# 57 ~ The Strange Case of the Parkdale Mystery

In the last year, I've really got into reading up on True Crime in Toronto.  I've always had a passing interest, but then again, who doesn't?  There's something about a gritty whodunit that most people find intriguing.  

I also started up a new tour this Spring called "Gangsters & Gallows".  It delves into some of the most infamous True Crime stories that Toronto has to offer.  But now, I'd like to share with you what was probably one of the strangest cases to ever be heard in a Toronto courtroom.

An 18 year old murder victim by the name of Frank Westwood was at the centre of the "Parkdale Mystery".

On Saturday, October 6, 1894, an 18 year old resident of Toronto, named Frank Westwood, returned home from an evening out with his friends.   He’d gone out at 7:30 that evening, and came home at about 10:30.  He lived with his family in a mansion on Jameson Avenue, which was a wealthy residential area on the western cusp of Toronto at the time.  Frank Westwood's father, brother and sister were already in bed when Frank got home, and his mother was just getting ready for bed.  As Frank was getting ready to do likewise, he heard the doorbell ring. 

The Westwood family home, on Jameson Avenue.  The house was eventually demolished when Parkdale was redeveloped.

Frank Westwood opened the door about 14 inches, but left the security chain in the latch.  He would later describe seeing a young man wearing dark clothes and, possibly, a fedora, with a thin moustache on his lip.  This mysterious stranger, who was standing in the shadows, raised a revolver and shot Frank Westwood.  

 His family heard the gunshot and raced downstairs.  Frank Westwood exclaimed “Mother, mother, I am shot.”   Frank Westwood was lying on the floor of the front hall.  There was gun smoke in the air, blood on the floor, and a bullet in Frank's chest.  Frank’s father grabbed his own pistol, ran outside, and fired a bullet into the air in the hope that it would also summon the police.  He hoped that the gunshot would not only summon police but also scare of any prowlers, though no one was visible.  Mrs. Westwood telephoned Dr. Griffith, the family physician.  The doctor saw that Frank’s wounds were very serious.  By Monday, as Frank’s condition deteriorated, The Globe newspaper predicted: “It May Be Murder.”

This sketch of the shooting of Frank Westwood was based on Westwood's own description, and appeared in the Toronto News newspaper, on October 8th, 1894.  The shooting of Frank Westwood monopolized the headlines of newspapers across the city, and became a sensational story.

Frank Westwood never changed his story. Three days later, understanding that his own death was imminent, he made a statement to police.  He swore that he didn't know the identity of his attacker or any reason why anyone would want to shoot him.  Frank Westwood gave in to his injuries.  His funeral ceremony was held on Friday, October 12th, 1894.  The grounds of the Westwood family's home were crowded with family acquaintances and morbid sightseers, according to the Toronto World newspaper.  It was nearly dark before Frank Westwood's body was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

This sketch of "Lakeside Hall", the Westwood family home on Jameson Avenue, appeared in the Toronto News newspaper, on October 8, 1894.

"The Parkdale Mystery", as the newspapers had dubbed it, stumped Toronto police.  Shortly after the shooting took place, editors from The World newspaper wrote to the famed British crime author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and asked him to solve the case.  Doyle was scheduled to arrive in Toronto the following month, to give a public appearance.  Doyle showed interest in the case, but said he couldn't help.  He pointed out that while he was the author of some of the world's most famous detective stories, he was not in fact a detective himself.  

The police investigation lagged on for several weeks.  Police sought out and questioned anyone who may have witnessed the murder.  The Westwood family once again went through every detail of the night in question that they had seen, but they hadn't seen much.  Benjamin Westwood, Frank’s father, was a financially successful sporting goods manufacturer.  He was a prominent member of the of the Parkdale Methodist Church, and was considered a moral pillar of the community.  He testified that he’d never had any major argument with his son, other than to occasionally criticize young Frank for smoking. Frank Westwood’s entire family failed to think of anyone who could possibly have any reason to murder the young man.  The family knew of no enemies or any romantic entanglements that Frank had gotten himself into.

Headlines like this one, which appeared in the Toronto News on October 8th, 1894, showed how Toronto newspapers outdid one another to sensationalize the story, and therefore increase their own circulation.

The only description of Westwood's murderer was the one that Westwood himself gave when he lay in his deathbed.  The description was of a "low sized man", wearing dark clothes, a dark hat, and with a thin moustache.  Before succumbing to his injuries, Frank Westwood did his best to imagine any assailant who would have wanted him dead.  One name that did come to mind was Gus Clarke - a tough construction worker who had run ins with police in the past.  Gus Clarke worked as a “stonehooker”.  In a time before concrete was easy to come by, “stonehookers” were workers who excavated shale out of the shallower waters of the Toronto Harbour.  Frank Westwood and his father had chased Gus Clarke away from the shores near the Westwood's Jameson Avenue family home.  Stonehooking could lead to serious erosion, and Gus Clarke had often broken the law by mining shale too close to the shore.  The police questioned Clarke extensively about his previous altercations with Frank Westwood, and although they eventually cleared him, Clarke led them to a female suspect, named Clara Ford.  

This sketch of Clara Ford appeared in the Toronto News newspaper on November 28th, 1894.

Clara Ford became one of the most colourful characters to ever enter the annals of True Crime in Toronto.  She’d been born in 1862, in an impoverished part of Toronto, near the site of where the 1899 City Hall would eventually be constructed.  This part of Toronto, near modern day Queen and Bay streets, was home to some of the most economically disadvantaged residents of the city.  Clara Ford's own disadvantaged life would later be set in contrast to the financial comfort enjoyed by the Westwoods.  As an affluent family, who were pillars of the local Methodist community, the Westwoods were originally considered beyond reproach.  However, Clara Ford’s poverty would be used as a ploy for sympathy. 

Clara Ford was orphaned, and then adopted by a woman named Jessie McKay.  Ford's adopted mother, in turn, died at the start of 1894 - the same year that Frank Westwood was murdered.  At the time of her death, Jessie McKay was a patient in the Toronto Hospital for Incurables, a long term care facility for those suffering from consumption, heart disease and paralysis.  The Toronto Hospital for Incurables was located at King and Bathurst streets.  Clara Ford married rather spontaneously, and was just as quickly abandoned by her husband.

The Toronto Hospital for Incurables was a long term care facility for people with incurable diseases.  It stood near King and Bathurst streets.

So, Clara Ford had a tragic past, but she also had many traits that set her apart from what was considered conventional for a woman in Toronto at the end of the nineteenth century.  She owned a revolver, and often dressed in men's clothing.  She had been charged for impersonating a choir boy, a police constable, and a male professor.  Police found a dark suit in her room, and tests made on her gun showed that the bullets from her gun matched those that had killed Frank Westwood.

Clara Ford resided at Mamie Dorsay’s Boarding House on York Street and worked as a seamstress for a tailor named Samuel Barnett, whose shop was also located on York Street.  Her reputation was infamous.  She smoked, drank hard and had once pulled a razor on a customer in the tailor shop in which she worked.  Police brought her in for interrogation on November 20, 1894, about eight weeks after Frank Westwood’s murder. 

Chloe Dorsay, Clara Ford's landlady, from a sketch in the Toronto News, May 4, 1895.

York Street, 1856

When Clara Ford was informed that she was a suspect in the murder of Frank Westwood, she scrambled to put together an alibi.  She said that she was with an eight year old girl named Florence McKay, a relative of Jessie McKay, who had been Ford's adopted mother.  Ford claimed that they been at Toronto’s Grand Opera House, on Adelaide Street, just west of Yonge Street.  Ford claimed that they had both gone to watch a nickel and dime melodrama called “The Black Crook”.  When questioned by police, young Florence McKay seemed to want to shore up Clara Ford's story.  But, the young girl was eventually tripped up by police, and admitted that Clara Ford had never showed up at the theatre to watch the show.  

Sketch of Flora McKay, Toronto News newspaper, November 28th, 1894.

The Grand Opera House once stood on Adelaide Street, just east of Yonge Street.  It was demolished in 1927 and the Scotia Plaza tower stands on the site today.

Soon, Clara Ford became the most likely suspect in the murder of Frank Westwood.   She finally gave up and confessed to the murder.  According to Clara Ford, she'd met Frank Westwood while working as a contract seamstress in a home just down the street from the Westwood family mansion on Jameson Avenue.  Ford said that Frank Westwood and his friends had teased her about her appearance, and that had attempted to assault her.  She went into pretty specific detail about how she'd gone to his house that night in October of 1894, and waited till he returned home from a night out with his friends.  When she saw him go inside, she went to the front door of the house, rang the doorbell, and shot Frank Westwood dead.

The news that Clara Ford had confessed to the murder of Frank Westwood was splashed all over newspaper headlines, like this one in the Toronto World newspaper on November 22, 1894.  She became an instant celebrity.

Authorities figured they had enough evidence to find Clara Ford guilty, and her trial began on April 30, 1895.  The case enthralled the city and made all the newspaper headlines.  Legal experts took sides to both prosecute and defend Clara Ford.  , which began on April 30, 1895.  Various witnesses were called, including early forensic experts, who questioned the ballistics tests that had seemed to prove that Clara Ford’s gun was the murder weapon.  The jury, of course, was made up entirely of men.  In Toronto, in 1895, women were not permitted to sit on a jury.  This jury of twelve men were shocked to hear Clara Ford change her tune.  She took back her earlier confession, claiming that police had forced her into it.  Once on trial, she pleaded "not guilty".  The trial lasted for four days, but it took the jury only 48 minutes to come back with a unanimous decision. 

Some sketches of Clara Ford on trial, from the Toronto News newspaper, May, 1895.  Reporters wrote about how she answered questions in a flippant manner and was seen "standing in a masculine attitude".

Amazingly, Clara Ford was acquitted.  She had become immensely popular with the Toronto public.  Her trial had successfully portrayed the Westwoods wealthy, while Clara Ford was seen as poor and hard-working.  The fact that Clara Ford was forced to carry a revolver proved that she lived a rough life in a rough part of town.  If Clara Ford shot Frank Westwood, even by premeditation, which seemed to be the case, well, the well-to-do son of an established family probably had it coming.  Or so the jury said, anyway. 

Clara Ford certainly had admirers in the courtroom, and they gave up a cheer when the verdict was announced.  Immediately, Clara Ford invited members of the jury - the all male jury - back to the boarding house where she was staying, for "dinner and entertainment", to celebrate her acquittal.  Later, there would be all kinds of speculation as to exactly what sort of entertainment the evening held, but the more sordid tabloids never had any concrete evidence to run with.  However, Chancellor Sir John Boyd, the judge who presided over the case, expressed his disgust at the blatant weakness of the jury system in the Clara Ford case.

Headline in the Toronto News newspaper, May 6th, 1895.

The murder of Frank Westwood and the trial of Clara Ford was one of the strangest stories in Toronto's legal history.  Whenever I have shared it on tours, I'm never quite sure if people believe that it really happened, of if it's a completely fabricated story.  I do, however, encourage them to look it up, just as I hope they will take this and other memorable stories home from my tours.  

Once she was free, Clara Ford was unabashed in once again confessing her guilt.  She went to the newspapers and told them how she had actually shot Frank Westwood dead ... but according to our legal system, she could not be put on trial twice for the same crime.  Clara Ford even appeared in a dime museum, the Eden Musee, in the clothes that she had worn when she killed young Frank Westwood.  

The Toronto News newspaper ran a sketch of Clara Ford in the male clothing that she'd worn when she shot Frank Westwood.  She would later appear in a sideshow attraction wearing the same outfit.  She thrilled audiences with her story of how she had committed murder, pleaded "guilty" to police, then pleaded "not guilty" to a jury, was acquitted, and then confessed to the general public after the court case was over.

Eden’s Musee was located near the southeast corner of Yonge and Adelaide streets, and would later be renamed Robinson’s Musee Theatre.  Of interest to entertainment buffs is the fact that Robinson's Musee Theatre would become the site of the first ever showing of a movie in Toronto, in 1896.  By that time, Toronto had mostly forgotten about Frank Westwood's murder, the Parkdale Mystery, and the trial of Clara Ford, and instead had turned their attention towards being amazed by this new entertainment technology.

The theatre where Clara Ford appeared eventually became Robinson's Musee Theatre.  It stood at the southeast corner of Yonge and Adelaide streets, until it was eventually destroyed by fire.

This plaque, which is affixed to the building which now stands where Robinson's Musee Theatre once stood, describes the history of that theatre and the first moving picture show in Toronto.

Clara Ford’s sticking her thumb in the eye of the local justice system was a step too far for Ebenezer Forsyth Johnston, the lawyer who had defended her.  He strongly suggested to her that she leave the city, and preferably never come back.  She took his advice, leaving Canada altogether, and joining Sam. T. Jack’s “Creole Coloured Burlesque Show”.  She was advertised in the Western United States as a woman who had killed a man and got off completely free.  


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Interested in more stories of True Crime in Toronto?  Check out the new tour that I've added here.

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# 46 ~ The Massey Murder, Then and Now

THEN : Charles Albert "Bert" Massey, 1880 to 1915.

Sunday, February 8th, 2015 marks the centenary of what would become an iconic story in the annals of True Crime in Toronto.  One hundred years ago, on February 8th, 1915, Charles Albert "Bert" Massey was wandering up the street to his home at 169 Walmer Road.  Standing on his own door step, he was greeted by his 18 year old English maid, Carrie Davies, who lifted Massey's own revolver, and fired two shots.  The second bullet struck Massey in the chest, and within moments, he was dead.

For those of us who are interested in Toronto's history, the Massey family name is one that needs little introduction.  The legendary Hart Massey was considered to be the family's patriarch.  It was Hart Massey who built up his own father's family run blacksmith into the giant farm equipment company that would become the Massey Harris Manufacturing Company.  With Hart at the helm, the Massey family would eventually stand at the top of Toronto society, and in fact, as Bernard Sandwell, a noted Canadian editor, journalist and academic quipped : "Toronto has no social classes - only the Masseys and the masses."

THEN : Hart Almerrin Massey, 1823 to 1896.

Hart Massey's children and grandchildren would go on to build on Hart's own legacy, making "Massey" into a household name.  The family put their stamp on Toronto by building cultural institutions, like Massey Hall.

THEN : Massey Hall in 1925.  As Methodists, the more traditional members of the Massey clan were against both alcohol and stage plays.  These beliefs were held up within the walls of the Massey Music Hall.  Concerts and assemblies could be held in the hall, but any sort of play was forbidden.  If you look at the performance listings for Massey Hall today, this still holds true, though more by tradition than religious "law".  Similarly, when Massey Hall opened in 1894, there was a 99 year lease that prevented the sale or drinking of liquor on the premises.  The lease eventually expired of course, and when a basement was added as part of a restoration of the hall, a bar - dubbed "Centuries Bar" - was included.  One wonders what Hart Massey would have thought of audience members sipping on booze during the intermission of a performance by Marilyn Manson or Alice Cooper.

NOW : Massey Hall today.

Both Massey College and Hart House, at the University of Toronto, were also part of the Massey family legacy.  

NOW : Massey College, University of Toronto.

NOW : Hart House, University of Toronto.

The family were members of Toronto's "Cathedral of Methodism", known today as the Metropolitan United Church.  The Massey family quietly exerted their influence, so the righteous, conservative moral tones of Methodism could be set forth from the pulpit and pews of this congregation, across the city.  

THEN : Metropolitan Methodist Church, as it was known, circa 1900 when this photograph was taken.

NOW : Metropolitan United Church, today.

Vincent and Raymond Massey were brothers to one another, and grandsons of Hart Massey.  Vincent was best known for his academic, political and diplomatic pursuits, which culminated in his term as Governor General of Canada, from 1952 until 1959.  Raymond Massey was a popular actor, appearing live on stage and in film and television productions.  Vincent and Raymond Massey represented one branch of the family that expanded on their grandfather's iconic and stolid reputation.  But there were other branches of the Massey family tree ... 

THEN : Vincent Massey, 1887 to 1967.

THEN : Raymond Massey (1896 to 1983)

Hart Massey had five children.  Vincent and Raymond were born to Hart Massey's second son, Chester Daniel Massey.  Hart's oldest son, Charles Albert Massey, had managed the family business through the 1870s.  His son, also called Charles Albert, but known more simply as "Bert" by most of the family, wasn't so highly regarded as his father, grandfather, or cousins, Vincent and Raymond.  Eschewing the family business, Bert took a job as a car salesman for York Motors.  The automobile industry was a booming and glamorous business, and Bert Massey seemed to be in love with sports cars and "fast" women.  The owners of the car dealership considered it a feather in their caps to have a Massey working for them, but Bert Massey's own family looked down their noses at Bert's choice of career.  Bert Massey soon found himself ostracized by people like his cousins, Vincent and Raymond.  Bert Massey had soon established himself as something of a cad and a "ne'er-do-well".

A century ago, in February of 1915, Bert Massey was living with his wife, Rhoda, and their 14 year old son, also named Charles Albert Massey, in a house at 169 Walmer Road.  The home was located in the western half of the Annex.  It wasn’t a run down neighbourhood, but was not considered as respectable as the grander mansions of families like the Gooderhams or the Eatons, which were located a few blocks east. 

Bert Massey’s home on Walmer Road certainly didn’t compare to his brother Arthur’s home at 165 Admiral Road, or the home that his cousin Vincent had, at 515 Jarvis Street.  At the time, an address on Jarvis Street was considered to mark one’s position at the pinnacle of society, and the most prominent members of the Massey family had their homes on that boulevard.

THEN : Before it became perhaps the most well known location in the "Keg Steakhouse" franchise, the building at the northwest corner of Wellesley and Jarvis streets served as home to the more refined members of the Massey family.  The greenhouse to the right was, sadly, lost, and a gas station now stands on that part of the property.

THE "MASSEY MURDER"

Bert Massey was wandering home from work on the evening of Monday, February 8, 1915.  As he approached the front door of his house on Walmer Road, his young English servant, Carrie Davies, burst out of the front door, surprising Massey on the front step.  Brandishing Massey’s own revolver, the young woman was said to exclaim “You ruined my life”.  She raised the weapon and fired.  Her first shot went wild, but her second shot struck Massey in the chest. Attempting to flee, he stumbled to the sidewalk, falling as neighbours, who’d heard the gunfire, rushed to give assistance. Within minutes, he was dead.

THEN : Carrie Davies, the woman who shot Bert Massey.  Did she do wrong, or was she wrong done by?  She made a full confession, and let the courts decide.

A young newspaper delivery boy named Ernest Pelletier was said to have been a witness to the murder.   He and others raised the alarm.  When police constables arrived, they found the 18-year-old maid in her attic quarters.   She claimed to be getting properly dressed so she could set off for the nearest police station to confess her crime. She admitted her actions, alleging that her wealthy employer had attempted to rape her the day before.

THEN : The murder of Bert Massey made headlines in the Evening Telegram, on February 9, 1915.  Every Toronto newspaper ran with the story, of course, and headlines that screamed of the murder of Bert Massey were front page news, along with those telling of the fighting that Canadian soldiers faced overseas during the Great War, which had started the previous summer.  Thousands of soldiers from the Toronto area would die in the First World War, but in the second week of February, 1915, it was the death of one man, Bert  Massey, that captured the city's attention.

The irresistible storyline of a poor but virtuous maiden defending herself from disgrace made the ensuing trial a sensational affair, attracting reams of newspaper coverage and packing the courtroom with blue-collar workers and society matrons alike.

THEN : Images of Carrie Davies, Bert Massey, his son Charles Albert Massey, and the family home at 169 Walmer Road were repeated again and again in Toronto's newspapers, as the news of Massey's murder broke, and the city waited for Davies to go to trial.

Young Carrie Davies had been born in impoverished conditions in Bedfordshire, England.  Her father, a Boer War veteran, had died when she was 16.  She had arrived in Toronto at a time when the Canadian government was recruiting young, respectable, trustworthy, and chaste unmarried working-class women to work in Canada.  These women helped to fill the shortage of domestic servants.  She rarely went out or socialized, and spent little of her wages on herself, in order to send $5 or $10 from her pay back to her partly-blind mother and three younger sisters. It was supposed to be more respectable work for women than that found in public locations like factories, shops, or hotel bars.

THE TRIAL

Davies was brought to trial for the shooting later that same month, before Chief Justice William Mulock.  Among the usual assortment of prostitutes, drunks, and vagrants in the women’s court, Davies stood out, looking “like a mild and gentle Sunday school pupil,” in the words of the Telegram.

To begin the trial, the prosecuting attorney, E.E.A. Du Vernet, argued - incredibly - that because Massey had not succeeded in his assault, his murder was not justified.  Du Vernet implored the jury to find her guilty of manslaughter.

Davies’ own lawyer, Hartley Dewart, did not dispute the prosecution’s factual reconstruction of the killing, but begged for mercy. He emphasized her modesty and virtuous reputation.  Dewart even established Davies’ virginity, according to the standards of the day, by calling to the stand a doctor who had examined her physically.

She was from a respectable working-class family, he argued, and had been instilled with wholesome British values. Davies was an innocent, vulnerable young woman, who fell prey to a wealthy but dishonourable brute, who nearly succeeded in ruining her. “We have placed upon ourselves as Canadians the duties of trustees and guardians for girls who come from homes such as this to Canada,” he told the all-male jury, calling upon their sense of chivalry, fatherly instincts, and British gentlemanly values.

THEN : Toronto Star coverage of the Davies trial, February, 1915. 

CONFESSIONS OF A MURDERESS ~ IN HER OWN WORDS

Finally, as proceedings wore on Davies took the stand herself, marking the culmination of the already dramatic trial as she recounted the circumstances leading up to the crime.

On Sunday, the night before the murder, Massey’s 14-year-old son went out after supper. Massey’s wife, Rhoda, was away visiting her family in Connecticut. This left Davies alone in the house with her 34-year-old employer, who, just days earlier, had drunkenly made lewd comments to her.

Seemingly intoxicated again, Massey now excitedly but awkwardly tried to offer her a ring in appreciation of her services. “Then,” Davies testified, “he caught me round the waist and kissed me twice, and said he ‘liked little girls.’”  Resisting, she managed to escape. Not long after, Massey called her to his bedroom to make his bed.  When she complied, Davies said, Massey grabbed her and threw her onto the bed. He tried to force himself on her until she wrestled free and escaped to her own room.

Davies managed to slip out of the house, and made her way across town to Cabbagetown, where her sister—her only relation in Canada—lived, and told her sister and brother-in-law of the incident. They advised her to return to work and fulfill her duties as employee. While they told her to be careful, they did not encourage Davies to report the attack to the police. The three knew intuitively that a servant girl had little chance of courtroom success against the scion of the powerful and wealthy Massey family. Between 1880 and 1930, not a single Toronto domestic who laid a complaint of indecent assault against her master saw him punished.

For Davies, therefore, the stakes were high if she didn’t return to work. So, divided between her sense of duty to her employer and her fear that she would be ruined if he succeeded in his advances, Davies arrived back at the Massey household at 11:20 p.m. on Sunday night.

The next morning she prepared breakfast for her attempted assailant, then hid in the cellar until Massey had left for work. “I was alone in the house all day Monday,” Davies testified, “and was worrying about what had happened on Sunday, and was not able to do all my work. Being my master, I thought it was a disgrace for him to kiss me.”

“When I saw Mr. Massey coming down the road I lost all control of myself,” she testified. “Everything became misty before me,” she continued. “I only thought of his doing me harm, and knew I would have to defend myself in some way or other. I could only think of the revolver ...” She continued: “He started to run and I kept on pulling the revolver, but the trigger did not seem to work. I could only think of his doing me harm.”

“The attack gave the girl only one alternative,” Dewart argued in his closing statement. “If she did not defend herself against this man she would have been a fallen woman, an outcast, one more sacrifice. Let that sink into your mind. It was not manslaughter. It was brute-slaughter.”

Du Vernet countered in the prosecution’s closing argument that, by slaying her unarmed employer without his having a chance to give his side of the story in court, Davies had issued a death sentence. It was a penalty, he noted, that was out of balance with Massey’s alleged crime.

Carrie Davies would be tried in a special court for women that had been established (prior to the Massey murder) in Toronto.  However, women themselves were not able to sit on a jury at this time.  The jury was comprised solely of men.  Staggering debates over the role of women were being heard in 1915, in public forums, government councils, and family homes.  Often, those who opposed gender equality expressed a paternalistic view that women were "delicate creatures" who needed to be "sheltered".  If any of these men felt that women needed to be protected, well, Carrie Davies and her nearly ruined reputation certainly had the capacity to appeal to them.

THEN : One of the courtrooms at Toronto's 1899 City Hall, where the trial of Carrie Davies took place.  Toronto's "Old" City Hall is used for Provincial Court Cases today, but it has had a longstanding participation in the city's legal history.

THE VERDICT

The jury arrived at their decision in under half an hour of deliberation. Verdict: not guilty.  The crowd in the court-room was jubilant. The elderly judge had tears in his eyes as the admitted killer was pronounced innocent. “Thank you, Judge,” Carrie Davies responded, “and thank you gentlemen of the jury.” She had played the part of the deferential maiden perfectly.

THEN : Toronto Star coverage of the verdict.

Upon her acquittal, Davies received numerous offers of employment. She turned them down, refusing to accept work in any private home, ever again.  Decades later, author and journalist Frank Jones tracked down Davies’ daughter and uncovered what happened next to the once-famous defendant. Davies married Charles Brown, an older English farmer based in the Brampton region.  Moving from farm to farm in Ontario, Davies and her family lived at the edge of poverty.  Davies spent much of her time on charitable work, volunteering at church and dedicating her time to children’s charities. She never told her two children of her notorious crime and trial before her death in October 1961.

NOW : The murder scene at 169 Walmer Road as it looks a century later.  Today, the house has been subdivided into a number of smaller apartments.  One wonders as to whether or not the current inhabitants have any knowledge of the infamous history that took place on their doorstep.

FURTHER READING

The notorious case of Bert Massey and Carrie Davies was re-introduced into mainstream knowledge with the publication of Charlotte Gray's book "The Massey Murder" (published in 2013).  The book has been exceptionally well reviewed - I read it myself and like everyone else who has done so, I found it compelling.  The book weaves in other things that were going on at the time, including the quest for gender equality in Canada, and Canadian participation in the First World War.

I mean no copyright infringement in referencing the book, or posting an image of it - in fact, I highly recommend purchasing your own copy!