Lost Boy

The death of bicycle courier Darcy Allan Sheppard during an altercation on Bloor St. W. with Michael Bryant, the former attorney general, galvanized the city. Criminal charges against Bryant were ultimately dismissed, but even now, four years later, questions about what happened on the evening of Aug. 31, 2009, continue to trouble Sheppard’s adoptive father and his friends in the courier community. They insist there was much more to Sheppard than his public portrayal as an out-of-control “berserker.” In Lost Boy: The Death of Darcy Allan Sheppard Star writer Jennifer Wells explores the life of a charismatic, deeply flawed young man — from foster child to troubled teen to indigent adult and magnetic ladies’ man — whose life ended on a summer evening on Toronto’s most glittering retail strip.

Star Dispatches is a weekly series of quality journalism in ebook form from the newsroom of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper.