Practically Perfect (11 page)

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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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 wire 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.”
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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.

One of the requirements of the law is that immediately following an execution a coroner’s jury had to be empanelled to view the remains of the person executed, and to swear that he was well and truly dead. What the six jurors from Port Arthur saw was a man who looked almost asleep, and were it not for a slight discolouration around his neck, someone might have thought he dozed off with not a worry in the world.

John “Cobalt” Ivanchuk: Too Much to Say

John Ivanchuk was, like so many men and women executed in Canada, inclined to talk too much. He also placed too much trust in a fifteen-year-old young woman. His story is of particular interest because we know so little about what motivated him to kill a northern Ontario liquor inspector, and how he escaped detection while continuing to live in the same small town in which he committed the murder.

Ivanchuk was born in Austria in 1887, and served in the armed forces of his country before immigrating to Canada as a twenty-five-year-old. About the same time he earned his nickname “Cobalt” as a miner in northern Ontario, Ivanchuk began a rapid descent into crime and corruption. Harry Constable, on the other hand, was by all accounts a good person. He was a young war hero, worked hard, participated in community events, took the time to get to know his neighbours, and was liked by everyone. In late October 1926, he spent most of the evening with other members of the Cochrane band. The northern town was proud of its musicians, and most band members took their practice seriously. It was not altogether surprising, then, when by 11:30 p.m. he was not yet home. Still, it was late, and Constable’s wife was waiting up. When she heard three shots she at first thought someone was celebrating, but quickly realized that even though it was Friday, it was almost midnight, and in a town the size of Cochrane, that was late. Both curious and worried, she decided to investigate. When she stepped out of her house she noticed a neighbour coming out of his. It was pouring in rain, and dark, and neither could see. Before they had a chance to turn back, the Constable’s Airedale emerged out of the darkness. Just then a man from down the street walked up and shone his flashlight along the path. That’s when they saw Harry lying against a fence. While Mrs. Constable ran towards her husband, one of the neighbours took off in the opposite direction to phone for a doctor. In less than five minutes two arrived. Although the inspector was alive, everyone could see that there was little that could be done. He had been shot three times. One bullet struck his shoulder, and a second hit him in the abdomen, but neither was noticed at the time. The third wound was clearly visible — there was practically nothing left of his throat. Twenty minutes after she heard the first shot ring out, Constable’s wife became a widow.

John Ivanchuk was a small time bootlegger in northern Ontario, and somewhere along the line he ran afoul of a Cochrane liquor inspector. Ivanchuk got even for whatever slight he suffered by shooting the officer three times. Although the killer continued to live in the same small town in which he committed the murder, it took the police more than a year to catch him.
Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.