Practically Perfect

by Dale Brawn

  Over the next several months they approached three other single men about insuring themselves. All refused to consider it, but when Larocque and his partner spoke to twenty-seven-year-old Léo Bergeron, the response was different. The young man supported himself by working for room and board, and was easily manipulated. He was, however, cautious enough to ask his father what he should do. The advice he got was blunt: “Don’t go in that. They will do with you the same as they did with Lamarche.”[11] A few weeks later Larocque showed up at the Bergeron farm, and said he was upset by what Leon said to his son, Léo. The father was unapologetic. He asked Larocque how much the policy cost. Told $55, he said his son could never afford it. Larocque insisted the issue was not money; it was about a smart business decision. “Larocque told me that Leo had no home and if he broke an arm or became ill he would be looked after. I insisted that Leo should not take out the policy. I did all I could to stop him, but after seeing that it was hopeless, I told Leo he could do as he pleased.”[12]

  When Léo was finally persuaded to buy the insurance, proceeds of the $2,500 policy were to be paid to his father, and if Léo died in an accident, the amount paid out would be double what his life was insured for. In early December 1931, Larocque made arrangements, presumably with Léo’s consent, to have the value of the policy increased to $5,000, and he replaced the insured’s father as sole beneficiary. Around the same time Lavictoire, who knew Bergeron only casually, tried to persuade the young man to take out a second policy of insurance, with Lavictoire as beneficiary. This time Léo refused. A little later Larocque asked an acquaintance cutting ice on the Ottawa River to hire Bergeron for the winter, but the man refused to consider it, suggesting the job was far too dangerous for a novice. The following month Léo was killed in an accident on Larocque’s farm.

  The day before the incident Larocque made arrangements for Léo to help him with some harvesting. For a reason never explained he wanted Léo to start work at 8:00 a.m., although everyone else hired for the day was told to show up at noon. Bergeron’s first job of the morning was backing a team of horses into Larocque’s barn. Something spooked the animals, and as Larocque and Lavictoire looked on, Léo was trampled to death. At least that is the story the two men told on March 18, 1932. No one believed it — not the doctor who first arrived on the scene, not the police who followed, and certainly not the dead man’s father, who rushed to the Larocque farm as soon as he heard that his son was hurt.

  When Leon Bergeron arrived, Léo was lying on the barn floor, a buffalo robe covering his face. The distraught father immediately removed it, and as he did so he saw his son gasp for breath, and then stop breathing. Bergeron was devastated, but he was also angry, and he confronted Larocque. The farmer told the grief-stricken father that his son’s death was an accident, that he was trampled after being knocked down by the horses. Bergeron said he did not believe it. He was certain Larocque murdered his son, just as he had Lamarche. Larocque told Bergeron that that was an odd thing to say: “It’s queer. I never heard anything about it.”[13]

  An autopsy on Léo’s body revealed that his head was crushed in two places. While those injuries may have been caused by a horse, the other injuries he suffered could not, which was why when the police began their investigation, they suspected that they were dealing with a murder. Ten days later they were certain. By then investigators were looking into the drowning of Lamarche, and on March 10, a spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police announced that his force was going to exhume his body, to determine whether he might have been murdered. Two days later a coroner’s inquest was adjourned to give the police more time to gather evidence. From that point forward, things began going very badly for the farmer and the gardener.

  On April 5, 1932, the two men were arrested and charged with defrauding Felix Lamarche out of proceeds from his son’s life insurance policy. Later the same day the reconvened coroner’s jury concluded that the death of Léo Bergeron was caused either by a horse, or by person or persons unknown. Within the week those persons were officially identified, and Larocque and Lavictoire were charged with murder. Their December trial lasted nine days, and featured a number of heated skirmishes between the lawyers for the two men and the prosecutor. In his opening statement the Crown Attorney made clear what was to come. He told jurors that the conniving and duplicity of the accused would soon become apparent:

  Bergeron had been taken at the time by the accused men to persons who would insure him. Then they would kill him for the insurance money. This money could never be collected without careful planning and execution of the crime itself. Such crimes are never committed in public. One of the accused in this case was bolder, more subtle than the other who stayed in the background. No human eye saw the blows that struck down and killed Leo Bergeron. In this case the evidence is of a circumstantial nature but if direct evidence was all a jury could decide on, then all a man would have to do would be to commit a crime in secret. The Crown charges that there was on the part of these two men a direct system of murder to maintain for a very short time an insurance policy on the life of another and then take that life and reap the benefits.[14]

  Before jurors heard testimony that Bergeron was murdered, rather than trampled to death, the Crown introduced evidence about the effort made by Larocque to insure the life of Lamarche. First to testify was an agent for Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, who told the court that in the summer of 1930, Larocque arranged for him to meet Lamarche to discuss insuring his life. That policy was soon issued, but the next witness, an agent with Northern Life Insurance, refused when asked to issue a second policy on the same life. Following them to the stand was one of the police officers who investigated the death of Bergeron. He told jurors that when he found a blood-covered pitchfork handle on the dusty rafters of Larocque’s barn, the farmer denied having seen it before. The witness said Larocque also denied having any knowledge of the blood found on the door and walls of his barn.

  A constable was the next to testify. He testified he hit one of the horses accused of trampling Bergeron on the rump, duplicating what Larocque said happened when the animals were being backed into the barn. Both horses jumped ahead less than a metre, then stopped, and calmly began eating hay. Some of the most compelling testimony heard by jurors was that of the several doctors who examined Bergeron’s body. The first to testify was Dr. Martin Powers, who arrived at the scene of the accident just as the injured man expired. He said that while it was possible the injuries to the dead man’s head could have been caused by a horse, the same could not be said for the puncture wounds on his hands, which almost certainly were inflicted by a pitchfork. Next up was Dr. David Irwin, who told the court that in his opinion the wounds on the body of Bergeron were likely caused by a blunt instrument, like the fork handle introduced into evidence. He said that he once saw the remains of someone trampled by a horse, and the person’s bones were completely crushed by the weight of the animal. In the present case, except for his head and hand wounds, Bergeron’s body was unblemished. The third doctor had a slightly different opinion about what caused the fatal wounds. It was his belief that they were inflicted by someone swinging a square-faced weapon.

  Apart from describing Bergeron’s wounds, Powers testified about a confrontation that took place in the barn between Larocque and the father of the young man lying on the ground. According to the doctor, Leon Bergeron said to Larocque: “You killed Lamarche for his insurance and now you have killed my son for his.”[15] Asked if anyone talked about insurance before the verbal onslaught, Powers said yes, Larocque brought it up.

  The testimony of two witnesses who were only slightly acquainted with the main players in this drama was revealing, less for what was actually said, than for what was implied. One was the owner of a boarding house in Buckingham, Quebec. She told the court that she knew both of the accused, and that they once brought Athanase Lamarche to her home. Bergeron, too, she said, visited. In fact, she was the beneficiary in a policy of life insurance she
took out on the young man’s life. Also testifying was a farmer who showed up at the Larocque farm for a pre-arranged appointment to buy a cow. When he arrived the farmer was told by Larocque that Bergeron had been killed a little earlier. The visitor was upset at the news, and suggested it would be best if they finalized their business another day. Larocque would have none of that, and insisted on selling the cow without delay.

  The defence of Larocque and Lavictoire was badly damaged by the testimony of the various medical experts called by the Crown, and when it was time to address the jury, the lawyers for the accused men attacked those doctors with considerable vigour. Counsel for Larocque spoke first. “Let the gentlemen of the medical profession agree upon their fantastic theories” he said, “before they have the gall to enter a court of law and ask you to accept those theories.” Then he shifted to the media: “I cannot help but feel some dismay over the publicity given to this case by the press.”[16] And so it went for almost two hours. While his address appeared to make little impression on jurors, it moved the accused to tears. By the time the lawyer finished, both men were weeping openly. Lavictoire’s lawyer was far less dramatic, made fewer arguments, and finished in a fraction of the time taken by the counsel for Larocque. He denied his client benefitted in any way from the death of Bergeron, and suggested that nothing the jurors heard connected Lavictoire to his murder. Then he ended with a flourish: “May He who guides the destiny of men from the cradle to the grave guide you in your decision.”[17]

  On December 15, Mr. Justice Patrick Kerwin, a future chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, began his own address to the jury. Kerwin was presiding over his first criminal trial, but he made it clear what he thought of the evidence, and the guilt of the men in the prisoner’s box.

  You may ask yourselves why Bergeron was asked to be at the Larocque farm at eight o’clock in the morning while other men asked to help with threshing were told not to be there until noon. In conjunction with the motive and the opportunity you may consider what means there were. You will have to consider the evidence in regard to the fork-handle which was found on a dusty beam. You will remember that while the beam was dirty, the fork-handle was clean. If that handle was not put on that beam by human agency then how did it get there? Consider Leon Bergeron who went to the barn and saw his boy breathing his last. The father turned to Larocque and accused him of having murdered his son. Ask yourselves if the reply of Larocque was consistent with the answer of an innocent man accused openly of murder. Were or were not all these wounds caused by the horses. If not, how did Bergeron receive them? You may take it from the evidence that some of the wounds were caused by horses. May I suggest to you that all of those wounds were not caused by horses. [and] How did the blood get on the walls of the barn? Was it as the result of some human agency attacking Bergeron? The accused are not obliged to show how Bergeron came to his death, but if they gave an explanation which you think is not true then you will find them guilty as charged. If you conclude that Bergeron came to his death at the hands of both the accused, then they are both guilty of murder. If you think Bergeron came to his death at the hands of one of the accused but with the other aiding or abetting him, then they are both still guilty of murder.[18]

  According to the official trial record, the jury deliberated just under four hours, but that is not quite true. Jurors decided in thirty minutes that Larocque and Lavictoire were guilty, but before they could announce their verdict, the court recessed. By the time the supper break ended and everyone was reassembled, more than three hours passed. When the accused killers heard the verdict neither showed any emotion, but after Justice Kerwin sentenced them to hang, they broke down. Lavictoire was the first to react. As the judge finished sentencing him to death, he bowed his head and cried. Larocque stared at the bench a moment longer, and then he too wept. The next day things were no better for the prisoners. For hours on end they paced back and forth across their separate but adjoining cells, crying inconsolably. Around 9:00 p.m. they were so exhausted from their ordeal they fell onto the bunks and slept.

  The families of the killers either had no desire to appeal their sentences, or they lacked the resources to do so, and after their request for clemency was denied there was nothing to do but wait. On March 15, 1933, the ordeal of the killers came to an end. Lavictoire was led from his cell first, and at 1:00 a.m. he was hanged. A little over fourteen minutes later it was the turn of Larocque. He stepped on to the trap doors at 1:25 a.m., and after a bit of a delay, was dropped without incident. Five minutes later his body was cut down. When the inquests into the deaths of the two men ended, their families claimed their respective bodies. Seven months later the company that insured the life of Léo Bergeron refused to pay the proceeds of the policy to his father.

  In a morbid postscript to this saga of greed and murder, it was later learned that not all of Athanase Lamarche or Léo Bergeron was buried following the police investigation into their deaths. The doctor who conducted the post-mortem on the two men kept their skulls, and for years they were displayed prominently on the mantle of his Toronto home.

  2

  Murdering Neighbours

  Few relationships are subject to as much stress as that of neighbours. Even the smallest irritation can fester over time, and occasionally what may have started out as a slight can grow to become something akin to provocation. Usually, someone knows when she or he is on the outs with a neighbour, as was the case with Michael Farrell, who twice killed men living next door. But it is also the case that a victim of violence often has no forewarning of what a neighbour is about to do, which was the situation for the men Emerson Shelley and Larry Hansen murdered. The three people whose crimes are described in this chapter have one thing in common. Not only did each murder a neighbour, they all did it twice.

  Michael Farrell: Fifteen Years between Murders

  Michael Farrell was born and raised near Quebec City in the farming community of Sainte Catherine. He was a hard worker, but it was a struggle to make ends meet for a family that numbered nearly a dozen. Making things worse were his wild mood swings, suggestive that the insanity that hospitalized his brother could occasionally be seen in the actions of the highly emotionally Michael. Or maybe Farrell was just one of those individuals destined to experience more than his share of bad luck.

  A case in point was his relationship with neighbours. In 1862, David Meagher and his father were two such individuals. No one knows why they did not get along with Farrell, but on at least one occasion the younger Meagher threatened to kill his volatile neighbour. Things came to a head in March, when all three men were returning from Quebec City to their respective farms on the same road. The Meaghers were ahead of Farrell, but instead of turning down their own side road, they walked on, and waited by Farrell’s turnoff. When Farrell drew near, the father and son waylaid him, but in the ensuing struggle David was struck several times by Farrell’s axe. One blow hit his liver, mortally wounding the young man. Although a coroner’s jury directed that Farrell be charged with manslaughter, his jurors believed that he had acted in self-defence, and acquitted him. The affair cost Farrell a significant amount of money, and fifteen years later likely was instrumental in his conviction for murdering Francis Conway, and in the denial of his subsequent request for commutation of his death sentence.

  Until about 1875, Michael Farrell was, if not a close friend of Francis Conway, at least on good terms with his neighbour. Their relationship began to cool, however, when Conway started to abuse his right to pass through Farrell’s property on the Gosford Railway right-of-way. The tracks ran across fifteen acres of Farrell’s land. As more and more people began travelling to and from Quebec City into the countryside, they increasingly damaged crops growing alongside the road allowance. Worse, at least from Farrell’s perspective, was the damage caused by cattle walking along the track, which often stopped to feed in his fields. To prevent that from happening, Farrell erected a fence and gate. Travellers were expected to take down the gat
e when they passed, and put it back up before they continued on their way. The Conways, however, refused to play by the rules. They used the road, and took down the gate when they passed Farrell’s land, but they refused to put it back up. In fact, on the morning of his murder, Conway and his brother used the right-of-way, and, as usual, left the gate down when they moved on to their own fields.

  As if this disagreement had not damaged the relationship of the neighbours sufficiently, they almost came to blows during a public meeting called to discuss financing a community school. Farrell asked his one-time friend to sign a form agreeing to pay his share of the school costs, and Conway refused.

  On the last Sunday in August 1878, Conway left his house with his brother, a friend, and two of his young children. They were going to visit his father, who lived nearby. As they walked along the rail track, the group was confronted by Farrell, who demanded to know what they were doing on his land. Conway told him that they were on the right-of-way, not his property, and they had every right to be there. Farrell disagreed. “It is my land. Don’t you come back here anymore, or you won’t go off the same as you came.”[1] With that he turned and left, while Conway and his party continued on their way.