Practically Perfect

by Dale Brawn

  Courtesy of Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives.

  The scaffold Munroe saw as he stepped from the jail into the courtyard was quite unlike the structure most closely associated with official hangings. This one consisted of a single tall post, to which a long beam was fastened with a swivel. The noose, which was to be placed around Munroe’s neck, was attached to one end of the beam, and the other end of the rope ran along it and through the back door of the jail, where it suspended a weight of several hundred pounds a few feet off the ground. As soon as he was told to proceed, the hangman cut the rope holding the weight. When it dropped, the end of the beam to which Munroe was attached swung up, jerking the condemned man into the air. The force of gravity eventually caused his body to fall back towards the ground, and Munroe’s neck received a second jerk before he was left dangling two feet over the platform. It was not a pretty sight, and things soon got worse. “For a moment there was no motion save the swaying of the body, then the hands began to work, the fingers clutching and then closing with a grip. The legs were not drawn up, but by muscular contraction were turned over across the other somewhat. The neck was evidently not broken, death resulting from strangulation.”[14] Twenty minutes later the man who very nearly got away with two murders was dead.

  Maurice Ryan: Bones of a Brother

  It seemed that no matter how hard Maurice Ryan tried, he was always his own worst enemy. Nothing he did turned out right, and certainly not the murder of his brother. In the waning years of the first decade of the twentieth century the Ryans were notorious in the North Bay area of northern Ontario. Francis Joseph was the more high profile of the brothers, and the brothel he operated was one of the region’s better known pleasure palaces. Maurice, on the other hand, was a regular in the town’s bars and gambling dens. Neither was the type of man who could be trusted. And that was what cost Francis his life.

  In many frontier communities like North Bay houses of ill repute were a fact of life. Although not formally part of the established order, they were nonetheless tolerated, provided those who ran them kept a low profile. That was something Francis simply could not do. On November 5, 1907, the authorities finally decided to bring him to account, and charged him with keeping what locals referred to as “a house of ill-fame.” But for Francis, going to jail was not an option, and rather than stay around to answer to the charge, he decided he leave town. With his brother in tow, he closed his account at the Ottawa Bank and withdrew his substantial savings, rented a horse and buggy for the trip to the train station, then headed home to pack his bags. While he was there he told the attractive young woman who managed his business that he was leaving for the United States, and after settling his affairs in North Bay he would be back to pay her what she was owed. Around 9:00 p.m. he did just that, and in the process displayed a huge wad of money.

  The last anyone saw of Francis, he was sitting beside his brother as the two drove from town towards the train station at nearby Callander. The next morning Maurice returned the rented buggy and claimed he had no idea where the blood came from that was plainly visible all over the wagon and on the suitcase, which Francis apparently forgot to take with him when he got on the train.

  For the next few days Maurice was seen everywhere. First he showed up at his brother’s former place of business, claiming to have purchased the contents of the house, which he promptly sold to the brothel’s new operator. He then headed to his favourite bar, where he paid his tab with bills peeled from a roll of cash surprisingly large for a man previously dependent on the goodwill of others. Asked where the money came from, Maurice said he won it playing poker. Next came a trip back to the livery stable, where Ryan repaid money borrowed from the owner. Apparently worried that he was getting a little low on funds, Maurice showed up at the Traders Bank, and cashed a cheque drawn on an account of his brother’s New York bank.

  Over the next few weeks Maurice spent time just about everywhere people drank, and when asked about his brother, always responded that Francis was well, and the two were in regular contact. That response may have satisfied strangers, but it did nothing but raise a suspicion in the mind of James, a third Ryan sibling. When he last saw his absent brother, Francis was looking forward to getting out of town and promised to get in touch once he settled somewhere in the United States. Of course, James did not actually expect Francis to write, since he knew his brother was illiterate. You can imagine his surprise, then, when he received not one, but two letters, the first mailed from Vermont, and the second from Ottawa. Although in each the writer claimed to be Francis, James recognized the handwriting. The letters were written by his sister.

  Almost exactly a year after Francis was last seen alive a homesteader clearing land eight miles from North Bay literally stumbled across a skeleton lying in bush, about sixty feet off a road. The remains were under two trees, which fell when the area was burned over some months earlier. Although the fire destroyed what was left of the corpse, when investigators removed the bones, they found beneath them a bullet, a watch, and a tag bearing the name “Francis Joseph Ryan.”

  As soon as Ontario Provincial Police officers knew the identity of the dead man, they were convinced that Maurice killed his brother, and he was promptly arrested. Making matters worse for the black sheep of the Ryan family was the fact that two weeks before Francis went missing Maurice threatened to kill him. Things became heated when Francis refused to lend his brother $5. To get even, Maurice threatened to tell his mother that Francis was keeping a bawdy house. That, he told everyone within listening distance, would kill her, “and I will kill him.”[15]

  In late March 1909, Maurice went on trial for murder. The proceedings were a formality. Witness after witness testified that just about everything Maurice did following the disappearance of Francis made them suspicious that something was amiss. Even the alibi Maurice offered investigators did not hold up. The accused killer said he was not the person who drove his brother to the train station the night he disappeared. The driver, he said, was James Driscoll. When Driscoll was called to the stand he brought with him a copy of his work record, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that in the months before and after the killing he was nowhere near North Bay.

  Because Maurice did not testify at his trial, all his lawyer could do was suggest to jurors that his client should not be convicted because (a) the Crown failed to show that Francis was dead, and (b) the Crown failed even to prove that the skeleton discovered in the bush was that of a man. Neither of the arguments did anything to change the minds of jurors, and twenty-five minutes after they began deliberating they returned to court with their verdict. A little over two months later Maurice paid the price for his crime.

  June 3, 1909, dawned bright and beautiful in North Bay, and it was a day of great promise, for everyone except Maurice Ryan. He spent the previous evening in quiet conversation with his spiritual adviser, taking time to converse with a few of the newspaper reporters on hand to witness his execution.

  I am not guilty of the crime which I have been convicted of, nor do I know anything about it, and I thank Mr. Bull, my lawyer, for what he has done for me, as I did not have one dollar to pay him for fighting my case. If I had another trial I could have proved where I got the money, but I did not know I would have to account for it; and, not being able to see my lawyer until the last few days, I was unable to give him the information I wanted, consequently he had nothing to work on for a new trial, nor had he any money to work with. I had several witnesses, but did not have money to get them here, and I did not know where they were before the trial, finding out afterwards, but too late. I hope that people will soon learn that I died an innocent man. I forgive my enemies, and die with a clear conscience, so help me God.[16]

  During his last hours Ryan did not appear troubled by what was to come. He slept soundly until thirty minutes before he was to be hanged. Then things passed in a blur. After his spiritual adviser woke the sleeping killer the two talked for a little more than ten minutes, and th
en the hangman arrived. He quickly pinioned Ryan’s arms behind his back, and with the local sheriff leading the way, the small group milling about the death cell departed for the scaffold. Behind the sheriff came a turnkey, followed by the condemned man, his executioner, and reciting prayers as he walked, Ryan’s spiritual adviser.

  As soon as Maurice caught sight of the scaffold he began to cry, and for a time appeared to be on the verge of collapse. With every step up the stairs to the platform of the gallows his panic grew. By the time he was guided to the trap door, he was almost shouting, “I am innocent!” The hangman quickly pulled the death hood over the killer’s head, but as he started to bend to pinion his legs, realized that Ryan was about to collapse. The executioner immediately stood, and as he did he pulled the lever. One moment Ryan was there, and in the next he was gone.

  The drop did not break his neck, but it instantly rendered him unconscious. It took Ryan almost twelve minutes to strangle to death, his body hanging motionless as his oxygen-starved brain slowly stopped functioning.[17]

  Marcel Bernier: The Bodies Came Back

  Quebecker Denise Therrien was a sixteen-year-old honour student at South Shawinigan High when she went missing in August 1961. Like her mother, she was pretty, petite, and a hard worker. In fact, with only two weeks of her summer holidays left, she was determined to earn a few more dollars so that she could add to her back-to-school wardrobe. With that in mind she registered with the Provincial Employment Bureau in Shawinigan for work as either a housekeeper or babysitter.

  On August 7, she had a stroke of luck. Micheline, her sister, was a receptionist at the Bureau, and when a man phoned inquiring about a babysitter, Micheline immediately thought of Denise. She told the man she had someone in mind for the job, and she would call him back to get more details later. No, that wouldn’t do, he said. He would call back. With that he hung up, and Micheline called her sister to see if she wanted the $25 a week job. A couple of hours later the man phoned, identifying himself as Claude Marchand. Micheline told him someone would be able to start the following day, and took down instructions for where the babysitter would be picked up.

  When Micheline got home after work she again talked to Denise about the job, and sensed that her sister was a little hesitant about taking it. In the end the sixteen-year-old shook off her sense of foreboding and admitted she needed the money. The next morning Denise put on a green dress, matching shoes, black socks, and a black sweater. From her summer savings she took $3 to pay for her bus fare to the spot where she would be picked up. On the way she asked the driver to drop her off near the Caribou Motel, about two miles distant. When the bus arrived at her stop no one was waiting. Denise stayed in her seat for almost another mile, and then decided to get off and find a phone to call home. But no sooner had the bus pulled to a stop than a truck pulled up. After a brief conversation with the man behind the wheel, Denise got into the vehicle.

  No one in the Therrien residence slept that night. When Denise did not return from her appointment by 7:00 p.m. relatives and family friends began searching for her. Their first stop was the address given to the employment agency by the man who called himself Claude Marchand. It turned out to be an empty chalet, already shuttered for the winter. Early the next morning the telephone rang. As luck would have it, the phone was answered by Micheline, who realized at once to whom she was speaking. “I recognized the voice. He was the same person who called on Monday. He said Denise would be returned safely on Thursday if we didn’t call the police.”[18] Then he hung up. Before he did, she got the distinct impression that there was someone in the background whispering to the caller.

  Despite instructions not to do so, Henry Therrien, the father of Micheline and Denise, called the police. It was their belief that Denise had been kidnapped, a suspicion that grew stronger when seven more calls were received over the next day and a half. Thursday evening the calls stopped. Even at this stage in the investigation, however, a number of police officers involved in following up leads thought there was more to the disappearance of Denise than a kidnapping. What concerned them was that at least twice over the summer other women responded to similar requests for a babysitter, and one of the women was sexually assaulted. Another assault likely was avoided when a woman showed up at the Caribou Motel with a friend.

  A couple of days after their daughter went missing the Therriens were sitting on their porch. The couple was frantic with worry and exhausted by the constant searching. This afternoon was warm and sunny and the two decided to sit for awhile. Suddenly a truck drove up. Beside the male driver sat two women. The man walked over to the Therriens and introduced himself. He said his companions were his wife and his mother-in-law. The Therriens were a little taken aback, since they had never seen the three before. When the driver began speaking to the distraught parents, he used vulgarities not normally tolerated in the deeply conservative home. Looking directly at them, the man said “It takes a real s.o.b. to do a thing like that.”[19] What startled the Therriens more than the language was the implication behind his words. Their daughter was missing for less than a week, and there was no official indication that anything bad might have happened to her. Mrs. Therrien recalled being upset by the comment of their visitor. “We had had no news whatsoever from her or about her since she disappeared.”[20]

  Denise was gone barely a week when the police began receiving sightings of young women believed to be the missing girl. One of the first came from North Bay, where a girl registered at an area motel using the name Denise Therrien, giving Shawinigan as her home address. The same day Quebec Provincial Police received a report that someone who looked just like Denise was standing in front of a Hull theatre. A third call came from a trucker, who said one of the female hitchhikers he picked up near Shawinigan looked a lot like the missing youth. The most promising of the false leads involved a nineteen-year-old male said to have been the missing girl’s lover. When investigators received the report they sensed they may finally be making progress. The man was located in Toronto, and brought to Montreal under police escort. It turned out that although he did know Denise, the two had never met — they were pen pals. While these reports were troubling, the Therriens were more concerned by comments they were reading in local newspapers, to the effect that police were now convinced that Denise was dead.

  With nothing to show after weeks of searching, the mayor of Shawinigan called a public meeting to discuss what should be done. The consensus was that Denise was either dead, or had been kidnapped. Those attending the meeting agreed that if she was taken, they should do something while there was still time. The mayor agreed, and called on the missing girl’s abductors to name their price. The first ransom note arrived at the Therrien residence on August 19. The five page letter was written in French and printed on sheets torn from a small, 1961 calendar. Although not dated, the note was postmarked “Shawinigan — August 18,” and addressed to Henry Therrien. It instructed Denise’s father to wrap up $5,000 in $10 bills, and suspend the package from a railing at the north end of a bridge on Montreal Island. “As soon as we got the money, five hours later we will bring her down to your home unharmed.”[21] The note also contained a warning not to seek the help of either the police or civilians, and on a separate sheet, printed in large letters, the words “$5,000 in exchange for Denise. She is well.” The letter was signed “Claude Marchand.” Henry Therrien followed the instructions to the letter, but five hours after hanging the package from the Charlemagne Bridge his daughter was still missing. When he returned to Montreal the following morning, the money was where he left it.[22]

  A second ransom note was received six days later, again by mail. This one demanded $8,000, and instructed Mr. Therrien to place the money under a rock behind a local bus station by no later than midnight the day the note was received. Once again Therrien did what he was told to do, and once again the money went unclaimed. Although both notes were hand printed, investigators concluded they were produced by different people. But written
ransom requests were not the only demands received by the Therriens. Every day for almost a week they answered a telephone demand for money. The first two callers wanted $5,000, while subsequent ransomers asked for a different amount. Police suspected that more than one of the calls were likely from the same person, and an investigator was stationed in the Therrien home in case further calls came in. When the telephone finally rang, the waiting officer instructed Therrien to keep his caller on the line, and headed into Shawinigan, where he located a man standing in a phone booth. The officer casually walked over, and when he heard reference to a $5,000 ransom, he placed the caller under arrest. Well before Denise was found the would-be fraudster completed his three-year jail sentence for trying to extort money from her parents.

  By the end of August the entire Therrien family was worn out and desperate for news. Henry’s brother placed a newspaper ad offering $10,000 for a picture, or even a negative, showing Denise either dead or alive. Interviewed by reporters about the ad, Henry made no apologies. “The negative must show my daughter so that she can be recognized. It may be a picture of her dead or alive. Either is acceptable.”[23] Therrien told reporters that out of desperation he and his brother also visited a mystic living near Shawinigan, and hired a team of private detectives from Montreal, to assist the Quebec Provincial Police in their investigation.

  When Denise Therrien went missing Marcel Bernier was a grave digger employed by the St. Michel Cemetery. Because the cemetery and Bernier’s small house were just across the highway from the spot where Denise was picked up by the mysterious Claude Marchand, he initially came under suspicion. Although police questioned him at length about the disappearance of the young woman, Bernier denied knowing anything, and even agreed to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence. With nothing to hold him, he was released. A more thorough investigation may have turned up something that would have helped investigators solve not one, but two murders.