by Brian Vallee
“Our dogs were raising quite a fuss for about an hour during the night too,” said Doyle.
The suspicious men on the Doner farm and the shooting that morning were enough for Doyle. At 5:30 p.m. he telephoned Sergeant Edward Dagleish of the North York Police Department. The two men had known each other for years. Doyle told him about the tramps at the barn. “I was thinking of taking my rifle and checking out the barn myself,” said Doyle.
“No, I wouldn’t do that, Maurice,” said Dagleish. “I’ll send our boys over.”
The day shift was just ending, and Dagleish decided to wait until Detective Bert Trotter came in about 5:50. “Do you know where the old Doner farm is?” asked Dagleish when Trotter arrived.
“No I don’t.”
“Well wait for Richardson and go out there with him,” said Dagleish. “He knows the area.” Sergeant of Detectives Maurice Richardson arrived a few minutes later.
About 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, twenty-four-year-old Evan Taylor and nineteen-year-old Elgin Rohrer were hauling a truckload of dirt from the pipeline excavation towards a dumping spot near the Doner farm. It was raining lightly. They were driving along the right-of-way beside the railway tracks. At the top of the hill above the farm, they stopped the truck when they saw a man lying on the ground about thirty yards from the barn. The man stood up and waved or signalled and a second man appeared from behind the barn. “We continued down the hill to where we were dumping our load, and the man who had come out of the barn came down to where we stopped,” Taylor told police later. “He was very pale, and was wearing a black rubber raincoat and another coat under it.” The man was Steve Suchan.
“Hello,” said Taylor.
“How are you today?” asked Suchan. “Pretty slippery since the rain.” Taylor nodded agreement. Suchan walked off to the side of the road, picked up some clothing that was lying on the ground, and returned to the barn.
“I’ve seen his face before,” said Taylor to his partner. “I bet it’s that gang.”
“That’s what struck me,” said Rohrer.
The men worked a while longer and then asked their boss if they could drive over to the village of Oriole to phone the police with their suspicions. The boss agreed, and a few minutes later they were in the village. They discussed the men in the barn over Cokes at a lunch counter, and then Taylor called the North York police from a telephone booth outside. He described the location of the farm in relation to the pipeline project. He told the police he was suspicious of the men because their skin was pale, as if they hadn’t been outdoors for a long time. And he wondered why they were hanging around a deserted barn.
Detectives Richardson and Trotter were still at the North York station when Evan Taylor’s call came in at 5:30, but the dispatcher realized the barn was the same one Doyle was talking about and felt no need to pass on the information: the detectives were headed there anyway. At 6:20 there was a third call, this one from Gordon Beauchamp, the proprietor of the lunch counter in Oriole. Beauchamp’s mother, who worked at the lunch counter, had overheard Rohrer and Taylor discussing the barn, and told her son. While Taylor was on the phone to police, Beauchamp asked Rohrer what was going on. Rohrer mentioned the suspicious men but was purposely vague when Beauchamp asked about the location of the barn.
Richardson and Trotter stopped by the lunch counter on their way to the Doner farm, but quickly realized that Beauchamp had no idea where the barn was. He told them it was somewhere on Don Mills Road. (Beauchamp’s later claim that his tip to the police had led to the capture of the Boyd Gang received extensive coverage in the newspapers, but his petition for the $26,000 reward was rejected. Instead, $11,000 would go to Maurice Doyle, $4,500 to John Trimble, $4,000 each to Evan Taylor and Elgin Rohrer, and $2,500 to Robert Trimble, even though he had told the attorney general’s office to “give it to Doyle. He has a girl that has infantile paralysis and needs the money. I earn my money with my hands and am quite content that way.”)
After leaving Beauchamp’s lunch counter in Oriole, Richardson and Trotter continued to the Doner farm. When they made the turn to the laneway off Leslie Street they were confronted with the impassable trench. A four-man bulldozer crew was working the site.
One of them asked the policemen where they were going.
“We’re going over to the barn,” said Richardson.
“Well, we can fill the hole in so you can drive over.”
“No, it’s all right,” said Richardson. “We’ll just walk in.”
“Be careful, you might run into the Boyd Gang,” said one of the men in jest.
“Sure thing,” laughed Richardson.
They had to walk about two hundred yards to the farmhouse, which they determined was deserted. A boy was playing in an adjoining field as they approached the barn, and Richardson went over to the fence to question him. Trotter meanwhile went up the ramp to the main doors of the barn, which were at the rear facing the wooded lot. He leaned forward and peered through a crack in the door. Inside he saw one man standing with his back to him and two others crouched or lying in the hay. With his .38 in hand, Trotter opened the door, walked in, and whistled for his partner.
Richardson had left the boy and was about to open the back door to the stable on the lower level when he heard his partner whistle. He ran up the ramp to see Trotter with his gun levelled at Edwin Alonzo Boyd, “Tough Lennie” Jackson, and Willie “the Clown” Jackson.
“We didn’t hear a thing,” says Boyd. “We didn’t hear anybody approaching, and we didn’t hear anybody down below. Then suddenly this guy came in the front door with a gun on us. They caught us by surprise. That was it.”
“I held a gun on them until Richardson joined me and then we led them outside,” Trotter said later. “The two Jacksons were lying down. Both of them had guns, but neither made a move for them. Boyd didn’t have a gun. I’m not underestimating that they were desperate men. It was just that we caught them completely by surprise.”
Richardson told the Star later: “We just happened to catch them bedding down for the night. They were spreading out some raincoats on the barn floor.”
Boyd, Suchan and the Jacksons had established the routine of taking turns keeping watch whenever they were in the barn before dark. “It was Lennie’s turn,” says Boyd. “He was supposed to be looking out through the cracks in the wall, but he was in agony and wasn’t watching. You can’t blame him, we didn’t really expect anybody to come in like that. We had already eaten and Suchan was out getting apples for our dessert.”
Boyd says if they had known about the morning shoot-out and the renewed manhunt they would have hid in the wooded lot or started moving north in the bush. “We were unaware that the police were around. I was relaxed waiting for darkness.”
At first Boyd told the police officers that he and the Jacksons were vagrants who had dropped off a passing freight train to spend the night in the abandoned barn.
“What’s your name?” asked Richardson.
“West,” said Boyd. The policemen knew better.
Richardson reached down and felt Lennie Jackson’s lower leg. It was wooden, and that convinced the officers there had been no mistake. When the three fugitives were searched, one gun was found in Lennie Jackson’s coat, which he had been lying on, and another was found in the hay beside Willie Jackson. Although Boyd didn’t have a gun, about thirty rounds of ammunition were found in his pockets. In all, ninety-seven rounds were found among the three men.
Trotter and Richardson looked around for Suchan, but there was no sign of him. While Trotter kept Boyd and the Jacksons covered with his revolver, Richardson ran to the cruiser and radioed for help.
Richardson’s call was momentous. He had the Boyd Gang in a barn on Leslie Street. “Attention all cars,” said the Toronto police dispatcher from headquarters on College Street. “North York police require assistance.… ” He went on to give the precise location of the barn, and scores of squad cars from all over the city rushed to the scene. Reporters m
onitoring the police radio also heard the call, and ran to their cars. Editors called out every available reporter and photographer.
North York police constable Ernie Southern was with a search team checking a barn on Steeles Avenue when he heard the call. “Richardson shouted over the police radio that he had Boyd in a barn on Leslie Street,” said Southern. “And I called to the boys in the other four cars and we raced to the scene.”
When Southern arrived he saw Richardson’s cruiser on the laneway near the railway tracks. He and the others left their cars and ran towards the barn. They got as far as the farmhouse when they saw Trotter and Richardson escorting Boyd and the two Jacksons from the barn. The prisoners were taken to the clutch of police cars and were handcuffed together and to North York constable Ray Geno.
“There’s still one more around somewhere – Suchan,” said Richardson. He ordered Southern and constables Bill Adams and Havre Lowe to search for him. Southern was aware that it was Suchan’s bullet that killed Eddie Tong.
Steve Suchan was unaware of the drama that had just taken place when he returned to the barn with a supply of apples. The others weren’t there, but that wasn’t unusual – they were probably wandering around outside somewhere. Boyd says that because of the way the barn was situated, with the main doors out of sight of Leslie Street and the laneway leading to the farm, Suchan wouldn’t have seen them and all the police cars beyond the railway tracks. “If he had seen what was going on he would have taken off,” says Boyd.
Instead, Suchan made himself comfortable in the hay and waited for the others. Outside the barn, constables Adams and Lowe headed for the stable door at the back, while Southern, as Trotter had done, walked up the ramp to the main doors. With gun drawn, he entered to find Suchan facing away from him in a kneeling position on the floor. He had probably heard Adams and Lowe entering below and thought it was Boyd and the Jacksons. Suchan heard a noise behind him and turned to face Southern’s revolver aimed at his chest.
“What’s up?” asked Suchan.
“One move and you’ve had it,” said Southern.
“It’s okay – I give up,” said Suchan, raising his hands above his head. His fully loaded P-38 was tucked in his belt on the left side, but he made no move for it. Memories of the Montreal shoot-out and of his long and painful convalescence were no doubt still fresh in his mind.
Lowe and Adams were standing in the stable below with guns drawn. Southern ordered Suchan to jump the ten feet or so from the loft to the hay below. Suchan complied, and Lowe removed the automatic pistol from Suchan’s belt. “The safety catch was off,” said Lowe later, “but he didn’t try to go for it.” The three officers led Suchan over to the others in the laneway beyond the railway tracks.
The newspaper accounts of the capture of the Boyd Gang varied wildly, and inaccurate versions of the story have persisted ever since. One bit of mythology has it that Suchan was in the rafters of the barn all along and could have shot the police officers at any time. Another – the “click … click … click” version – has it that Suchan tried to shoot the officers from the rafters but his gun misfired. It seems inconceivable that after hearing the first “click” a police officer wouldn’t have turned and fired at him, but the myth persists.
In a search of the Boyd Gang’s hideout, police found one whole and two partial loaves of bread, one can of pork and beans, a few stunted carrots, a dozen or so green apples, a box of salt, an empty cookie box, a bar of soap, a razor with extra blades, two pairs of brown trousers, two raincoats, and two ties. And among them, the four had a bit of pocket change and $25 in bills.
What would have happened if Richardson and Trotter had been able to drive right up to the barn on that day? No doubt Boyd and the others would have heard them. But would there have been a shoot-out? Boyd says the first option would have been to get out of the barn and into the bush before they were spotted. And if they were spotted? “We’d probably have started firing at them – not to hit them, but to scare them away – and then try and get away ourselves.”
And what if they were cornered in the barn, but had time to reach their weapons? “I know Len would have used his gun,” says Boyd. “His willingness to shoot it out in Montreal indicated what he thought about going to jail. And Suchan probably would have shot it out too. He was a guy that just thrived on having weapons. Willie didn’t give a damn if he was caught or not. He did a lot of narcotics in prison, and he had a captive audience for his jokes.” Boyd says that he himself would not have shot it out unless he thought somebody was trying to kill him. “I was never someone to shoot it out,” he says. “If you do get away, it just brings more heat.”
Detective Frank Cater had been in the tall grass staking out the food cache at the abandoned barn south of the Doner farm when word came that the Boyd Gang had been spotted. He ran for his cruiser and locked the machine-gun in the trunk, and he and his partner roared off to Leslie Street.
There were already several North York police cars in the laneway as they pulled up. Cater had his Luger out of his pocket, but he saw Boyd and the two Jacksons already in handcuffs standing beside the North York police cruiser. Boyd recognized Cater and noticed the Luger, which was much like the one Cater had confiscated from him eleven months earlier.
“Hey!” said Boyd. “You got my bloody Luger.”
“Like hell I do,” said Cater. “This is my own Luger.”
Boyd laughed.
Suchan had just arrived near the cars with Constable Southern, and Cater noticed that the prisoner had not been handcuffed. “I gave them my cuffs to put on him,” says Cater. “They were my own. They were a standard cuff, but the key was a different shape. Mine was a solid key, while the others had a hollow stem.” Standard police keys wouldn’t work in Cater’s cuffs.
Boyd and the two Jacksons, still handcuffed to Constable Ray Geno, were bundled into the back seat of a Toronto police car driven by Detective Jack Crilly. Beside Crilly in the front seat, with his gun drawn, was a young North York constable, Charles Doyle. He was looking back with his revolver trained on the prisoners. It was obvious to him that Lennie Jackson was in bad shape.
“Go ahead,” said Lennie. “Why don’t you just shoot me in the head and get it over with.”
“One false move and you’ll get it,” said Doyle.
Detective Crilly, now seventy-six, remembers that young Doyle was “very nervous” and that Willie Jackson was taunting him.
“You couldn’t shoot anybody,” said Willie. “You don’t have the guts.”
“Willie put his nose right up to the gun,” says Crilly.
Boyd, trained in the proper handling of guns, did not like the idea of a nervous cop aiming at him over the seat with his finger on the trigger. “I remember this policeman was in uniform in the front seat,” says Boyd. “He was all shook up and ready to shoot us. He turned around quick and pointed the gun at us. And I got mad.” Boyd didn’t understand the need for the gun. They were in handcuffs and they weren’t going anywhere.
“Don’t point that thing at us, you’re going to accidentally shoot somebody.” said Boyd. “Don’t you know anything about guns?”
“Just don’t shoot me,” said Detective Crilly.
Boyd says the young officer was agitated, but he put the gun away.
Suchan was placed in another cruiser, handcuffed to a North York officer. Detective Cater’s cruiser was facing the wrong way, and it took some time to turn it around with all the congestion. Police cars, reporters, photographers, and interested onlookers continued to pour into the area. “They took off with Suchan and we tried to follow,” says Cater. “We were maybe two hundred yards behind, but cars started coming in from sideroads all over the place and they got to the station nearly an hour before we did. It was unbelievable. The capture must have gone over the radio right away because you couldn’t move up there. It was just clogged with cars.”
Cater realized that until he arrived at the North York police station with his key, they would be un
able to remove Suchan’s handcuffs. Then he thought about Eddie Tong lying in the street with a bullet in his chest and Suchan’s problem didn’t bother him a bit.
By the time the cruiser with Boyd and the Jacksons arrived at the North York police station, at Princess Avenue and Yonge Street in Willowdale, hundreds of people had gathered for a glimpse of the notorious foursome. The cruiser made it to the basement garage and the door was closed behind it.
Detective Trotter removed the cuffs from Boyd and the Jacksons while Detective Crilly searched them. In one of Boyd’s pockets he found the home-made key.
“That’s probably the key for the cells in the Don Jail,” said Trotter. Boyd and the two Jacksons just smiled. The cruiser carrying Suchan arrived soon after, but it would be a while longer before Cater arrived to remove his handcuffs.
Meanwhile, the growing crowd outside was in a festive mood. Maurice Richardson, who retired as a police inspector in 1976, has vivid memories of the station that day. “It was already in an uproar when we got back there from the farm. When I got there, all the people that I knew in North York were there. It was chaos with all the media and all the people. As a matter of fact they had to bring officers up from the city to put a cordon around the station, so people couldn’t get at the windows.” Across the street, the Hydro helicopter caused a stir when it landed in the lot beside the community hall.
Shortly after 7 p.m., Mayor Allan Lamport’s limousine, with a motorcycle escort, came to a screeching halt in front of the North York police station. Looking dapper with his pearl-grey fedora tilted low on his forehead, Lamport was quick to point out to the horde of reporters that he had arrived before Toronto Police Chief John Chisholm: “I beat the chief to the draw.” He reminded them he had also been “in on the kill” when Boyd was captured on Heath Street six months earlier. To some, the mayor was like a big game hunter posing with his kill after a hunt. He needed photographs because his trophies were headed for prison rather than the wall of a recreation room.