by Brian Vallee
Four armed policemen stood guard over Jackson in the hospital. Gillespie was in the recovery room on Wednesday after Lennie’s operation. When he came to, he saw the detective standing there.
“Hello John,” said Lennie softly.
“How are you doin’, Lennie?”
“John, when I was out I had the most beautiful, beautiful dream.”
“What was it about?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
In several conversations at the hospital over the next few days, Gillespie said Jackson talked about many personal things, including religion. “I’m an Anglican – Church of England,” said Lennie.
“Well, so am I,” said Gillespie. “What the hell are we doing trying to kill each other?” Lennie was silent for a few moments.
“You know, John, ever since I lost my foot, I don’t really care very much about things any more.”
The next day Lennie’s mood was upbeat, and at one point he turned to Gillespie with a slight smile and announced, “I’ll get out again, John.”
“Aw come on, Lennie, don’t give me that baloney.”
“I’ll get out again,” he repeated.
“Don’t tell me I have to go through all of this again.”
“No. Don’t worry, John, you won’t have to go through this again.”
Although Gillespie could never forgive Jackson for his part in the shooting of Eddie Tong, he found him personable and could understand Ann Jackson’s devotion to him. “He had a lot of good qualities and she saw that in him,” said Gillespie. “And he liked what he saw in her. She was not a classic beauty, but she was attractive and she knew how to dress. She was very soft-spoken. A real lady. I don’t know about anything else, but I do know that Ann Jackson really loved her husband.”
The shooting and capture of Lennie Jackson was devastating news for his family in Niagara Falls. His mother, Lillian Jackson, sobbed during an interview with a reporter the day after the shooting. She said she was sorry for her son and his new wife. “I haven’t any idea what got into him,” she said. “He was a pretty good boy. Yes, he was a very good boy.”
The newspaper coverage of Lennie Jackson’s capture was even more extensive than that of Suchan’s. All three Toronto dailies had banner headlines and pages and pages of photos. Jocko Thomas wrote in the Star that police had fully expected to find Boyd with Jackson but “Boyd is reported to have seen the police cars and fled.” page 3 of the Wednesday, March 12, edition of the Star was completely filled with photographs – nine in all: Lennie in his hospital bed; Ann drinking milk from a pint bottle after the shoot-out; Montreal police with Lennie’s arsenal of weapons, including two machine guns; a bullet-riddled wall in the apartment; the smashed window; a blood-splattered sink; a bullet-proof vest used by the police; and a shot of the massive crowd that was looking on as Lennie entered the police cruiser with Gillespie.
One of the stories reported, falsely, that Jackson had used his wife as a shield during the gun battle. “The newspapers all said Lennie used Ann as a shield when he came out,” said Gillespie. “But that’s just not true. He would never do anything like that. He wasn’t that type. He was too much of a man.”
In Montreal, the papers ran photos of Edwin Alonzo Boyd, and witnesses came forward reporting that they had seen him at Jackson’s apartment and at the restaurant below Suchan’s apartment.
The police assumed that Boyd was in the Montreal area, and carried out several more raids in locations around the city, including a nightclub in the suburb of Lachine, a farmhouse twelve miles away, and the Boulevard Hotel across the river from Montreal in LaPrairie. Their assumption was bolstered when police found Boyd’s fingerprints in Suchan’s apartment. Several others prints would later be identified as those of Dorreen Boyd and Mary Mitchell. The prints were found on Pyrex bowls, a quart bottle of Dow beer, a drinking glass, and bottles of Coca-Cola, skin lotion, and Heinz ketchup. According to Boyd, those prints were from visits to the apartment before Tong and Perry were gunned down.
Gillespie held a faint hope that in their hospital conversations, Lennie Jackson might give him a clue as to Boyd’s whereabouts. Eventually he popped the question: “Where’s the leader of the gang, Lennie?”
“What leader?”
“You know who I mean – Boyd.”
“Leader my fanny,” said Lennie, who never cursed or used foul language.
“Where is he?” persisted Gillespie.
“Oh, he’s hundreds of miles away from here.”
Gillespie said Lennie would talk about anything “except criminal activity or fellow criminals. The only thing we got out of him was about the telegram he sent from Hamilton. And he only told us that because he thought we already knew about it and he wanted to know how we tracked him down.”
26
A Real Payne
Edwin Alonzo Boyd drew some solace from newspaper stories about the police tearing around Quebec searching for him; at the same time, he knew his situation was precarious. He was now Canada’s most dangerous and most wanted criminal. He remained in Toronto, hunkered down in his Spadina Road rooming house, venturing out only at night and never to a well-lighted place like a restaurant or grocery store.
Meanwhile, Sergeant of Detectives Adolphus Payne, trusting his instincts, was certain his quarry had not left Toronto. Payne didn’t have a stable of informants but he did spend a lot of time thinking, trying to figure out what he would do in Boyd’s place. He had interrogated Boyd for many hours, and now he studied his notes, searching for insights. Although Boyd had hooked up with others for his recent robberies, Payne had a strong sense that he was a loner who knew Toronto well and knew how to disguise himself.
Payne decided that if he was going to get Boyd it would have to be through people close to him – family. He and his young partner, twenty-four-year-old Detective Ken Craven, concentrated on Boyd’s wife, Dorreen, and his brother Norman. They discovered that Dorreen Boyd had left the Pickering house, telling neighbours she was returning to England. But the twins were in boarding school and Anthony was on a farm north of Toronto. Payne and Craven also learned that on March 7, the day Suchan was shot in Montreal, Norman Boyd had quit his job as a surveyor with the City of Toronto, declaring that he was leaving for California. “I was thinking of getting out of the country,” says Norman. “There was just too much going on and I figured that if I stayed around, it would cause me more trouble than it was worth.”
Payne believed that Dorreen and Norman were both still in Toronto, helping Ed Boyd elude the police dragnet. Until Tong and Perry were shot, Boyd had been feeling more secure as the publicity over his escape and the robberies diminished with time. But the shooting of the policemen dramatically increased police pressure and media scrutiny. Payne reasoned it would take careful planning to spirit Boyd out of town, or into deep cover with a new identity. That would take some time, and that time would provide Payne with the opportunity to do his own sleuthing and planning. Once again, he trusted his credo: There had to be a car involved.
A check of provincial records disclosed that Norman Boyd had been the registered owner of a 1949 Austin sedan, cream-coloured, licence plate 85-F-37, but on January 26, 1952, he had transferred ownership to Dorreen Mary Frances Boyd, Old Rose Bank Road, South Rose Bank, R.R.#3, Pickering, Ontario.
Payne had his car. Now to find it. He believed that if Dorreen or Norman, or both, were planning to leave town they would try to sell the Austin. And even if they decided to stay in Toronto, they would want to sell it because it could lead police to them.
Beginning the night after Tong was shot, Payne and Craven studied the For Sale ads in the classified sections of all of the Toronto newspapers. On Monday, March 10, they hit pay dirt: “ ‘49 Austin, radio, new tires and battery, best offer.” Disguising his voice, Payne called the number in the ad and asked about the car. The conversation was brief, but he ascertained that the man he was speaking to was Norman Boyd. Payne had a plan ready and immediately put it into actio
n: he contacted Harold Jukes, a young, fresh-faced undercover officer in the Morality Division. Jukes did not meet the department’s height requirement and had made it onto the force by sheer determination – he undertook a regime of stretching exercises, attempting to increase his height. He would never reach the height requirement, but the department was impressed with his determination and allowed him to join up as a constable. Because of his height and youthful appearance, Jukes was used as an undercover agent – most policemen were six feet or over, so he didn’t look like a copper.
Jukes and a police department clerk, Patricia Prior, met in Payne’s office, where Payne outlined his plan and created a cover story for the couple. Jukes then called and made an appointment to see the car. Norman Boyd was living at 96 London Street in a house owned by the sister of Glover Boyd’s second wife. At noon the next day, Jukes and Prior, posing as Mr. and Mrs. Harold McCarten, were met at the house by Norman, who showed them the Austin. The couple acted keen to purchase the car, but as Payne had instructed, they made an offer slightly below the asking price. Norman was anxious to get rid of the car and accepted the offer, but when he produced the registration, Dorreen Boyd was listed as the owner, just as Payne had told Jukes and Prior to expect.
The couple feigned great concern, as Payne had coached them to do. They told Norman that the bailiff had repossessed their last car because the person they bought it from wasn’t the registered owner. They couldn’t go through that heartbreaking and expensive experience again. And their lawyer had told them that in any future deal, they had to make sure the registered owner signed a release in their presence. Norman Boyd said that the registered owner was his sister-in-law, and that he didn’t know if he could contact her but he would try. He asked for Jukes’ telephone number. Jukes gave him his brother’s phone number, and he and Prior left, still gushing about the Austin. Dolph Payne, hiding behind a fence down the street, had watched the whole thing.
Jukes was at his brother’s house when Norman Boyd called late in the afternoon. He said the registered owner would be at the London Street house in two hours and would provide Jukes with a written clearance.
In his report later, Jukes wrote that he arrived alone at the London Street address “about 7:30 P.M. on Tuesday March 11 and obtained a receipt for a $10 deposit on the auto and a lien clearance note, both signed by Norman and Dorreen Boyd.” Jukes would return in a few days with the balance of the money. After Jukes left, Payne staked out the house from his hiding place behind the fence. Ken Craven was parked in a cruiser a short distance away, waiting for a flashlight signal from his partner.
About 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Norman and Dorreen came out of the house and drove off in the Austin. Payne signalled Craven, who picked him up, and they followed without headlights. The Austin went west on London Street and then north for three blocks on Manning Avenue.
“Pull over before the intersection,” Payne told his partner when the car ahead turned right at Olive Avenue. Payne got out of the cruiser and ran to the intersection. He looked around the corner and saw the Austin parked half-way up the block. It sat there for four or five minutes before pulling out and continuing east. Payne waved to Craven, who picked him up at the corner.
“Stay with them,” said Payne. “They’re just ahead.”
“What happened?” asked Craven.
“They pulled over to see if anyone was following them.”
“How did you know they were going to do that?”
“Just a feeling,” said Payne. “We’ll have to check at every turn to make sure they’re not waiting for us.”
Travelling at no more than twenty miles an hour, the Austin took a circuitous route north around Upper Canada College. After taking several more side streets and stopping twice, the car headed south and stopped on Heath Street West, about a block from Yonge Street. Payne and Craven stayed well back and timed the stop at four minutes, after which the Austin drove slowly ahead, stopping again just short of Yonge.
“Both Norman and Dorreen Boyd walked back west and entered No. 42 Heath St. West where they remained for half an hour,” wrote Payne in his report later. The house was three storeys with apartments on each level and another in the basement. It was in a quiet, upscale neighbourhood of solid brick and stone houses on tree-lined streets. After leaving the house, Norman and Dorreen walked east on Heath, past their auto, to Yonge. Craven remained in the cruiser, out of sight in a circular driveway down the street, while Payne followed them on foot. “They remained standing in a doorway on Yonge Street for some minutes and then returned to their Austin car,” he wrote.
The detectives took note of the Heath Street address and continued their surveillance, following the Austin to a laneway running off Maplewood Avenue near Bathurst and St. Clair. “Upon entering the lane, the lights of their auto were turned off,” reported Payne. “And they proceeded south to a garage at the rear of 86 Kenwood. They both left the auto, entered the garage, and after about ten minutes, they got back into their auto and proceeded south on the lane, with the lights out.”
From the garage, the detectives followed the Austin south on Bathurst Street nine blocks to Wells Street, where it turned east and followed several side streets to Spadina Road, just north of Bloor Street. “Both left the auto, and walked over to the east side of Spadina, then south to Bloor Street where they turned around and walked back north to No. 19 Spadina Road,” reported Payne. He and Craven didn’t realize it then, but they had discovered the rooming house hideout that Edwin Alonzo Boyd had been using for several weeks. Dorreen and Norman entered No. 19 by the side door.
The detectives had been watching the building from their car for about twenty minutes when Norman Boyd came out and returned alone to the Austin. “He drove in a direct manner to his home at 96 London St.,” wrote Payne, “at considerably greater speed” than he had earlier in the evening.
It was after 11 p.m. by the time Craven and Payne called it a night. Their doggedness had paid off: they had located possible hideouts on London Street, Spadina Road, and Heath Street, and there was the garage behind Kenwood. They could raid them all, but if Boyd happened to be out, or at some location they didn’t know about, they would miss him and he would be alerted. It made more sense to wait until they were certain Boyd was at one of the addresses. The Austin, although using side streets, had travelled fairly direct routes to the garage and to the Spadina Road rooming house, but the run to the Heath Street West apartment building had been much more devious, and Payne and Craven concluded that was where Boyd would eventually turn up.
Ann Jackson was being held in Montreal as a material witness. On Thursday the police persuaded her to broadcast an appeal for Boyd to surrender. In a sob-choked voice over radio station CJAD, she told Boyd, “I just wouldn’t want any more shooting. The others – Steve and Leonard – have been badly shot up. Don’t let it happen to you.” But she told reporters after the broadcast that she had delivered it as a gesture of co-operation to the police and didn’t think it would make a difference. “One thing I know,” she said, “if the tables were turned and Len or Steve were in Boyd’s place, they wouldn’t fall for a thing like that. Some of the boys would rather die anyway than serve a long time inside – that’s the thing that frightens them more than shooting it out.”
There was no response to Ann Jackson’s plea, and by Friday the Montreal police, after combing the city for Boyd, had begun to suspect he had left the city.
Also on Friday, the Telegram ran a story stating that Dorreen Boyd had disappeared from her Pickering home. The police, meanwhile, were not letting on that they knew her whereabouts. Witnesses had told police that just before her disappearance, Mrs. Boyd was suddenly “in the chips” and had been seen driving a new car.
Payne and Craven checked out the house at 42 Heath Street West. It was owned by a young lawyer, George Stoddard, who lived with his wife on the second floor and rented out the rest of the house. The Stoddards were about to leave for a Mexican vacation and had decided to
rent out their apartment in their absence. Norman and Dorreen Boyd had passed themselves off as a Mr. and Mrs. Hall. Gail Ostroski, who managed the building and lived in the basement apartment with her 18-month-old son, was told by Mrs. Stoddard “that Mr. Hall was a very quiet nice chap – a writer – and he wouldn’t be holding any loud parties or anything like that.” And Mr. Hall also said he had been a missionary in Cuba and that his brother would be staying with them for a while. The Stoddards would be leaving Friday, and the “Halls” would be moving into the furnished apartment that night.
Rooms on the third floor of the house were rented by Norman Keefer, Harry Thomas, and Frank Raby. Keefer, a civil servant, had been introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Hall earlier in the week. “I would have put him down as a retiring type of Englishman,” Keefer would say later. “He had practically nothing to say when we were introduced.
Nor did the woman I was told was his wife.”
Mr. and Mrs. F.B. Poucher, who lived on the first floor of the building, were in Florida on vacation. Mr. Poucher was an executive with National Trust Company.
When Payne and Craven revealed that Mr. and Mrs. Hall were Edwin Alonzo Boyd’s wife and brother, Stoddard feared that his building would be shot up and his other tenants injured. The police department had to post a bond covering any damages before Stoddard would agree to co-operate.23
Allan Lamport says that the police were aided by a woman who lived across the street from the house. “We couldn’t have policemen going in and out of houses around there. Anybody could tell a policeman or a detective miles away.” The woman watched the house “night and day,” reporting by telephone to Payne and Craven. “The police commission gave the woman a remembrance tray for her work in observing,” says Lamport.