Barbara Smith - Fatal Intentions: True Canadian Crime Stories

Fatal Intentions

BARBARA SMITH

Fatal Intentions: True Canadian Crime Stories

Copyright 1994 by Barbara Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Hounslow Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Reprography Collective.

Hounslow Press

A member of the Dundurn Group

Publishers: Kirk Howard & Anthony Hawke

Editor: Dennis Mills

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Smith, Barbara, 1947

Fatal intentions

ISBN 0-88882-167-0

1. Murder - Canada. I.Title.

HV6535.C3S55 1994 364.15230971 C94-931402-1

Publication was assisted by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Ontario Publishing Centre of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.

CONTENTS

For

Jim, Joe and Greg

For my grandchildren and their peers -who will need forests as much as books -arrangements have been made to plant a sufficient number of trees to compensate for those used in publishing this volume.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Barry Pearson and Marjorie Lamb for lines from The Boyd Gang. Peter Martin and Associates, Toronto. Copyright 1976. All rights reserved.

Gopher Books for lines from The Robert Cook Murder Case, by Frank Anderson. Copyright 1978. All rights reserved.

Prentice-Hall for lines from The Last Dance, Murder In Canada, by Neil Boyd. Copyright 1988. All rights reserved.

The (Montreal) Gazette for lines by Fern Larosse and other staff writers. Copyright 1949, 1950, 1951. All rights reserved.

The Calgary Herald for lines by a staff writer. Copyright 1978. All rights reserved.

The Winnipeg Free Press for lines by Brian Cole, Bill Holden, Steve Whysall, and staff writers. Copyright 1978 and 1979. All rights reserved.

The Canadian Press for lines written by William Stewart, Oscar Tremblay, Richard Daignault, and other writers. Copyright 1949 and 1950.

T he idea for this book grew from one of my previous books, Deadly Encounters: True Crime Stories of Alberta. My experience with that project had introduced me to crime stories as a unique and legitimate way to look at an areas social history. I wondered if Canadians, generally, would share my perspective, and so I proposed the idea for this book, somewhat tentatively, to Tony Hawke of Hounslow Press. To my delight, Tony immediately responded with equal doses of enthusiasm and support. The venture was underway.

Much to my surprise, Fatal Intentions bears only a little resemblance to the book I initially had in mind. Cases for possible inclusion came and went. Often Id be on the track of a great story only to have the whole thing fall flat somewhere along the way.

In one instance my family and I decided a story was simply too dangerous for me to take on. After well over ten years, an unsolved murder in the Maritimes is actively being investigated very close to my home on the prairies. We agreed that shedding light on a situation that a murderer has successfully covered up, so far, was best left to the police.

Other Canadian crime stories, which on first examination seemed full of twists and turns, failed to stand up under scrutiny. In these cases what Id heard was, apparently, based only in rumour and inuendo terrific stories but certainly not true crime. This was always disappointing, but at least if I ever decide to write fiction Ill have a large supply of plots on hand!

In making the final selections for Fatal Intentions, I tried to choose crimes

that were not only interesting in themselves but also representative of either their time or place, or both. The story of Edwin Boyd and his flamboyant fellow bank robbers is a good example. Their exploits shocked and yet fascinated post-World-War-II Torontonians. Inflation and improved security precautions have since combined to reduce bank robbery from a vocation for high rolling criminals to acts of desperation, and rarely worth the risks involved.

Other situations have changed little. In Alberta, the Robert Cook case of 1959 was echoed 32 years later in the Gavin Mandin case. But, was the last hanging in Alberta a fatal error?

And, of course, the passage of years hasnt altered human beings more base qualities. Greed, jealousy, self-pity, and self-aggrandization continue, as always, to provide motives for crime.

Every attempt has been made to reproduce the stories as accurately as possible. In a few cases, dialogue has been created to clarify situations; however, when it was available I relied on actual accounts. For this reason I am indebted to the painstaking work of many newspaper reporters. Because not all stories in the press carry bylines, some of those reporters must, unfortunately, remain nameless. Others are specified in the endnotes. Whether identified or not, those people have my sincere admiration and thanks.

I would also like to acknowledge the following people:

Barry Pearson turned up one of the few remaining copies of his book, The Boyd Gang, which he co-authored nearly twenty years ago with Marjorie Lamb. The authors also sent me a videotape copy of The Boyd Gang movie, which they also wrote. Both are treasured collectors items. I thank you for those and, in addition, for generously granting copyright permission.

Jack Webster, historian with the Metropolitan Toronto Police, allowed me to borrow documents from the museums Boyd Gang collection. These gave me increased insight and a feel for the story that otherwise would have been missing.

Author Frank Anderson of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was endlessly generous with research material, valuable advice and copyright permission.

Paul Salter and Andrew Geider of Canadian Airlines kindly supplied the photo of the DC-3.

Jo-Anne Christensen of Edmonton arranged for research material from Jim Harrison, news director of CHNL Radio in Kamloops, British Columbia. I thank you both for your support.

Phyllis Beaulieau and Alan Allnutt of the Gazette in Montreal, John Sullivan of the Winnipeg Free Press, and Steve Roberts and Tanis Biedler of the Calgary Herald all went out of their way to see that my copyright permission requests were handled expeditiously.

Research material for the story No Fool Like An Old Fool was purchased from Elizabeth Pacey of Halifax. My thanks, too, to Anne-Marie White of the Halifax Heralds library for her assistance.

Even members of my own family were frequently called into service. My younger daughter, Robyn, did a tremendous amount of early research for me and then, as deadline approached, made several trips to the British Columbia Provincial Archives in order to read and copy archival newspapers. My older daughter, Debbie, read many first drafts and patiently listened to concerns that I was always sure were earth-shattering in magnitude. And most importantly, my husband, Bob, not only offered constant support but also took over specific aspects of information gathering and sorting, thus leaving me free to concentrate on writing. Thank you.