Evelyn Dick offered many theories when five schoolchildren found her husband John’s torso on Mountain View Road in Hamilton.
Perhaps the killer was a hit man, Evelyn told police after the remains were found on March 16, 1946. Didn’t he have a lot of gangsters in his hometown of Hamilton? She informed police that she heard rumors that John was having an affair with the wife of a hitman. That could explain why someone had cut off John’s head, arms, and legs after putting two bullets into his torso.
In those days before DNA testing, a coroner by the unfortunate name of Dr. William J. Deadman identified the victim through his black oxford shoes, a striped cotton shirt, and a tie clip.
Perhaps John was punished for getting a local woman pregnant, Evelyn continued. Evelyn did not know her name, but did let investigators know that she had heard rumors of such a scandal.
She went on to offer half a dozen different stories about the murder, and was soon charged with the murder herself.
Local schoolchildren found her guilty long before her trial was over and started jumping into a song that read:
You cut off his legs
You cut off his arms
You cut off his head
How could you, Mrs. Dick?
How could you, Mrs. Dick?
The victim, 40-year-old John Dick, was a driver on the Hamilton Street Railroad (HSR). He was, by all credible accounts, an honest man who made a disastrous decision in marriage.
His marriage began to unravel within days of the wedding ceremony, after he discovered that Evelyn’s father was stealing a small fortune from HSR, where he also worked.
It also didn’t help the newlyweds that Evelyn was apparently still dating an ex-boyfriend, Bill Bohozuk, a Leander Rowing Club heavyweight puncher, or that the couple were having money problems.
Police investigating John’s murder noted that Evelyn had borrowed a man’s car and returned it stained with blood, around the time John disappeared. Evelyn told police the blood may have come from a cut her young daughter suffered.
Theories of Evelyn’s murder failed to convince a 12-man jury, which found her guilty on October 16, 1946, of murdering her husband.
“Evelyn Dick, the sentence of this court and on you is that they take you from here to the place where you came from, and they will keep you in close confinement until January 7, 1947, and on that date you will be taken to the place of execution and may it be hung by the neck until it dies, and may the Lord have mercy on its soul, ”Judge FH Barlow told her in the Hamilton court.
Toronto Star crime reporter Jocko Thomas observed the event and wrote: “Mr. Judge Barlow pronounced the death sentence grimly as Mrs. Dick stood her ground, her dark eyes shining. There was no hesitation or grip on the dock railing, which is so often seen when men hear those dreaded words ‘hanging by the neck’. “
Evelyn’s mother did not attend the trial and obtained sentencing details from Toronto Star reporter Marjorie Earl.
Their conversation took place in what Earl called the “tastefully and luxuriously furnished living room of 32 Carrick Ave., the home that has become known in every neighborhood in the Dominion.”
“She had her flaws,” Evelyn’s mother told Earl through tears. “She may have been evil, but she is my daughter, my only daughter, and I idolized her. I don’t know what I’ll do without her. I miss her every day in a hundred different ways and now oh how can I bear it? I think I’ll go crazy. “
“She was such a beautiful girl,” Evelyn’s mother continued. “I have been crying all day. I kept my glasses. I just dried them when I started crying again. “
“He had it all,” his mother continued. “Everything a girl could wish for. A good home, friends, money. We loved each other and she was a good daughter to me. My only daughter and I love her. “
The execution would take place in the Wentworth County Jail, known locally as the Barton Street Jail, a grimy dungeon in the city’s East End between Ferguson Avenue North and Elgin Street.
That would have made her the eighth prisoner and the first woman hanged at the scene since 1876.
She appealed the sentence. His fate was now in the hands of the brilliant lawyer JJ Robinette, who managed to have his convictions to the police excluded from the evidence.
That was enough to earn her a not guilty verdict for the murder of her husband.
However, now they called her to explain the contents of a trunk that the police found in the attic of her house. Inside was a suitcase. There was cement inside, and when it was removed, investigators found the body of Dick’s youngest son, Peter David.
Evelyn again started pointing fingers at the people around her, including her boyfriend Bill Bohozuk.
The all-male jury was unimpressed by their new round of stories and found Evelyn guilty of manslaughter in Peter’s death.
His sentence was life imprisonment.
She was sent to Kingston Penitentiary, where she reportedly behaved well and played the role of an angel in a Christmas pageant.
She was paroled on November 10, 1958 at the age of 37.
And then she disappeared.
However, his legend remained. There was a play and a television drama and a black musical.
There was even merchandise, including T-shirts, handbags, and shot glasses with slogans like “The fastest way to reach a man’s heart is through his torso” and “I love you to pieces.”
Hamilton’s forgotten punk band, The Forgotten Rebels, wrote a song about her for their 1989 untitled album. It included a reference to the song skipped by children of previous generations, with the chorus: “How could you, Mrs. Dick? “
The murder of John Dick remains officially unsolved.
Reference-www.thestar.com