June 13, 1971: Law professor murders ex-business partner
When travel agent Bob Neville was found shot dead in his locked downtown office on a Sunday afternoon, police said initial clues pointed to a professional hit by “a hired gun.”
Neville, a 36-year-old married father of three was found lying in a pool of blood at Neville World Travel in the Corona Building at Jasper Avenue and 106th Street. He’d been shot once in the chest and twice in the back with a .32 calibre revolver.
There was no evidence of robbery and no sign of forced entry, which aroused speculation the killer was known by Neville who had let him in.
Neville started World Travel in 1964 in partnership with Keith Latta who was then an Edmonton lawyer. Both had taken out insurance policies on each other naming the other as the beneficiary if one of them died. Neville became the sole owner of the travel agency in 1969, but the insurance policies remained unchanged.
Neville’s wife Karen managed the travel agency’s Honolulu office for six months of the year over winter and was there when her father phoned with the news of her husband’s death. She flew back the next day with their children who were three, nine and 10 years old.
A key and a map of downtown Edmonton with an arrow pointing to the Union Bus Depot was found in the travel agency. It led police to bus locker 55 which contained bullets, an Italian-English dictionary, an Alitalia Air Lines map and other items. The locker was kept under surveillance for 24 hours but no one appeared.
Six police detectives were assigned to the case but could find no motive for the murder.
The day after the murder, Latta phoned Edmonton police saying he had just heard about the murder, had just got back to his home in Ontario from Edmonton, and had valuable information. Neville had just received an extortion threat he told investigators. He and his expartner were supposed to meet the day of the murder, but Neville never called him, he said.
A week after the slaying, Latta, a slight, mild-mannered, 43-year-old law professor at Queen’s University, was arrested as he approached his Kingston, Ont., home where he lived with his wife and five children. He was escorted to Edmonton and charged with Neville’s murder.
The next day a couple walking near Mayfair Park (now Hawrelak Park) found a .32 calibre revolver with the serial number filed off. Police said they believed it was the murder weapon.
By then police also had a motive for the murder. They had found a partial copy of an insurance policy on a copying machine in the office. The policy provided for a $75,000 payment to Latta, if Neville should be killed.
They had also found that finger and palm prints on the items in the bus locker matched Latta’s.
Latta never testified at his trial which ended with his conviction on Dec. 18, 1971. He was sentenced to life in prison, but continued to insist he was innocent as appeals and requests for special investigations dragged on for years.
Latta was released on parole in 1981 after serving a 10-year sentence, most of it at William Head Institution on Vancouver Island.
He remained under the supervision of Correctional Service Canada after his release, living and working quietly in Victoria for the remainder of this life.
Latta died on March 11th, a month before his 86th birthday, his eldest daughter Allyson said.