Those who knew Byron Carr never forgot him, former students say

John Jamieson remembers running into Byron Carr outside the Tim Hortons on Kent Street in Charlottetown either the day before Carr was murdered on Nov. 11, 1988, or on the very day he died.

Carr had taught Jamieson English at Montague Regional High School a few years before, and was happy to catch up with his former student.

They talked about the weather and "the stuff you chitchat about," Jamieson said, but he also asked about Jamieson's work and how he was doing.

"Even after you were no longer his student, he was still interested in what you were up to," he said in an interview on Monday

That's a common sentiment shared among Carr's friends and students, who were horrified by his strangling death back in 1988. Many of them were watching closely last Friday when Charlottetown police held a news conference to announce 56-year-old Todd Joseph Gallant had been charged with first-degree murder in the case, 35 years later.

Jeffrey Haight was listening at the business he co-owns in Earnscliffe, The Boys Comfort Cuisine.

"We just whooped and hollered and slammed our fists on the counter and it was like, 'Yes!' It was almost like we won a sports event or something. And then I just started to cry because it was that closure that the gay community needed. So we were so excited, so elated."

Haight was a student of Carr's at Montague High. Like Carr, Haight was a gay person who kept his sexuality secret because that's what many felt they had to do in the 1980s. He said Carr, who was only 36 when he was killed, had a "heart of gold" and could speak with students on their level.

"He knew I was gay. I kind of knew he was, but... it was just more of a professional thing. For him, it really would be bad if he hung around [a] gay student, and that was just unspoken."

They became friends after Haight graduated in 1986. Carr's death two years later prompted Haight to move to Montreal, where he felt safer living as a gay man.

Haight lived in Montreal for 17 years before moving back to the Island a few years ago.

He said that for him, the long-awaited arrest in the case is a public acknowledgement of the hate the community faced, and something he hopes society can learn from.

"This door is going to open up from this case," he predicted. "People are going to listen to what it was like back then and they're going to listen to why Byron was killed.

"Like, why was this situation created? Well, it was because society didn't let us be us and we had to live in the shadows. And when you live in the shadows, you meet certain people you should not be around."