The end of the rope: The story of Canada’s last executions

[marmar]

from the Toronto Star:


The end of the rope: The story of Canada’s last executions
Published on Monday December 10, 2012

Tim Alamenciak
Staff Reporter


Bramwell Everitt knew something went wrong when his father came home from the Don Jail with his blue Salvation Army chaplain’s uniform splattered with blood.

“Something went terribly, terribly wrong,” said Cyril Everitt, that December night in 1962. “I don’t want to get into it now but something went terribly wrong.”

It’s been 50 years since two men hung from the gallows in Toronto’s Don Jail – the last to receive capital punishment in Canada. Cyril was their chaplain, a man committed to saving the souls of two convicted killers whose lives were scheduled to end.

Ronald Turpin, 29, was a petty thief who shot a police officer and Arthur Lucas, 54, was a career criminal and pimp from Detroit who killed two people slated to be witnesses in a major drug trial. They were both tried and convicted within a year of their crimes.

Half a century later, questions still linger about what exactly happened on those two fateful nights. Doubts exist about the fairness of their trials, enough that the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted has opened a file on Lucas’s death. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1299928--the-end-of-the-rope-the-story-of-canada-s-last-executions

[OldDem2012]

1. Gruesome story, for sure. nt.