On All Saints Day 1961, Bonnie Hawkes went to a local store and bought a pair of shoes as a birthday gift for her husband Harry. He was a away on a business trip in Toronto but was planning to return home to their home in Connecticut that weekend to celebrate his birthday.

At home later that day when Bonnie was wrapping her husband's present, she discovered the box contained only one shoe. Thinking she may have dropped its partner, she searched the house and driveway to no avail before deciding to call the shoe store. She was just about to dial when the phone rang. It was the Canadian authorities with tragic news.

That morning her husband Harry had been working in the downtown area of Toronto when a shoe had fallen from a high window, striking him on the back of the head and killing him outright.