National Post (National Edition)
‘Puppy man’ went from snug comfort to killer
2014 MURDER WAS ACT OF VENGEANCE
For a time, Boris Panovski was a giant in the dog-handling world, a “puppy man,” earning a good living selling top shootingdogs — setters and pointers — to breeders throughout Canada and the United States, while also competing alongside them, guiding animals through hunting trials at prestigious competitions across North America.
Among Panovski’s successes was a pup named Panovski Silver, a small white-pointer, with floppy ears and black spots, born in 1999. Panovski nurtured the pup for a year before selling it to Don Frigo, a wealthy Toronto-area businessman with a passion for competitive dog-handling. The sale was the first point of contact between the men, a relationship that ended in Frigo’s execution-style murder fourteen years later — on September 13, 2014.
Frigo and his wife, Eva Willer Frigo, were on horseback, returning to a campground in a wildlife conservation area north of London, Ont. Panovski, dressed in camouflage, and unseen, ambushed the couple from the bushes. Blasting Frigo from his saddle with a shotgun to the face, before shooting him a second time in the back of his head. A third blast wounded Eva Frigo, who served as a key witness in a sensational eight-week trial, which ended Friday with Panovski’s conviction of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in Ontario Superior Court in Goderich, Ont.
Panovski maintained his innocence throughout, telling the court prior to trial that he felt “very bad about Ms. Eva that she is injured and that Mr. Frigo has passed away.”
“But I, myself, I am seeking to find out who the murderer is and find out the truth.”
The truth was messy. The truth is Panovski, the celebrated-dog handler, tumbled from grace, a fall that fed a murderous grudge and which occurred right around the time of his greatest triumph in the dog world. Thirteen years ago, the still-muscular looking 73-year-old was on top, and running dogs for Gabe Magnotta, the Ontario wine magnate. The pair reached the apex of the dog trial world with Magnotta’s Red Icewine, a setter Panovski handled to victory in the 2005 National Open Shooting Dog Championship.
But on January 20, 2005, Panovski was arrested in Waynesboro, Ga., a small town south of Augusta that bills itself as the bird dog capital of the world. He was charged with public indecency and pandering after telling his restaurant server that he had been away from his family — and needed help — and then asking the woman if she would be willing to exchange sex for money. Panovski later encountered the woman in a parking lot, and began fondling himself. The charge rocked the field dog community. Panovski was barred from some competitions.
But the most biting consequence was related to Frigo and Panovski Silver. The little white dog grew up to be a dog-world superstar, winning 41 trials and seven championships. In January 2004, Frigo took out an ad in the American Field Journal, the bible of the field dog industry, thanking everyone who had helped along the way, and singling out Boris Panovski with special thanks.
By then, the puppy man was fetching $20,000 a piece for his dogs. He was sought after, a name. After the incident in Georgia, Frigo changed the name of Panovski Silver to Belfield Silver, distancing the animal from its disgraced original owner. A copy of a Georgia state newspaper article with the headline, “Pandering Puts Man in Jail,” was found in Frigo’s possession after his death. Panovski Silver’s name-change, meanwhile, was noted in the American Field Journal — in an issue later discovered in Boris Panovski’s apartment in Toronto’s east end.
Within a year, Panovski had lost his high-profile clients, his kennel, his reputation and his wife. Inwardly, he seethed, with Frigo — and Belfield Silver’s trainer, Mike Hester — the focus of his rage. In the days before the murder, the killer acquired a birdhunting licence, had his 20-gauge shotgun repaired and removed his personalized licence plates — 2NAT CH, for his national championships — from his 1998 Toyota Corolla. He tinted his car windows. On the morning of the shooting, he told his girlfriend he was going hunting northeast of Toronto.
But he headed northwest instead, to a wildlife area near London.
After the murder, Panovski cancelled his insurance, his gym membership, gave away his cars and his gun and withdrew 5,000 Euros from the bank, flying to Macedonia on September 15, 2014, a country he had not been back to in 30 years. A week later, he returned to Toronto, and was arrested as soon as his plane touched down.
On a sweltering Friday in June four years later, the puppy man grinned, slightly, and shook his head at the verdict. Leaning over the prisoner’s box, he motioned to reporters who had been following the case.
“Story, story,” he said, in a heavy accent. “You come to the jail and I talk to you guys.”
Boris Panovski is facing a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.