Practically Perfect

by Dale Brawn

  When Edith’s parents did not hear from her by Sunday they became frantic and went to Westgate’s rooming house to ask if he had seen her. He said that he had not, but suggested they look for her at the Marlborough, even volunteering to accompany them. Although they received no answer to their knock, they noticed a strong odour coming from room 503, and had a chambermaid open the door. Inside they found Edith, lying in bed with the covers around her head, obviously dead. Westgate was held on a coroner’s warrant until the cause of death was established, and then formally arrested. Four months later his third murder trial got underway. It lasted six days, and like his previous hearings, ended with a verdict of guilty. For the only time in Canadian history, a murderer was three times sentenced to hang for committing two separate murders.

  In 1943 Albert Victor Westgate, a decorated veteran of the First World War, was paroled after serving fourteen years in penitentiary for murdering the wife of a Winnipeg store detective. Within a few months of his release he strangled a sixteen-year-old waitress. After his execution he was interred in the military section of Winnipeg’s Brookside Cemetery. To satisfy an enraged public, his headstone was removed, leaving him to spend eternity in an unmarked grave.

  Author’s photo.

  Albert Victor Westgate was executed just after 1:00 a.m. on July 24, 1944. At that time the Criminal Code provided the bodies of those executed were to be buried within the walls of the institution in which they were put to death. Because Westgate was a veteran, however, his body was released, and he was given a military funeral. Later the government re-thought its decision, and although Westgate’s remains were left undisturbed, his headstone was removed.

  Whether out of anger at their daughter’s killer, or in frustration with a legal system that gave him a second chance to murder, the Cooks filed a $100,000 lawsuit against Westgate. The Manitoba Court of Appeal dismissed the claim, but it is the only time in our nation’s history that a man on death row was sued by the family of his victim.

  Albert Victory Westgate is buried in the military section of Winnipeg’s Brookside Cemetery. Edith Cook is also buried in Brookside, a short distance from her killer.

  4

  Loved Ones Tell All

  Canadian law has long protected the communication between spouses. Historically, that meant that a wife and husband could not testify against each other. Children, on the other hand, were free to say whatever they wanted, both in and out of court. So are lovers. The stories in this chapter are about people who were once close to a murderer, but who could not keep a confidence. In each case, the result was that someone had to die.

  Oliver Prévost: The Piggery Murders

  The two pig farmers were like so many late nineteenth-century Canadian pioneers: they worked hard, kept to themselves, and lived with few luxuries. Still, they were making progress. In the few years he had been in Canada, René D’Aubigné settled comfortably into the farm and pig business he and a partner purchased three kilometres north of Port Arthur, Ontario (now Thunder Bay). The two men built a new residence next to the long, low stable in which they housed their sixty-five pigs, and to give each some semblance of privacy, the house was occupied by D’Aubigné, while Fred Carrier lived in a smaller, older shanty a few dozen yards away. On Thursday, February 11, 1897, whatever dreams of their business future the partners shared came to an abrupt end.

  Just after 6:00 a.m. two men on their way to cut cordwood passed the pig farm of D’Aubigné and Carrier, and noticed the smouldering remains of buildings. They also saw a mule, a calf, three dogs, a cat, and a few geese standing near a haystack, about halfway between what were once two small houses and a shed. Their first reaction was that there had been a tragic accident; tragic, because plainly visible in the ruins of one of the buildings were what looked like human remains.

  By noon a coroner’s inquest was convened, and its members taken to view the accident site. The inquest then adjourned until the next day, when one witness after another swore that the fire was no accident. When the session ended, jurors had reached five conclusions. First, it would have been impossible for a fire to have spread from D’Aubigné’s house to the building occupied by his partner without setting fire to the haystack that separated the structures, particularly when the wind had been blowing away from Carrier’s shack; second, the night he died the door to the residence of D’Aubigné was fastened shut by a wooden peg shoved through an iron hasp — from the outside; third, footprints in freshly fallen snow led to and from the burned buildings; fourth, it was inconceivable that two men living within a few metres of sixty-five pigs would not have been awoken by the squealing of the animals as they were burned alive; and last, if Carrier’s body had fallen through the wooden floor of his shack after it was destroyed in the fire, the debris that covered him would have been beneath his remains, not on top of them. Jurors also thought it odd that the calf, which was habitually tied in a shed during the night, was found outside with a rope around its neck, a rope that had been cut.

  Oliver Prévost was among the last witnesses heard by jurors. He testified that he and his wife were living in the Victoria Hotel, long abandoned by the time they moved in, and that the day before D’Aubigné and Carrier died he purchased from them a horse, a hog, and some potatoes. He said that after delivering the potatoes, Carrier declined an invitation to stay for supper, and headed home.

  On February 26, the coroner’s jury reconvened. Among those heard was a young man who testified that the evening before the fire he saw Carrier driving a sleigh on his way home from town. The witness said a woman in a black dress with a shawl covering her head was walking beside the cutter. Although the route Carrier was taking was not one he usually took on his way from Port Arthur to his piggery, the young man did not think anything was amiss. Asked if the woman appeared to be trying to hide her identity, the witness said no, he did not think so. As it later turned out, he was wrong.

  Following the testimony about the sleigh and the mysterious woman, the inquest adjourned until the next afternoon, when jurors met for the final time. Unbeknownst to anyone, among the last witnesses heard was the woman in the shawl. Because she was sick in bed, the evidence of Rosanna Gauthier, who described herself as Mrs. Prévost, was taken from her in the form of a written statement and read to jury members. She had nothing to say that they had not already heard. In fact, the jurors concluded they had heard all the new evidence they were likely to hear, and ended their deliberations by concluding: “That the said R. Dabin [René D’Aubigné] and F. Corrier [Fred Carrier] came to their death on the night of the 10th of February, 1897, through foul play, at the hands of some party or parties unknown to the jury, and that the buildings occupied by the men were set on fire to cover up the crime.”[1]

  The cover-up worked perfectly, for about ten months. By then the killers had gone their separate ways: Rosanna Gauthier to her husband and home in Valleyfield, Quebec, and Oliver Prévost back to a life of crime. Even then things would have been different had not Oliver harboured a sense of resentment he could not contain, or had the insanity that ran through his family not finally surfaced.

  The beginning of the end came in November 1897, when Prévost pled guilty to stealing furs and pork in Renfrew, Ontario. Because of his lengthy criminal record, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. Before he was transferred from Pembroke to the Kingston Penitentiary, he told the attorney prosecuting him that he had something to get off his chest. His story was equal parts fact and fiction, but it certainly captured the attention of his listener. According to Prévost, a little more than a year earlier he met Rosanna Gauthier, who was then in her late teens. The two were travelling from Montreal to Valleyfield, and through her he met her husband. In time the men agreed to become partners in the hotel business in Port Arthur, but when it came time to head west, Gautier changed his mind. Rosanna, however, was still enthused about going, and she, Prévost, and Prévost’s three children left without him. Prévost told the Crown Attorney that Rosanna was fascinated
by poison, and she carried a small container of it wherever she went. Early the previous February two men stopped by the derelict hotel in which he and Rosanna were living, and they stayed for supper. For no reason he can understand, Gauthier poisoned them. Realizing the trouble they were in, the couple loaded the bodies on to a sleigh, and headed out for the men’s farm. There he and Gauthier laid the corpses on their beds, and after stripping them of everything of value, set fire to their houses to cover up their crime. A short while later Prévost and Gauthier separated.

  On the strength of Prévost’s statement, Gauthier was arrested in Valleyfield and brought to Pembroke, where her preliminary hearing got underway early in December 1897. She seemed not to take the proceedings seriously. At times she appeared amused about what was going on, and the allegation she murdered two men did nothing to keep her attention focussed on the proceedings. Gauthier’s features did not change even when Prévost was called to the stand. He spoke as if what transpired in Port Arthur was a fairy tale, and in the words of a spectator, the “awfulness of the crime did not for a minute impress him.”[2]

  Prévost testified that fifteen minutes after D’Aubigné and Carrier sat down for supper with him and Gauthier, Carrier suddenly got up and walked over to a pail to get a glass of water. Realizing it was empty, he turned and went outside to drink from the pump. D’Aubigné then said that he too was thirsty, and went looking for water in the kitchen. Prévost picked up the water pail, and as he opened the door separating the kitchen from the dining room, he saw D’Aubigné leaning against a shelf. Just as his guest slipped to the floor Prévost turned his head slightly, and noticed through an open door Carrier on his hands and knees near the stable. Prévost said he rushed back to the dining room to get a lamp, and told Gauthier that Carrier was sick. She said not to bother with him, “I have dosed the men with poison.”[3] Prévost told the inquiry that Gauthier pleaded with him not to tell anyone what she had done. The couple decided to haul the bodies into the dining room, where they left them while they figured out what to do next. Prévost asked why Gauthier poisoned the men, and told the presiding magistrate that she claimed Carrier had sexually assaulted her, and she was getting even. It was then that she suggested they put the bodies in the sleigh the farmers came to town in, and take them back to their piggery.

  But, he said, that was not as easy as they hoped it would be. When the pair went to get the mule and sleigh, they found that the animal somehow had gotten loose and was already on its way home. They pursued it at once, but by the time they caught up to the rig they were at the piggery. Since they were there anyway, they searched the buildings and took whatever valuables they could find, including a gold watch, blankets, clothes, a small chest containing some money, and a pail of lard. On their way home he said they saw a young man in the distance, and Gauthier got off the sleigh and walked a little ways behind, her head covered with a shawl.

  Once they got home, Prévost claimed they took a barn door from the yard, hooked one end to the sleigh, and put the bodies on it. Fearing they might be seen with the bodies, they gave the mule its head, and started out a good ways behind. Before they reached their destination it suddenly occurred to Gauthier that the men likely had some money in their pockets. Prévost said he caught up to the mule, stopped the sleigh, took the bodies off the barn door, and stood watch while Gauthier went through the pockets of the dead men. When they reached the pig farm they dragged the bodies into their respective shacks. As they were leaving Carrier’s house Gauthier’s lamp hit the door and fell. In no time at all the building was in flames. The culprits then started walking home, although Prévost noticed a rifle in the shack and grabbed it before making his exit.

  Prévost said the next day Gauthier showed him the bottle in which she kept her poison. He told the magistrate that the powder was whitish, like salt, with dark flecks mixed in. When he said he doubted that the substance was actually deadly, Gauthier put some of the powder on a piece of bread, and gave it to the neighbour’s dog. It obviously did not like the taste of what it ate, and started for home. The dog took only a few steps before it fell to the ground and began convulsing. In seconds the animal was dead.

  While being cross-examined Prévost admitted that he was not sure everything he said was true, and there were some questions he could not answer. For the most part, however, he thought his recollections were an accurate retelling of what happened. The magistrate presiding over the hearing agreed, and he committed Gauthier to stand trial. Prévost, meanwhile, was sent back to Kingston. The record of what happened next, or when, is not clear, but sometime in 1898 the Crown dropped the murder charges laid against Gauthier and charged Prévost with killing Carrier and D’Aubigné.

  His two-day trial started on December 6, 1898, and the only evidence against him was the testimony of Gauthier. What she said had much more the ring of truth to it than did the rambling account of Prévost. According to Gauthier, he went to the piggery by himself on the evening of February 10, killed the two pig farmers, and came back to town. He forced her to return to the farm and help him ransack the homes of his victims, and then made her sit beside him as they hauled their plunder home. Afterwards, Prévost drove the mule and sleigh to the farm, burned the buildings, and walked back to town.

  On the stand Gauthier was a much different person than she was a year earlier. This time she was focussed, and much more serious. Still, probably because spectators were aware of her checkered past, she did not impress everyone. A reporter with the Daily Mail and Empire noted that:

  Mrs. Gauthier has had quite a career for her age. In a convent from 10 to 15, married then, lived with her husband for two years, then went off with Prevost, and now, at the early age of 20, has returned to the husband. She gave her evidence very clearly, and did not appear to be rattled at all over the crime with which she was, either willingly or unwillingly, so closely connected.[4]

  Perhaps the reason Gauthier was given the benefit of the doubt, in terms of credibility, is because listeners could not help but compare what she had to say with the testimony of Prévost. He testified on his own behalf, but his story did nothing to convince jurors that he was telling the truth, or that he was innocent of committing the two murders. In a considerable understatement, an observer noted that, “Altogether it is a very mixed up story, and it is hard to sift out the truth.”[5] After sitting through a very long day of testimony the jury had done all the sifting it was going to do, and at 1:30 a.m. it returned a verdict of guilty. Minutes later Prévost learned his fate — he was about to become the first person hanged in Port Arthur, Ontario.

  By tradition the condemned were expected to use the time between their sentence and execution to make themselves right with God, and it was the responsibility of newspapers to advise readers that the job was carried out. Both Prévost and local newspapers played their part, and none played it better than the Daily Journal.

  It is a comfort to those who are blessed with any religious belief to know that he [Prévost] died full of penitence for the rebellious life, which he had lead, and ended his existence in full acceptance of the rites of the church of his youth. To the Rev. Father he made confession. For the public he simply said he was an innocent man, and that though he suffered it was not wrongly for though innocent of this he had been guilty of other crimes. He was thankful for the long time given him to repent.[6]

  Prévost slept only an hour the evening before he was to hang, and although his usual breakfast of buttered toast and coffee was brought to him, he ignored it. While his spiritual adviser was administering the Holy Sacrament of Communion the country’s official executioner and a blacksmith arrived at the jail. They reached the condemned man’s cell slightly after 7:30 a.m. on March 17, 1899. As they entered Prévost stood, tears filling his eyes, and he shook hands with his guests. The blacksmith then asked Prévost to sit while he removed the prisoner’s leg irons. That was a more difficult task than usual because a week earlier, in an attempt to remove the irons, Prévost jammed a wi
re into the lock and it broke off.

  With the blacksmith busy with his chisel, the executioner made his way to the scaffold erected in the yard of the jail. It was an ugly thing, standing six metres high, with a platform four metres across. When he was satisfied that all was in order, the hangman returned to the cell occupied by Prévost. As he entered the bells of Port Arthur’s Catholic Churches began tolling. His victim was ready for his walk to the gallows, and as the executioner approached to bind his arms behind his back, Prévost put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and said “You are doing your duty, but you are hanging an innocent man.”[7] The hangman ignored the comment, and fastened around the waist of his victim a thick leather belt, with two small straps sewn into the sides near the front. One of these bindings was made fast around each of the prisoner’s wrists. Once that was done someone placed a prayer book in Prévost’s hand. After a series of brief goodbyes to those who had been tending to his spiritual needs, the death walk began. In his new dark suit, dress shirt, and black necktie, the man about to be executed was very likely the best dressed member of the party. The clothes were bought with funds raised by townspeople.

  While more than three hundred people applied for a ticket to witness the execution, only twenty people were admitted. Prévost walked by them with a firm step, but when he reached the steps leading to the platform of the scaffold he seemed to weaken, and was helped up the stairs. On the gallows he was guided to the trap doors, and the hangman slipped a hood over his head with one hand, and a noose with the other. With this Prévost began to pray, and as he did so the executioner looked at the sheriff, who signalled him to proceed. In a flash the lever was pulled back, and Prévost dropped. As soon as those in attendance saw that there was not the slightest movement of the rope, an almost audible sigh of relief could be heard. So sudden was Prévost rendered unconscious, his prayer book remained firmly clutched in one of his hands. Four minutes later the killer was declared dead, his neck broken.