Christine Demeter (; 1940 – July 18, 1973) was murdered in the garage of her home in

Mississauga Mississauga is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto (Etobicoke) to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada, at the age of 33. The case attracted much attention in Canada because Demeter, a model, was considered to be young and beautiful, and her murder had been mysterious. The case was investigated by Detective William Teggart (who would later rise to police chief) of the

Peel Regional Police The Peel Regional Police (PRP; ) provides policing services for Peel Region (excluding Caledon) in Ontario, Canada. It is the second largest municipal police service in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, and the third largest municipal force b ...

. Demeter's husband, Peter Demeter, was subsequently convicted, seventeen months after the killing, of hiring a killer to murder her to cash in on a million-dollar insurance policy. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. He later received a second life sentence for unrelated criminal acts; as of May 31, 2010, then 77 years old, he was still in prison in Ontario.

George Jonas George Jonas, CM (June 15, 1935 – January 10, 2016) was a Hungarian-born Canadian writer, poet, and journalist. A self-described classical liberal, he authored 16 books, including the bestseller '' Vengeance'' (1984), the story of an Israeli ...

and his then-wife

Barbara Amiel Barbara Joan Estelle Amiel, Baroness Black of Crossharbour, DSS (born 4 December 1940), is a British-Canadian conservative journalist, writer, and socialite. She is married to former media proprietor Conrad Black. Early life and career Amiel wa ...

, published a book about the case, ''By Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter'' (1976). The Demeter case served as the basis for the fictional 1978 film ''

I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses ''I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses'' (also known as ''Drop Dead, Dearest'' and ''Left for Dead'') is a 1978 Canadian drama mystery film based on the Peter Demeter murder case. The film is one of the infamous " Video Nasties", and is the first film sco ...

'', directed by Murray Markowitz. The victim is renamed Magdalene Kruschen and is played by German actress

Elke Sommer Elke Sommer (; née Schletz, 5 November 1940) is a German actress. She appeared in numerous films throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including roles in ''The Pink Panther'' sequel '' A Shot in the Dark'' (1964), the Bob Hope comedy '' Boy, Did I ...

References

"Wife-killer loses DNA legal battle"
''The Whig-Standard'', 30 May 2006. 1940 births 1973 deaths Canadian murder victims Female murder victims Murder-for-hire cases People murdered in Ontario People murdered in 1973 {{Canada-model-stub