to consider that a passenger seated behind him might have fired, and people leaving the racquets club around midnight later recalled seeing the taxi with Wheeler’s head against the seat. Police conducted extensive interviews and devoted multiple detective teams to the case, but no arrest or publicly identified suspect has ever been charged. The London Police Service continues to list the case as unsolved and asks anyone with information about Wheeler’s final trip back to London to come forward.