Practically Perfect (6 page)

She prays Your Royal Highness, to forgive the boldness, begotten of her deep distress, which prompts her to approach Your Gracious Person, under the present circumstances, and she hopefully addresses her present supplication, and that of her helpless little children to Your Royal Highness; as to one upon whose kindly ear, the cry of the poor and the distressed, has never yet fallen in vain.

Mary Farrell
[14]

While the petition of Mary Farrell was being considered, the condemned man’s lawyer launched his own application for clemency. In an affidavit filed in support of it, he advanced two arguments not pursued at trial. The first was that when the murder occurred, Farrell was defending himself against a carefully constructed plot to kill him during a fight on the right-of-way. The lawyer said it was his belief “that, if the accused be reprieved for two months, I shall be able to establish that the deceased had a loaded pistol on his person, and that the two Conways and Landers had made up their minds, at the risk of losing of life by one of them, to take the life of Farrell.”
[15]

The lawyer’s second argument was that when the murder occurred, Farrell was insane. In support of this suggestion, he filed an affidavit signed by a friend of Farrell’s brother John, who died in a Quebec mental institution, and another sworn by neighbours of Farrell’s mother. The friend of John Farrell swore that he knew John to be insane, and quick to resort to violence. It was his belief that Michael, “his brother now under sentence, when excited, or in passion, [was] subject to insanity.”
[16]
In a similar vein, the neighbours swore that they were familiar with both Michael and John Farrell, and there was no doubt whatsoever that the late John Farrell had been insane for years before he was institutionalized. “We were sent for on many occasions to aid in preventing him from committing acts of violence on members of the family, on one occasion we found him quite naked chasing his mother round the stove, she having a piece of rope in her hand, endeavoring to beat him off. He had to be tied on one occasion to prevent him of committing an act of violence on the family.”
[17]
Insanity, they suggested, ran in the Farrell family.

During the first eight of the nine weeks he spent waiting to be executed, the condemned man was convinced that his sentence would be commuted. Only in the last three days before his date with the hangman did Farrell show signs of weakness. The day before he was to hang a telegram from the federal minister of justice ended his hope for a reprieve:

Department of Justice Ottawa, January 9th 1879 Time 4:40, Quebec: Governor General received your telegram asking for commutation of sentence of Farrell which he handed to me and commanded me to say that “His Excellency has not thought fit to change decision of Judge, Jury and Privy Council as reported to His Excellency by me.”

John A. Macdonald, Minister of Justice.
[18]

The morning of his last day Farrell rose early, and admitted to inmates in cells nearby that he was nervous of what was to come. Shortly after daylight he was transferred to the cell reserved for those about to be executed. He realized all too well the significance of his new accommodations. To one of his guards he admitted, “I’m afraid this removal is a sure sign of my end.”

When news of the telegram from Ottawa reached her, Mary Farrell rushed to her husband’s cell. An observer described the meeting as a pitiful sight.

Farrell had just sat at a table in his ward to partake of a cup of tea, when his wife rushed frantically to his side, and throwing her arms around his neck, clung to him. Her children wept, and in this state, they were assisted away after a great deal of heart-rendering scenes. Farrell bore up to the parting with great courage, but on seeing his wife and children take leave of him never again to meet on this earth, he broke down and sobbed bitterly.
[19]

On Thursday, January 10, 1879, Farrell awoke after only a few hours of sleep. His two spiritual advisers were waiting, and the three men soon knelt in prayer. Farrell was nervous, although perhaps a little less anxious than he had been in the preceding two or three days. The black flag, a visible symbol of what was to come, was raised over the prison at 7:00 a.m., and the sheriff ordered spectators wandering the corridor in front of Farrell’s cell out of the jail. When the time came for the condemned man to begin his last walk, the only non-officials allowed in the prison were his priests. At 8:00 a.m. the man who was to hang Farrell entered the prisoner’s cell. At almost exactly the same time a Solemn Requiem Mass began in each of Quebec City’s Roman Catholic churches. Although most cathedrals were thronged with celebrants, the silence was deafening. The least affected person in the city appeared to be the executioner. He was a short, thin man, and wore a long coat and a false beard and moustache. A local newspaper later told its readers that all that could be said of him was “that he showed signs of being a hardened wretch.” Whether the executioner was hardened was pure speculation; that he was incompetent was a fact.

All of the officials involved with Farrell’s execution were greatly affected by what was about to happen. The sheriff was pale, and his hands trembled. The jailor principally responsible for caring for the condemned murderer was so overcome with emotion that he could barely move, and the prison guards who were required to be in attendance looked despondent. Outside, however, the atmosphere was very different. More than two hundred spectators milled about in the prison yard. Among their number were doctors, shopkeepers, students, labourers, lawyers, and reporters. The hangman inspected the scaffold before the death walk began. It was an imposing structure, erected in the prison yard a short distance from the door through which Farrell was to exit the jail. During his first visit the executioner fastened the rope in its place, and then returned to the prison. There he tied Farrell’s wrists behind his back, and pinioned his arms to his sides. That done, the once hot-headed farmer began his last journey, a priest on each side.

When he reached the scaffold Farrell looked around, and to those whom he recognized he said goodbye. Then, without making evident the emotion he must have felt, he walked to the trap doors, and knelt in silent prayer. The spectators standing below him joined in. After a moment or two Farrell rose, and the hangman moved in to bind his feet. He then started to adjust the noose under the prisoner’s left ear, but could not get it right. His fumbling caught the attention of those standing in the yard, and almost in unison they began shouting. Throughout the turmoil Farrell stood quietly, staring intently at his priests. One of the spectators fainted, and several others turned away, perhaps anticipating what was to come.

When the hangman finally pulled the lever, opening the trap doors, one of Farrell’s arms moved, and as he dropped, the rope caught on it, breaking his fall. Everyone watched in horror as the executioner rushed over and began shaking the rope. While he was doing that Farrell cried out, “Oh my God!” After what seemed an eternity the rope slipped off the poor man’s arm, and the two-time killer dropped. But he fell only a few centimetres, a distance nowhere near great enough to break his neck. For minute after minute he struggled, more alive than dead, then his efforts grew weaker, and he seemed to give up his fight for life. Twice his hangman began to cut the rope, but on each occasion the prison doctor told him to stop, that Farrell’s heart was still beating. After twenty minutes it stilled. The dead man’s body was allowed to hang a further five minutes, out of an abundance of caution, and a coroner’s inquest was immediately convened. Its verdict: death by strangulation.
[20]

After most executions, those required to examine the body of the hanging victim were surprised by how peaceful the dead man or woman looked. Such was not the case for Farrell. The misplaced noose caused his neck to become badly twisted to one side, and where the rope had rubbed, his skin was nearly black. One man however, was not repulsed by what he witnessed. Farrell’s body had not yet begun to cool when he pushed his way through spectators in an effort to take a picture. A few of Farrell’s friends quickly interceded, and put an end to the photographer’s plan to sell his execution photos on the streets of Quebec.

Before the execution of Michael Farrell was officially complete, one last telegram was sent to Ottawa.

Sheriff’s Office

Quebec 20 January 1879

Sir,

I have the honor to report, that on the 10th of this month Michael Farrell was executed in my presence. I hereby certify that I, the undersigned attended the interment of Convict Michael Farrell at the Cholera Burying ground and saw his body buried in said Burying grounds on this Tenth Day of January 1879 in pursuant to order of the Government.

R. Mulholland, Assist. Keeper
[21]

Emerson Shelley: A Neighbour Kills Again

Emerson Shelley was a violent man who spent very nearly his entire life in trouble with the law. Part of his problem may have been environmental. His mother was charged with shooting her second husband during a domestic dispute, and the fact she was acquitted seemed to have inculcated in him the belief that it is not so much what you do that matters, but whether you are convicted. An early case in point was the way in which he treated his grade school classmates. One recalled that he was not yet a teenager when Shelley threw powdered medicine in his face, hurting his eyes. Another incident was more prophetic. Three of Shelley’s school mates, the youngest of whom was about twelve, were walking to school when Shelley jumped from hiding, a rifle in hand, and shouted, “halt, hands up, money or your brains.”
[22]
The youngest of the group immediately broke into tears, and Shelley’s assurance that he was not really going to shoot them did little to make him feel better.

Shelley was barely fourteen when he took things further. During a heated argument with a female neighbour he took out a revolver and threatened to kill her. Others living near the Shelleys were subjected to similar abuse. A farmer who once hired the young man to help him around his acreage grew troubled by Shelley’s conduct, and told the young rowdy that he was going to have to change his ways or he was going to be fired. Shelly did not want the farmer to tell his mother what he was up to. “He threatened to fill me up with lead if I told his mother about it, so I promised that I would not tell.”
[23]
The farmer had good reason to be concerned. Shelley was widely known to skulk around area farms, firing bullets near unsuspecting neighbours. Many, including members of his own family, were concerned by his propensity to violence.

On August 16, 1909, that inclination became something much more. The incident started when a week earlier a rifle left with a local blacksmith went missing. The gun’s owner used .22 calibre “long” shells, which substantially increased the power of bullets fired from the gun. This contributed to Shelley’s first killing. Michael Hall, partially blind and physically disabled, lived with his wife on the farm next to Shelley’s. The couple were both in their seventies, and from time to time they hired Shelley to help out. Occasionally Hall had words with the teenager, and in one heated exchange he called Shelley a liar. When Hall was found dead, shot in the head with a .22 calibre rifle, it came as a surprise to no one that within hours of the shooting the police took Shelley into custody. It was even less surprising that the gun he used was the one that went missing a week earlier.

The fifteen-year-old was charged with murder, but the coroner’s inquest convened to look into the particulars of Hall’s death concluded that while there was no doubt that Shelley fired the shot that killed the elderly farmer, there was no evidence that he actually meant to kill Hall. With that finding, the Crown had little choice but to release Shelley from custody, and withdraw the murder charge.

Between the shooting of Hall and the killing of Christian Shoup in 1915, Shelley kept busy. Less than four months after he was found not to be criminally responsible for causing the death of Hall, Shelley received a suspended sentence for stealing a gun. He was not yet twenty when he burned down a neighbour’s house, after stealing most of what was inside it. Although charged and acquitted of arson, he was convicted of taking the contents. This time he was sentenced to two years in jail. Within weeks of his release he again acquired a gun, and recommenced his life of crime.

Shelley and an accomplice broke into a general store, and after threatening to kill the store owner, took a couple of cases of eggs and some agricultural feed. Before the day ended the police in a nearby town issued a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of raping a thirteen-year-old young woman. Shelley made no attempt to deny responsibility. On May 6, he and a group of acquaintances were standing on a Simcoe Street corner when a man he knew stopped to chat. In no time at all Shelley told him that he was in trouble over having sex with a young woman, and as he spoke he withdrew a revolver from one of his pockets. “This,” he said, “would make them produce.”
[24]
Whether he was talking about future rape victims, or the robbery he was planning, was not clear. But he told everyone within earshot that he was planning on using the gun to rob a mail carrier and a couple of hog producers. He said he needed money, and had every intention of unloading his gun on the men he was intending to rob.

On May 9, Shelley showed up at the home of a friend sometime after 8:00 p.m. and asked if he could stay the night. The next day he took out a revolver, and told his host and his friend’s housekeeper that he recently stole the gun and was planning on using it. He said that robbing people was how he earned a living, and suggested that the pair “would hear of a man being shot before the week was out.”
[25]
Just then a couple of farmers hauling hogs went by. They caught Shelley’s attention, and he asked if his friend wanted to help him rob the men when they passed on their way home. Before his friend could reply, Shelley told him that “he would just as soon shoot a man as a dog.”
[26]
That settled it; Shelley’s buddy said he wanted no part of murder. When Shelley left he started walking towards the farm of Christian Shoup, a local miller who lived some distance away. It was after 4:00 p.m. by the time he reached the home of John Carr, a man he had known all his life. He stayed the night, and late the next morning again set out towards the Shoup farm, now about two miles away.