DEADLY REVENGE OF ‘PUPPY MAN’
Famed dog handler guilty of client’s murder
For a time, Boris Panovski was a giant in the dog-handling world, a “puppy man”, earning a good living selling top shooting-dogs — 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 14 years later — on Sept. 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 head.
A third blast wounded Eva Frigo, who served as a key witness in a sensational seven-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 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 Jan. 20, 2005, Panovski was arrested in Georgia, and charged with public indecency and pandering after asking his restaurant server if she would exchange sex for money. The charge rocked the field dog community. Panovski was barred from 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. After the incident in Georgia, Frigo changed the name of Panovski Silver to Belfield Silver, distancing the animal from its disgraced original owner.
Panovski Silver’s namechange 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 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 bird-hunting licence, had his 20-gauge shotgun repaired and removed his personalized licence plates 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 gave away his cars and his gun and withdrew 5,000 euros from the bank, flying to Macedonia, 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, and shook his head at the verdict.
Boris Panovski is facing a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.