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Gilbert Paul Jordan: The 'Boozing Barber'

Jun 16
3 min read

Updated: Jun 25

Gilbert Paul Jordan, the Vancouver barber known as the 'Boozing Barber', killed in a way so unusual that for years his crimes were not even recognised as murders. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, he is linked to the deaths of between eight and ten women, whom he killed by forcing or coercing them to drink lethal amounts of alcohol. Most of his victims were vulnerable Indigenous women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and the systemic failure to protect them — and to see their deaths as crimes — places his case at the heart of Canada's reckoning with missing and murdered Indigenous women. Out of respect for the victims, this account avoids graphic detail.

He was the first Canadian known to use alcohol as a murder weapon, and his story is as much about institutional indifference as it is about one man's cruelty.

Gilbert Paul Jordan: The 'Boozing Barber'

Key Facts at a Glance

Full name: Gilbert Paul Jordan
Born: 12 December 1931, Vancouver, Canada
Known as: The Boozing Barber
Victims: Linked to 8–10 women (1960s–1980s), killed by forced alcohol poisoning; mostly Indigenous women
Outcome: Convicted of manslaughter (1988); died in 2006

A career criminal

Born in Vancouver in 1931, Jordan was an alcoholic from his teens and amassed a long criminal record beginning in the 1950s, with convictions for offences including assault, abduction and sexual crimes. He learned the barber's trade during one of his incarcerations and later ran a barbershop in the Downtown Eastside, the impoverished neighbourhood that would become the centre of his predation.

Murder by alcohol

Jordan's method was as deliberate as it was insidious. He sought out women, frequently those already struggling with alcohol dependence, in bars and on the street, and took them to his shop or to hotel rooms. There he plied them with — or forced upon them — extreme quantities of hard liquor, pushing their blood-alcohol levels to fatal extremes. Some victims were found with blood-alcohol concentrations far beyond what is normally lethal.

Deaths dismissed

Because his victims were known to drink heavily, and because they were poor, marginalised and Indigenous, their deaths were repeatedly written off by authorities as accidental alcohol overdoses rather than investigated as homicides. This is the most damning thread of the case: a society that treated the deaths of vulnerable Indigenous women as unremarkable allowed a predator to keep killing for years, even when police were aware of Jordan's recurring proximity to the dead.

Closing in

Over time, the sheer number of women dying in Jordan's company became impossible to ignore. Authorities placed him under surveillance and reportedly recorded him pressuring women to keep drinking, even appearing to urge them toward death. The evidence was enough to bring charges, though prosecuting a murder committed with alcohol — proving intent rather than misadventure — proved legally difficult.

Conviction and release

Jordan was ultimately convicted of manslaughter in the death of one woman and sentenced to a term in prison, later reduced. The outcome — a single manslaughter conviction for a man linked to many deaths — struck many as a profound failure of justice. He served his time, was released, and died in 2006.

The Boozing Barber case has taken on lasting significance in Canada, cited in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as an example of how bias and neglect left Indigenous women unprotected. Behind the grim novelty of his method are real women — daughters, sisters and mothers — whose deaths were too long dismissed. Remembering them, and confronting the systemic failures that endangered them, is the more important part of the story.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many people did Gilbert Paul Jordan kill?

He was convicted in only one death but is linked to the alcohol-poisoning deaths of between eight and ten women in Vancouver.

How did he kill his victims?

He plied or forced vulnerable women to drink lethal amounts of hard liquor, causing fatal alcohol poisoning.

What happened to Gilbert Paul Jordan?

He was convicted of manslaughter, served time, and died in 2006; his case became central to Canada's inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.