Wilson Stairs was always getting into trouble.
In 1958, at the age of 10, he lit a match and dropped it into an abandoned underground gasoline storage tank, causing an explosion.
The blast severely injured 12 year old Andy Beckham who was standing inches away from the pipe.
At the age of 16 Wilson would plead guilty to stealing a car from a car lot, and was sentenced to a year behind bars.
One year later Stairs would be charged with breaking and entering, alongside 2 other accomplices. He would spend another year in jail.
In 1968 Stairs would commit armed robbery, stealing $1000 and holding a man hostage with a sawed-off rifle. His punishment was another five years in prison.
In 1971 after being paroled and clearly not learning his lesson, Wilson Stairs alongside Robert Walter Wicks robbed a gun shop, broke into a So-Use credit union, and bound and gagged an elderly Etobicoke couple in their own home for two hours.
Both men would plead guilty to two charges of robbery and conspiring to break and enter and be sentenced to 15 years.
But Stairs didn’t like prison, and in 1979 he escaped from Collins Bay penitentiary.
While on the run for 8 months he committed a series of armed robberies totaling over $50,000.
These robberies would earn Stairs another 8 years locked up.
But this wouldn’t stop him from escaping prison again.
On August 2nd, 1985 Wilson Stairs was reported missing from the Frontenac Institution.
While on the run, Stairs did what he did best and committed a string of bank robberies in Manitoba and Toronto area with fellow escapee Joseph Edward McCormick.
During one of these robberies the two men posed as police officers and were allowed to enter a CIBC bank before business hours.
They then locked all the employees in the vault and took off with a large amount of cash.
Stairs would remain on the run for two months before being re-captured on Oct. 9, 1985.
Up until this point Wilson Stairs had previously been sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Finally, in March of 1987 a Justice H. Ward Allen would sentence Wilson Stairs to life in prison, calling him a “professional thief” and telling the accused “When you are released there’s every likelihood you will attempt, if not complete, more robberies. My greatest responsibility is to society”
Stairs would pass away at the age of 76 on August 24, 2024 and was incarcerated at Bath Institution at the time of his death.
In a media statement, Correctional Service of Canada said that his next of kin had been notified and police and coroner have been contacted as per their policy.