Notes: Agariata was invited to a dinner at the Governor's chateau. Mention was made of a man named Chasy. Agariata held out his arm and said "This is the hand that split the head of that young man." He was immediately taken outside and hanged.
Allan, Murdoch; Delorme, Patrick; Lacoste, Romeo
Notes: This trio and two others stole a car and began driving to Quebec City. On the way they stopped at the home of Alcide Payette in St Sulpice. Payette was shot while getting out of bed and his wife turned over the bit of money they had. They continued on to Trois Riviere where they turned around and started back for Montreal. Near Sorel they wrecked their car and stole a horse and wagon. A few days later the police chief of St Lambert saw them and after a car chase with shooting, single handedly arrested them. Allan and Delorme were hanged together and Lacoste hanged separately after them. Delorme was also know as Baptiste Lemay.
Notes: To protest her sale she set a fire to her master's house that spread and burnt down part of Montreal. She was first sentenced to have her hands cut off and burnt alive. On appeal her sentence was reduced to hanging. On the morning of her execution she was first subject to la question ordinaire et extraordinaire (torture) under the supervision of Judge Pierre Raimbault. Under torture she confessed to setting the fire but despite further torture she wouldn't name any possible accomplices. She was then taken to Notre Dame church to ask for forgiveness before being taken to the gallows which was set up in the area of Montreal that was burned. Governor General Michaelle Jean honoured Angelique in a ceremony on 08 April 2006.
Belisle, Jean Baptiste Goyer dit
Notes: Belisle shot and stabbed Jean Favre, then killed his wife, Marie-Ann Bastien, with a shovel and knife. Before execution he was put to torture. He was sentenced to have his arms, legs, thighs, and backbone broken and to be left to die facing the sky. This sentence was carried out in the marketplace. His broken body was buried by the road (today's Guy St) that ran between his home and his victims' home. All his belongings were seized in the name of the King.
Notes: Surname of Berge might have been Boucher. Berge was a drummer for Cadillac at his colony of Detroit. He committed criminal assault against 12 year old Susanne Capelle and was sent to Quebec for trial and punishment. His full sentence was to make a public confession and then to pray for forgivness in a church before being hanged. An executioner was not available so Jacques Elie, another prisoner under sentence of death, was promised his freedom in exchange for conducting the hanging.
Notes: Bernard and Arthur Fontaine had escaped from jail. Two days later, on 25 Jan 1937, they were in a gunfight with police officer Léopold Chateauneuf. Fontaine and Chateauneuf were killed and Bernard managed to escape. He was captured later in the week after a three hour standoff in a farmhouse.
Notes: With his wife Gilette Bonne and daughter Isabelle murdered Julien de la Tousche on 17 May 1672 in Trois Rivieres. La Tousche was Isabelle's husband who had a reputation as a no-gooder and wife abuser. They attempted to poison him and when that failed they held him and beat him to death with a hoe and threw him in a river by their farm. They were quickly caught and tried in Quebec City. On appointment from Intendant Talon, Sieur Chartier was in charge of the case. They were found guilty, Jacques and his wife sentenced to death and their daughter sentenced to witness the execution. Jacques was sentenced to be broken on the wheel but this was changed to hanged, then broken on the wheel. They appealed 09 June, lost the appeal that morning and were executed at 4pm. Jacques was hanged and mutilated first, then his wife was hanged. All this time Isabelle was made to watch, wearing a noose around her neck.
Notes: Stabbed Dominic Tedesco on 24 Nov 1948 in St-Vincent-de-Paul Penitentiary. Boyko had previously been convicted and sentenced to death for the 1946 murder of his former common-law wife, Tessy Oliansky. That sentence had been commuted to life.
Notes: Burns and Dr. Jesse Patterson were supposed to be hanged together for unrelated offences. A large crowd showed up at the gallows which was erected at a street corner outside the jail. Unknown to the crowd Patterson's sentence was commuted that morning. When the jail gate opened and only Burns was brought out the mood of the crowd turned ugly. The hangman quickly dispatched Patterson but the crowd started shaking the gallows and throwing debris at the staff. Police from a nearby station arrived to help. The mob left the scene and caused damaged to area shops.
Notes: Shot Constable Jules Fortin and Constable Daniel O'Connell as they were arresting him for theft of a pair of rubber boots on 16 May 1910.
Notes: Shot constables Paul-Emile Duranleau and Nelson Paquin during a bank robbery on 23 Sept 1948. Convicted with Douglas Perrault and Donald Perrault. There were pleas for a stay of execution for Cloutier because his wife was pregnant. She gave birth to triplets just over a month after her husband was hanged.
Last Words: No statement made.
Notes: This is one of the most controversial death sentence cases in Canadian history. In June 1953 Eugene Lindsay, his son Richard, and Albert Claar, all of Pennsylvania, went on a hunting trip to Gaspe. Coffin met them in the woods when their truck broke down and was rewarded with $40 US for helping them. He agreed to look in on them later. He didn't meet them again, but found their truck and took some of their belongings. The bodies of the three Americans were found in July; they had been mauled by bears but the coroner found bullet wounds. The US government demanded the Quebec government solve this case quickly. The local coroner held an inquest which concluded the trio was murdered by persons unknown. His report was sent to the attorney general and subsequently disappeared. Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis formed a handpicked investigation team which took over the case from the local provincial police. They immediately arrested the last person known to have seen the trio; Coffin. The Duplessis Team held a new inquest and forced the jurors to determine the deaths were caused by Coffin. While investigators recovered the items he had removed from the victims' truck, which he admitted to taking, no evidence was ever found that actually connected him to the murder. Coffin was tried just for the murder of Richard Lindsay. At his trial, his defence lawyer did not allow him to take the stand and called no witnesses. He was found guilty. At one point he escaped custody, but within hours his lawyer told him he would win an appeal and convinced Coffin to turn himself in. All appeals were turned down and he was hanged Feb. 10, 1956. In 1963 journalist and future senator Jacques Hebert wrote a book called "I Accused The Assassins" which was critical of the investigation. A commission was formed to review the original investigation but the person picked to head the review was one of the police officers from the Coffin case. The Coffin investigators were cleared and Hebert received jail time and a fine. Since the execution several attempts have been made to clear Coffin's name. In August 2006, 50 years after the execution, the Association In Defence Of The Wrongly Convicted announced it would look into the possibility of reopening the case.
Notes: Murdered her husband, Louis- Helene Dodier. After the execution her body was placed in an iron cage and hanged at a crossroads to decompose. The cage was rediscovered in 1851 and is now on display in the Chateau de Ramezay museum in Montreal, it is said Corriveau's ghost visits it.
Dubois, Nathaniel Randolph Fritz
Last Words: "Well, gentlemen, I am very sorry for the deed I have done. I hope I will meet my wife and children in heaven. That is all."
Notes: Crime occurred in St Albans, Portneuf County. On 23 Feb 1890 Dubois was in a quarrel with his wife, Marie, and mother-in-law. They made comments that he was a lazy man who depended on his father-in-law for support. He attacked them and his two children with an ax and threw their bodies into the cellar. After cleaning up the blood he fled. He was arrested when attempting to catch the next train out of the area. Several doctors believed Dubois to be insane, but were refused permission to carry out an examination of the brain.
Last Words: "The Lord have mercy on my soul."
Last Words: "Au moins, je meurs célèbre." (At least I die famous)
Notes: Guay wanted to murder his wife, Rita Morel, so he could marry his mistress. Guay planned the bombing of the Canadian Pacific flight from Quebec City to Baie-Comeau which killed 23 people on 09 Sept 1949; he also bought life insurance on his wife the day of the bombing. He asked Genereux Ruest to build the bomb. Ruest's sister, Marguerite Pitre obtained the dynamite and delivered the bomb to the airport. All three were tried just for the murder of Morel. Ruest was hanged in 1952 and Pitre in 1953. This crime was the third bombing of an in-flight aircraft ever. It also supposedly inspired American Jack Graham to bomb a United Airlines plane to kill his mother in 1955.
Notes: This Nova Scotian was initially charged with larceny on 7 oct 1825. He was sentenced to 6 months and a whipping. He escaped 14 Jan 1826 and was recaptured 17 Jan. He was executed for another offence but it is unclear if it was one committed while on the run or for the actual act of escaping.
Notes: Hayvern was an inmate in St Vincent de Paul Penitentiary, serving a 5 year sentence for robbery and assault. He was planning an escape but was informed on by fellow prisoner Thomas Salter. Hayvern was determined to get revenged. He obtained a knife and stabbed Salter in the heart. Guards were hesitant to approach the armed Hayvern. When they backed him into a cell, he declared they would have to shoot him. He attempted to cut his thoat when the prison chaplain entered and persuaded him to surrender. About 150 managed to gain admission to the hanging. The anonymous executioner did not use a hood.
Notes: Murdered Francois Pougnet on 26 Jan 1690. Sentenced to have his right hand cut off in front of his victim's house and receive six blows to the arms, legs and thighs on the wheel.
Last Words: "Vive la liberte."
Last Words: As the hood and noose were being placed on his head he said "I am not afraid." Reverend Father Prevost then made the following statement for Lacroix: "Stanislaus Lacroix will not speak. He authorizes me to say that he pardons all who have offended him, and he begs pardon of all to whom he has caused grief. He thanks everyone who has given him proofs of sympathy. He accepts with resignation the execution to which he has been condemned and gives his soul to God in penance for his crime. He asks everyone to pray for him."
Notes: On Aug 24 1900 Lacroix bought a revolver and went to a house in Montebello where his separated wife was visiting. He walked in, grabbed her dress and dragged her to the street where he shot her three times. He went back into the house and shot Hippolyte Trenchmontague. He fled to his brother-in-law's house and then made his way to a train station, keeping people away by brandishing his gun. A friend talked him into giving up the gun and he was apprehended. This is considered the last execution viewable by the general public. Although it took place within the walls of the jail yard no measures were taken to prevent onlookers were able to watch. A photograph of Lecroix on the trap, hooded and noosed, shows onlookers on nearby porches, roofs and telegraph posts. Radcliffe generated controversy the day before the execution when he supposedly said he had come to hang a Frenchman and hoped it wouldn't be his last. A crowd beat him up and he had to be rescued and subsequently guarded by police.
Notes: This Montagnaise Indian slave girl of Alexander Dagneau de Douville and and Marie Coulon de Villiers was caught stealing from her master at Montreal and was hanged on the scaffold at Quebec City.
Notes: Shot Adélard Bouchard during a robbery on 17 Jul 1927 in Huntington. His wife, Doris McDonald, was convicted for the same crime. She was to hang on the same day as her husband but her death sentence was commuted to life in prison.
Notes: This American came to Quebec to try to convince the people they should joined the US. Tried before Chief Justice Osgoode in Quebec City. Despite the sentence being "hanged, but not until dead", Hangman Ward let McLane hang for 28 minutes. This ensured he was not alive to suffer the disembowling, decapitation and quartering part of the sentence.
Notes: Archibald McNeil and a man named Dufour were murdered while delivering a message from the Governor of Quebec to Halifax. Noiste was turned in to the authorities in Quebec as the guilty one by his tribe. However, the Chief of Noistes tribe warned the crime occurred because white men had brought "fire water" to their territory.
Last Words: "I want to say something, and I have this to say for the sake of my children. Christ was condemned by Pontius Pilate and delivered into the hands of Caiaphas, and now it is your hour. That is all I have to say."
Notes: Pitre was involved in the bombing of the airplane carrying the wife of Joseph-Albert Guay. She purchased the dynamite from a hardware store which her brother, Genereux Ruest, used to build the bomb. On 09 Sept 1949 she took a taxi to the airport and dropped of the package containing the bomb. Pitre has the distinction of being the last woman executed in Canada.
Notes: Deserted his platoon and raped the wife of Pierre Parrault. He was hanged and his head cut off and placed on a stake at a crossroads.
Notes: This Irishman fled to Canada from the United States because he was wanted for theft in Boston. With other associates, he robbed a priest of $8000. All were hanged. Number of associates unknown. Hanging was after June 1825.
Notes: Ruest built the bomb used to destroy the airplane with the wife of Joseph-Albert Guay. Also involved was Ruest's sister, Marguerite Pitre. At the time of his execution Ruest was suffering from tuberculosis and was taken to the gallows in a wheelchair.
Notes: Sarao murdered her husband in an insurance-related plot. Also involved were Angelo Donafrie and Leon Gagliardi. The three were hanged the same day in Montreal's Bordeaux jail. The jail had no scales and Sarao's weight was estimated and written on a slip of paper for English. He based his calculations from this number; unfortunately Sarao's weight was under-estimated and she was decapitated during the hanging. This hanging greatly affected English mentally; he became an alcoholic and died three years later.
Notes: In February 1702 a farmer named Lachaume disappeared from his home in St-Ours. There were rumours that the man's wife, Marie Anne Couillaud, was having an affair with Viau. Couillaud also disappeared within a few weeks of her husband and authorities arrested Viau. After being found guilty he submitted to questioning under torture in a futile attempt to clear himself. He was hanged in Montreal and his head was displayed on a pike in St-Ours. Couillaud was also charged for murdering her husband. She was tried in absentia and hanged in effigy. It was believed that her uncle helped her flee from the colony before she was suspected of the crime. Couillaud and her missing husband were never found.
Notes: This man was convicted of the murder of a chaplain during the mutiny at the French colony of Plaisance (Placentia) Newfoundland. He was taken to Quebec City and tried by Nicolas Gargot. His hand was cut off and he was hanged and burned on a raft in view of Quebec City.
Notes: This valet burned down the house of his employer, Sieur de Beaulier, killing him and another valet. This person had his hand cut off and was hanged and burned.
Notes: Three soldiers who attempted to desert from Fort George near Niagara Falls were shot in front of the garrison at Quebec City. They were investigated by General Brock. Four mutineers were shot at the same time.
Notes: Four soldiers who plotted a mutiny at Fort George near Niagara Falls were shot in front of the garrison at Quebec City. The plot was investigated by General Brock. Three deserters were also shot at the same time.