Nancy Alice Edward Eaton (May 28, 1961 – January 21, 1985) was a Canadian heiress and a member of the prominent

Eaton family The Eaton family is a prominent Canadian family of Scottish-Irish Methodist origin. Established in Toronto, the family dynasty began in 1869 when Timothy Eaton (1834–1907) founded Eaton's, which became a national chain of department stores. At ...

. She was the great-great-granddaughter of

Timothy Eaton Timothy Eaton (March 1834 – 31 January 1907) was an Irish businessman who founded the Eaton's department store, one of the most important retail businesses in Canada's history. Early life and family He was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ir ...

, founder of

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew ...

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s. She was the only daughter of Edward Eaton and Nancy Leigh (Gossage) Eaton of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Murder

On January 21, 1985, Eaton was stabbed twenty-one times and then raped in her Farnham Street apartment in Toronto. An acquaintance of Eaton's, Ernest John Andrew Leyshon-Hughes, also known as Andrew Leyshon-Hughes, who was himself a member of the prominent Canadian Osler family, admitted to murdering her, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was indefinitely remanded to the custody of The Ontario Review Board. In February 2001, Leyshon-Hughes was living at the

Royal Ottawa Hospital The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, also known as "ROMHC" or "The Royal" (formerly the Royal Ottawa Hospital) is a 284-bed, 400,000 square-foot psychiatric hospital located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is a major branch of the Royal Ottawa H ...

and was a student at

Algonquin College Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology is a publicly funded English-language college located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The college serves the National Capital Region and the outlying areas of Eastern Ontario, Western Quebec, and Ups ...

. In 2005, Leyshon-Hughes was discharged from the psychiatric hospital into the community.

In popular culture

In 2003, the television movie ''The Death and Life of Nancy Eaton'' was released.

Jessica Paré Jessica Paré (born December 5, 1980) is a Canadian actress and singer known for her co-starring roles on the AMC series ''Mad Men'' and the CBS series '' SEAL Team''. She has also appeared in the films ''Stardom'' (2000), ''Lost and Delirious' ...

played the part of Nancy. It airs on LMN in the United States and is based on the book ''A Question of Guilt'' by William Scoular. As of 2018 the movie was released online on Encore+.

Murder

In popular culture

References

See also