Edwin Alonzo Boyd

by Brian Vallee

  On Saturday morning the Montreal police found Suchan’s Chrysler on the used car lot. When they opened the suitcase he had left with the dealer, they found two Thompson sub-machine-guns, two revolvers, and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition. This discovery made them very nervous, and they quietly put out a shoot-to-kill order to all their officers in the continuing hunt for Boyd and Jackson.

  The Toronto and Montreal police withheld the news of Suchan’s capture for two or three hours while officers conducted a series of raids in and around Montreal, working on tips that did not pan out. By the morning both the Star and the Telegram had the story and reporters were flooding into Montreal. Once again there was blanket coverage.

  All of the Toronto dailies followed the practice of dashing off first-person articles, complete with by-lines, for police officers involved in major crime stories. Reporters would do a quick interview and write a first-person story, often embellished, with the policeman’s name attached to it.

  Jocko Thomas, the Star’s senior crime reporter at the time, says that “a lot of the Boyd Gang exploits got these giant headlines because of this competition for circulation, but it was complete excitement – twenty-four hours a day. There was always something going on. And don’t forget, a very good policeman – a good man – was shot in cold blood. He didn’t even have time to get his gun out. There was great outrage and great pressure on the police to catch these guys.”

  Page 1 of Saturday’s Telegram ran a photo of Suchan on a stretcher on his way to the hospital. The paper also did a bit of self-promotion, running a three-column photo of Dolph Payne and Detectives Kenneth Craven and Doug Chapman studying wire photos of Suchan in the Telegram office with police reporter Tom Williams. And reporter Herbert Biggs had another of his death-watch stories from Eddie Tong’s hospital room, reporting that Tong’s condition had worsened:

  Mrs. Tong who yesterday was smiling and seemingly confident her husband would live, was quiet and sad-faced, and maybe a little bitter.… Her eyes are anxious but there are no tears as she draws a damp cloth across his forehead.

  Tong’s eyes are shut tight. He breathes with difficulty. His breathing, sounding almost like groans, strikes terror into the heart of his wife.

  At the top of page 2 there were three large head shots of Suchan, Jackson, and Boyd. Above the photos of Jackson and Boyd, in heavy black type, was the word HUNTED. Above Suchan’s photo, in the same type, was the word CAUGHT. There was also a large X crossed through Suchan’s face.

  In its Friday late edition, the Star had run a photo of Jackson touched up by one of its artists to include horn-rimmed glasses and a moustache. On Saturday, at the bottom of page 1, they ran the photo again, quoting the wounded Roy Perry exclaiming, “That’s him to a ‘T’.” The Star proudly announced that when police officials learned of Perry’s reaction “they decided to use the Star picture in the manhunt for Jackson.”

  Also on Saturday’s page 1, the Star ran photos of Suchan under police guard in hospital, an exterior shot of his apartment building, and a photo of Detective Dauphin, who was given a by-line for a “first person” account of the shoot-out under this two-column headline: ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU FINISH ME?’ / WOUNDED SUCHAN / ASKS MONTREAL POLICE. And there was a short item about Mayor Allan Lamport calling for a day of prayer for Tong’s recovery. “I am appealing to all churches to offer special prayers tomorrow for the recovery of the gallant police officer who is fighting for his life.…”

  The morning after Suchan was shot, Jack Gillespie was at home when a call came from work. “Get packed,” he was told, “you’re going out of town for a few days.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “Bill Thompson will pick you up, and he’ll tell you.”

  Thompson was a sergeant of detectives and Gillespie’s partner at the time. Thompson told him they were going to the airport for a flight to Montreal. Flying with them was the Star’s Jocko Thomas. Gillespie, a white-knuckle flier, couldn’t wait to land. They wanted him in Montreal because he was one of the few officers who knew Tough Lennie Jackson by sight. He and Thompson were met by Montreal police and booked into the Laurentian Hotel. Montreal newspapers got word of Gillespie’s arrival, and his photo was in the papers the next day. At a hastily arranged press conference he said he was there to capture Lennie Jackson.

  Lennie and Ann Jackson had not ventured from their single-room Lincoln Avenue basement apartment, and it wasn’t until 2 p.m. Saturday that they heard on the radio that Steve Suchan had been shot down and arrested at his apartment, just over a block away. Ann wept when she heard the news, realizing the police might come for her husband any minute. Lennie became despondent.

  “Val was only a kid,” he said, pacing the room. “Let’s get out of here for a while.” They got into the Oldsmobile, drove around the city for an hour or so, took in an early movie, and returned to the apartment after dark. Everything seemed normal, but Lennie was feeling smothered. He knew his options were quickly dwindling.

  “I should sell the car and give you the money,” he said.

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll get out of here. I’ll just go away.”

  “Do you think you would have a better chance on your own?” asked Ann.

  “There’s not much chance either way,” he sighed.

  “Well, I want to stay with you.”

  Lennie was touched by his wife’s loyalty. They had a baby on the way. He had to pull himself together and think things through.

  “The first thing is to get some money,” he said. “That means selling the car.” He knew they had to move quickly, and he sent Ann up to see their friend Sidney Backman. She arranged for Backman to come to the apartment on Monday morning to discuss the car with Lennie.

  All day Sunday they stayed in the apartment. Lennie loaded his .32–20 calibre Colt revolver and a P-38 automatic pistol and kept them on the floor beside his chair with a supply of ammunition.

  On Saturday, caretaker Henri Côté went to the apartment of Fred Wilson (he knew Jackson by that alias) and asked if could borrow a bed for his father-in-law, who was visiting for the weekend. While he was in the apartment, Côté noticed that Wilson had shaved off his moustache and was no longer wearing glasses. He also noticed that there were no blankets on the beds, and that three suitcases were lined up between them. Jackson helped him remove one of the beds.

  Sidney Backman arrived at Jackson’s apartment as promised on Monday morning and said he would do what he could to sell the Oldsmobile. He left with the keys, promising to return on Wednesday. Ann went out for Monday’s newspapers, and Lennie became more despondent when he saw Jack Gillespie’s photo and read of the detective vowing to get him. He sat in his chair with his revolver tucked into his pants and the automatic pistol in the briefcase beside him, and hoped Sidney Backman showed up before Gillespie.

  On Sunday night, Henri Coté and his wife, Laurette, were reading the Gazette when they saw photos of a man who bore a striking resemblance to Fred Wilson. But the name on the photos wasn’t Fred Wilson, it was Lennie Jackson. They also recognized another photo in the newspaper – Steve Suchan. Laurette Coté had twice seen Suchan visit Wilson’s apartment, which was at the bottom of the stairs at the front of the building. The Côtés had a three-room apartment towards the rear of the basement. Their kitchen shared a common wall with the Wilsons’ apartment.

  The story in the Gazette mentioned that a reward was being offered for Jackson’s capture. Henri Côté telephoned the police, and for good measure stopped in at No. 10 Police Station on his way to work the next morning. He had the newspaper in hand and said Jackson was definitely the man living in the apartment next to his.

  On Tuesday afternoon, Ann Jackson saw a man go past their door to Côté’s apartment. She sensed something was wrong and went up the stairs to the front door of the building. Laurette Côté came up the stairs carrying her six-month-old baby, but her visitor wasn’t with her. Ann presumed that the visitor had left by the back d
oor, but she was becoming more suspicious. She returned to the apartment. Her suspicions were well founded. The man she had seen was a detective who had told Henri Côté to get his wife and child upstairs.

  “I think something’s wrong,” Ann said to Lennie. They kept very quiet, and a few minutes later heard what they thought were footsteps, as if someone was creeping down the stairs. They knew none of the regular tenants walked so softly. What they were hearing was Gillespie and Sergeant of Detectives Leo Murray of the Montreal force coming quietly down the stairs with two other officers. All were wearing twenty-five-pound bullet-proof vests. They came to the bottom of the stairs, which was exactly opposite No. 15 – Jackson’s apartment. “Leo Murray and myself turned to the left of the apartment and walked about ten feet to a small side hall,” said Gillespie. “The other two Montreal officers turned to the right at the landing and went to the small kitchen at the opposite end of the hall.”

  It was shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 11. While Gillespie and the others were taking up their positions, Detective Thompson was outside with more than a dozen men armed with automatic weapons and tear gas. They covered the building’s rear entrance and Jackson’s window, which was somewhat obscured by a foot of snow on the ground.

  Inside the apartment, Ann went to the window and saw a man standing there. She turned to her husband. “They are here, Leonard,” she said. Jackson’s jaw tightened. He put on his overcoat and fedora, and with a gun in each hand went to the door.

  Gillespie was worried about what might be waiting for him in No. 15. “I was a poor shot,” he said, “and Lennie was in there with a revolver and an automatic. We also knew he had sub-machine-guns, but we didn’t know that he hadn’t found time to assemble them.” Gillespie was thinking about his next move when he heard the lock click on the door. “I waited a second and I heard the lock click again,” he said, “and then I saw the door opening out to the hall towards me.” He tiptoed to the door, grabbed the handle, and yanked it towards him with his left hand. In his right hand was his .38 service revolver. Jackson had jumped back from the door. “When I got the door open, I saw Jackson standing about eight to ten feet away. I recognized him immediately. I knew from his eyes he was going to shoot.” Jackson would say later he didn’t recognize Gillespie in that instant.

  Gillespie said Jackson made a remark that he couldn’t make out. “Then he fired and I fired back. I fired six shots, and he was firing at me.” Gillespie was amazed that Jackson missed him. At the time, the detective weighed about 220 pounds and stood a shade over six feet, filling the doorway. Gillespie’s bulky bullet-proof vest was obvious, and perhaps Jackson decided to shoot for his head, a more difficult target.

  Jackson wasn’t as lucky as Gillespie. Four of the detective’s six bullets found their mark – one in the abdomen, two in the left arm, and one in the right hand. “I wasn’t aiming, I was just firing,” said Gillespie. “Wyatt Earp couldn’t do better than that.” He continued firing until he realized his gun was empty. “Then I jumped out of the way as Lennie kept firing. Behind me the plaster wall was chewed up all over the place and the door was all splintered.” One of those splinters had caught the corner of Gillespie’s eye. “I figured I’d been shot. I was wearing a red tie that day, and I looked down and I’m panicking. All I can see is this red on the front of my shirt, and I figure, Holy Geez, I’m bleeding to death.”

  As soon as Gillespie jumped back, the two officers in the kitchen began blazing away at the doorway while officers outside fired tear gas through the small window and opened up with machine guns. They even had a Bren gun on a tripod available to them.

  Ann Jackson was hysterical. She could see that the first detective had hit Lennie in the stomach. Her husband was holding the wound with his left hand as he continued firing with his right. “Don’t shoot anymore!” she screamed.

  Henri Côté, not wanting to miss any of the action, had decided to stay in his apartment next to Jackson’s. “I could hear Jackson moving around in the room as if he were trying to change his position to fool the cops shooting from outside,” he told a reporter later. Jackson was moving between the window and the door, firing to keep the police back. The noise of the gunfight was deafening, with glassware shattering and bullets ripping into plaster and wood. Then Côté heard the tear gas smashing through the window, followed by Lennie coughing and retching, and Ann crying hysterically. Côte’s eyes began to burn as the gas seeped into his kitchen.

  Lennie had dropped the automatic pistol when his left arm was hit, and now he was firing only the revolver, using his right hand to shoot and reload. Ann was still screaming, and when the tear gas canister came through the window, Lennie grabbed her and pushed her under the bed. “Stay down there out of the line of fire!” he shouted.

  Gillespie was back with Detective Murray in the small side hall to the left of the apartment. “The only way out was to go by the apartment door,” he said. “We were trapped in there.” And there was so much noise and confusion, the policemen didn’t know if Jackson was firing the tommy guns or not. Gillespie didn’t want to think about what might have happened if they had been assembled.

  When he ducked away from the door, Gillespie tried to grab Murray’s service revolver, but Murray refused to give it to him. “Get back here you crazy bugger,” said Murray. “If Jackson doesn’t get you, our own men will.”

  Gillespie had got to know Murray over the previous three days, and the two men liked each other. “He was a real potato-faced Irishman and a real good Catholic,” said Gillespie. He realized he’d been lucky and that Murray was right. The smell of tear gas was getting stronger, and the best strategy was to wait Jackson out. “You know, Leo,” said Gillespie, “my old man used to be King Willy on the twelfth of July, and if he knew I died with a Catholic, he’d turn over in his grave.” Murray laughed and shook his head as the bullets continued to fly.

  Inside the apartment, Lennie Jackson was a wild man. He was out of the line of fire from the window, but he couldn’t stop the tear gas. “Tabernac!” he screamed. “Tabernac! Come and get me!” The gas was becoming unbearable, and his wife continued to scream and plead with him to stop shooting.

  “I want you alive!” she screamed. “Please stop shooting! Let me take the guns out!” Lennie, by now covered in blood, ignored her and continued loading and firing, using only his right hand.

  “Stop shooting!” cried Ann. “Think of the baby!”

  At the mention of their baby, Lennie suddenly stopped. He turned to his wife, his face calm. “Okay,” he said quietly, dropping his revolver to the floor.

  “Don’t shoot any more!” he hollered. “I give up! I give up! My wife is coming out with the guns!” The gun battle had lasted thirty minutes. Outside, two hundred Montreal policemen had been called out to control the crowd, which had swelled to several hundred as the gun battle dragged on. Estimates of the number of rounds fired by Jackson and the police ranged from two hundred to five hundred.

  Ann Jackson, wearing a blood-splattered white bed jacket, emerged from the apartment, her eyes streaming tears from the gas. One gun was dangling from each hand. “Walk towards us and drop them on the floor,” ordered Gillespie. “Now kick them over here and get behind us.” She followed his instructions.

  “Okay Lennie!” said Gillespie in a loud voice. “Come out with your hands up!” Because of his wounds, Lennie didn’t raise his arms. “Get them up!” ordered Gillespie. He complied slowly, and the detective saw blood pouring from his wounds. “Oh God, he was bleeding all over, and his wife had his blood all over her,” recalled Gillespie.

  “Hello, John,” said Lennie, who always used Gillespie’s given name. “I saw your fat ugly puss in the paper. I’m glad I didn’t hit you.”

  “You’re not half as glad as I am,” said Gillespie.

  “Did I hit any cops?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good. I was hoping I didn’t hurt anybody.”

  “Have you gone insane?” asked Gi
llespie.

  “I don’t know,” said Lennie, looking thoughtful. “Look after my wife, will you, John?”

  “I’ll make sure she’s treated well.”

  “You know, I would not have given up if it hadn’t been for her.”

  Before he was handcuffed, Lennie put his arm around Ann and kissed her gently on the lips three times, transferring more of his blood to her bed jacket. Then he was handcuffed and led to a police car by Thompson and Gillespie. Before getting into the back seat between the two detectives, he yelled out to the crowd, “I know who tipped off the police! Boyd will be back to get them!” He knew it wasn’t true, but it added to the drama. It frightened Henri Côté enough that he sent his wife into hiding.

  As they drove to the hospital, Lennie turned to Gillespie. “How did you catch on to us, John?”

  “A little bird told me,” said Gillespie.

  “It wasn’t the telegram I sent from Hamilton, was it?”

  “Could be,” said Gillespie, who hadn’t known about the telegram. Jackson and Thompson didn’t know each other, and after Gillespie introduced them, Thompson asked Lennie if he knew where Boyd was. “I don’t know,” said Lennie. Thompson could see that Jackson was quickly fading from loss of blood, and didn’t pursue it.

  Jackson had lived up to his reputation as “Tough Lennie,” holding off a small army of cops for half an hour and walking to the police car after being shot four times, but the trauma and loss of blood sent him into shock. “He sort of passed out in the police car,” said Gillespie.

  Jackson was taken to an emergency treatment centre for immediate attention and then transferred to Montreal General on Dorchester Street, where he was stabilized with blood transfusions and where his wounds were assessed. The bullet he took to the abdomen had missed all vital organs and had not damaged any major nerves or blood vessels. It had lodged near his spine. The wound was cleaned, and the bullet was left inside. The bullet to his right hand had broken two bones, but done no nerve damage. The two bullets that struck his left forearm had done considerable nerve and muscle damage, and surgery was required.