The Murder of Dorothy Hammond
9:00 p.m., Saturday, November 15th, 1941.
Outside, a misty snow descended from muddy orange skies.
Inside, silence permeated the grand plaster lath halls of downtown Edmonton’s Central Police Station. Most of its ninety-four employees had left hours ago. The clacking of typewriters, the ring of telephones, the shuffle of shoes, the echoes of voice. All gone.
George Edwards, the station’s Scottish-Bostonian Desk Sergeant, didn’t mind. He revelled in silence. A gruff faced, no-nonsense character with decades on the force, he knew it was better when there was no noise. No noise meant no ringing telephones and no ringing telephones meant no-one need them. It spelt that everything was right in the world — it also spelt a chance to catch up on paperwork.
And that’s what he did until 9:05 — then his desk’s phone finally rang. He’d been connected to a man, his voice horse and worried. He identified himself as Peter Cron, a local taxi driver. There’d been an accident. A girl. She was probably no more than fifteen. Blood was everywhere.
What was it? A hit-and-run?
The driver didn’t know. She was at the foot of the alley, her dress soaked red. In between her wheezes and calls for her mother, all she could mutter was “a man… a man…”
Where was she?
Between 110th and 111th Streets at 98th Avenue. He’d ran to the nearest home [1] to call. He’d been driving eastbound when he saw the girl fall into a gutter. They had to move her. She was in such a bad state. The blood… She’d been taken to the Misericordia Hospital [2] nearby.
As Cron spoke, Edwards spotted Constables Art Hamelin and Harry Nelson. The two partners were some of the force’s ‘Prowler Boys’, the late-shift officers who’d “‘prowl’ from 70 to 110 miles each night in a police car.” With a focus on juvenile offences, traffic accidents, and public disturbance they were just the men to check it out.
The Desk Sergeant whistled their way. Nelson, a burly man, “big enough to subdue most men without the aid of any weapon at all,” headed over with a cocked eyebrow. Phone still cradled in his neck, Edwards flipped open a notebook and jotted down the address. A thumb towards the door told the constable all he needed to know: ‘get over there’.
The Westend was a quiet area. Its streets were small and tight, lined by mighty elms, maples, and globed lights. Ornate hospitals, grand churches, and brick schools mingled with respectable homes. It was the centre of the city’s Francophone population — names like Joachim and Grandin were everywhere.
When Nelson and Hamelin arrived, they found pandemonium. Cars, crowds, and cries congested 98th Avenue. A palpable sense of dread loomed over everything.
Seeing them, a scrawny, gaunt, little man with thick eyebrows and even thicker hair, rushed over. He was flushed with worry. It was Mr. Cron, the taxi-driver turned good Samaritan. Almost immediately he explained the case.
“I could see her lying across the curb, partly in the gutter, with her head resting on her arm.”
Nelson pulled out a notebook and started jotting down his testimony.
‘This was…?’ he interrupted.
A girl, a dirty blonde, probably fourteen or fifteen years old, if that.
Hamelin gestured for him to continue.
“She seemed to be half kneeling. She was moaning. I walked over and turned her over on her back. She was bleeding from the mouth, nose, chest and hands. I thought she had been struck by a car or suffering a hemorrhage. Mr. Conti stayed with the girl and I went and telephoned the police.”
Mr. Conti?
Mickey Conti, one of his passengers. Cron pointed to a woman tending to her distraught children in the back of his taxi — that was Conti’s family.
He explained that he normally drove them home on another route: “I don’t know what in the world made me go this different way.”
How’d he come to see the girl?
“I was driving east on 98 ave. between 110 st. and 111 st., about 9:00 p.m. and I saw something lying in the gutter. I went past, then turned to my passenger, Mr. Conti, and said ‘I think there is something lying there.’ Then I turned the car around and put the headlights on the object.”
“I jumped out when I saw it was a girl.”
And they moved her?
They did. Another man was driving by — he hadn’t had time to catch his name. The three of them picked her up and put her in the gentleman’s car. Conti and him took her to the Misericordia Hospital a block away while Cron ran off for a phone.
Where was she lying?
Cron plodded towards the spot a half-block away and silently outstretched his arm to a gutter flooded with fresh blood — a trail led away to a nearby birch tree, and off towards the alley.
He suggested speaking to Mrs. Conti. She was with the girl the longest.
The wife of a well-known restaurateur, Anne Conti confirmed the taxi driver’s account and explained that she was there with the men.
On her suggestion, they turned Dorothy over so “she would not be breathing right into the ground.”
Dorothy?
Dorothy Maxine Hammond, a neighbourhood girl — she hardly recognized her. It was her two young sons, Al and Don, who made the identification. When she returned to Cron’s taxi, one had been crying:
“Mama, that was Dorothy Hammond,” he wailed — they were friends.
Conti continued, explaining that as they tended to her, her husband ran off to flag down another car. She was left alone with Dorothy.
‘Did she say anything?’
“As I stooped over her, suddenly she raised herself partly up on her right elbow, and looked right at me.”
“I said to her: ‘ did a car hit you, dear? Tell me?’”
“She tried hard but there was such a gurgle in her throat she couldn’t speak. She was too weak. She tried hard, twice to say something, but she couldn’t seem to bring out a word.”
The mother swallowed.
“She fell down on her face. Then the others came back.”
The two officers let her return to her grieving children. Before leaving the woman passed a handbag — “a little purse,” she called it — to Hamelin. Dorothy left it behind. Rifling through revealed little besides pocket change and a ticket stub from the Strand Theatre.
Hamelin made his way over to the Misericordia while Nelson called for assistance. Someone needed to get down here and watch the scene. Constables Albert E. Woodward and Arthur Johnson took the call — they’d meet them at the hospital.
Nelson himself would fetch the poor girl’s family. They should be there.
A glance into the Misericordia’s operating room told Hamelin they weren’t dealing with a haemorrhage.
A half-dozen doctors and assistants crowded around the girl’s body. They needed to strip her bare, there was so much blood.
His thoughts turned to hit-and-run. Dorothy looked mulled. Scrapes, bruises, and gashes covered her pale body from head to toe. But her hands didn’t support that — they'd been badly cut, shredded almost. A car couldn’t have caused it, the Constable knew that much for certain.
The doctors stopped their work near 9:40 and carted the barely-conscious girl off to a private room.
Nelson arrived a few moments later. With him was Dorothy’s devastated mother, Evelyn, and brother, Robert. The poor thing’s father, Ross, was out-of-town for work.
As his partner led the family to the child’s room, a doctor pulled Hamelin aside. The girl wouldn’t survive.
“Tiptoeing to the bedside of her child, Mrs. Hammond asked in tones that she fought to keep steady:
‘This is mother, Dorothy; you know me, Dorothy?’
By the change that came over the face of the girl, Mrs. Hammond was certain she had been recognized.
Gallant, youthful lips that were eager to form words of a last farewell to a devoted pleading mother, were through weakness unable to fulfill that function. [Still, Mrs. Hammond poured out the comfort and solace only a mother can provide upon her child.
Soothingly, Mrs. Hammond spoke again:
‘Don’t talk, just rest,’ the mother counselled.
For a while then there was not the slightest movement to lips or face. Dorothy seemed to be thinking. Then her eyes opened and closed at regularly spaced intervals for a minute or two. She was trying so hard to speak.
But it was the last supreme effort. The last feeble quiver of the young lips was a gallant salutation, from the child to the one who had given the power of life.
For in that fleeting moment life itself passed away.”
The old oak-lined hall outside of Dorothy’s room was crowded by the time Johnson and Woodward showed up. Nuns, nurses, doctors, three civilians — they all spoke in hushed breaths.
Nelson had the two take over for him and Hamelin at the hospital. Something was off and the two first-reporting officers felt they needed to secure the crime scene. Johnston and Woodward abided.
The crowd’s quiet tones gave way to dead silence as the constables approached — they questioned everyone.
Micky Conti was the first to step forward. He explained that he comforted Dot, with his wife, while Cron rushed off for a phone. No sooner had Cron left had a vehicle come their way — he ran into the street to flag it down.
“I recognized Mr. Conti in the middle of the road and stopped my car,” Mr. Joseph Nadeau chimed in. The well known Edmonton tenor had been heading westbound with his wife to visit friends.
“I got out of the car and suggested that we take the woman to the hospital immediately. She was unconscious. I asked my wife to get out of the car and then Mr. Conti and myself picked up the girl and put her in the backseat.”
Conti and Mr. Nadeau climbed in the front. Mrs. Nadeau cared for Dorothy in the back.
They rushed into the Misericordia, Dorothy cradled in Joseph’s arms. A sister at the admitting desk immediately directed them to an operating room. Doctor Thomas E. Lettes, senior intern at the Catholic infirmary, soon arrived and took charge.
Dorothy “appeared unconscious,” Lettes testified.
“Shortly after that, while we were considering cutting off her clothes in case her limbs had been broken, she suddenly swung up her arms and screamed.”
“I asked her what her name was. There was no answer just then, and I asked her two or three more times, and finally she answered faintly.” It was a passing moment of consciousness, but just enough:
“Dot,” she had murmured.
“And your last name?”
“Hammond…”
“Where do you live?”
“Eleventh Street…”
“She was paper white,” Doctor Lobsinger solemnly interjected — he’d been assisting Leetes. “We moved her to the operation room table, and removed her clothes so we could examine her injuries. We were surprised to find no bruises on her face after we wiped the dirt and blood off. On examining her chest, we found injuries made by some sharp instrument.” They guessed it was a knife.
Were they sure?
Certain. There were two distinct puncture wounds near her heart. They suspected it led to internal haemorrhaging. Her ragged hands also pointed towards self-defence — she likely tried to keep a blade away from her. Thinking it was an assault, Letees spelt out what he did:
“I asked: who did this?”
He got no answer at first. He clarified:
“Was it a man? A big man? A small man?”
“Small man,” the girl eked out.
He explained that he couldn’t be sure if she was lucid, and argued that she was possibly “merely repeating heedlessly the words of his own question.”
He tried again:
“Dot, was it an old man? Young man?”
“Old man… young man…” she whispered back.
Lobsinger told how the two had administered a blood transfusion at 9:35, but in his account, it had “no perceptible effect.”
He handed Johnson the girl’s records. Flipping through, the painful reality of the situation was made that much clearer. Little Dorothy Hammond was only fourteen years, nine months, and twenty-six days old.
Leaving a grieving mother to mourn the death of her youngest, the two constables went outside — there was work to do. A radio bulletin, calling for all ranks to assist, was put out. This was a murder. Everyone and every home needed to be questioned. Nelson and Hamelin were already canvassing the area for witnesses and clues.
Johnson and Woodward probed Cron. His “face set in grim lines as he reflected further on the cruel fate of the schoolgirl.” Pensiveness gave way to anger.
“I just wish I had been there 10 minutes earlier. I might have taken an awful beating but I certainly would have put up one hell of a battle with that devil in human form.”
At Albert Petrie’s residence — where Cron called from — Donald Mortimer came to the door. The eighteen-year old “freshman student at the University of Alberta from Didsbury, [was] staying at the home of his uncle.” He explained that he had been sitting in the den with Scottie, the family dog, curled up at his feet.
“I heard a commotion outside, and two or three muffled screams, but I didn’t worry about them because I thought it was just girls laughing, you know how they do, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.”
“Then a taxi driver came in to use the telephone. The dog jumped up and ran to the door, and that’s what surprised me. I thought it might have been the kids coming back from the show but when I reached the door and saw someone lying across the street beside a taxi. I went over there and found it was a girl. She didn’t seem badly hurt except the blood on her face. I thought she might have had a nose bleed and collapsed.”
“I went back to the house to get a blanket for her, but when I came out she had been put into another car which drove away.”
He wrung his hands together, thinking back.
“All this time I didn’t think she was badly hurt.”
Another area resident and friend of the Hammond family, Mrs. Knowler of 9744 111th Street, told police that about two weeks prior, “a man, who she described as ‘peculiar’, came to her house and after forcing his way into the front hall asked ‘is there any summer fallowing I can do for you?’”
“He was such a peculiar man, and so bold, I remembered him. I would know if I saw him again.”
She described him as about five-foot seven. He’d worn dark clothing.
Another, Mrs. McDonald, who lived “across the avenue from the scene of the stabbing,” said she didn’t hear anything.
“Of course, the radio was playing and it would be difficult to hear. Just the same if I had heard the scream, I doubt I would have paid any attention to it. You see, the children play near my front yard and even sit on my front door step. If I had heard the scream I probably would have thought it was some children playing nearby.”
Nurses Christine Justin, Marjorie Grove, and Florence Durrant, all attested to hearing the scream from the Misericordia, but were unsure of its whereabouts.
Then they came to A.J. Lajoie. The man lived at 9802 110th Street, the house closest to where the assault took place.
“One of the rarest of humans, an eyewitness to murder,” Lajoie was likely the only person who could help police. He’d seen everything as it happened outside his kitchen window. Recounting the event, the lean-faced French-Canadian told police that he was sitting there in socks and trousers after a late-evening’s bath. Lighting his pipe and bantering with a roommate, the invalid former-soldier turned nightshift woodworker, said he was taking stock of the weather to know what he’d soon be trudging through.
When hounded for comment Lajoie painted a picture. He sat where he had before and lighting another smoke described the ordeal:
“I saw the forms of some people walking west along the north sidewalk. There was a woman, or girl, walking, with a man, a short fellow, about ten feet behind her. They were walking quite normally when I first saw them.”
The Quebecois took a break for another puff before he continued:
“Then he walked fast and caught up to her. He seemed to grab her behind like this.”
He outstretched his arms in front of him, locking his hands together to form a tight hug.
“She screamed. Both of them fell down. I could only see a black shadow on the ground, it is so dark there. He seemed to stay down for a moment or two.”
Lajoie seemed ashamed to say it, but the truth nagged at him; he admitted to laughing at first.
“I think there are a couple of intoxicated persons outside,” he remembered saying, turning to his buddy and jokingly thumbing out the window.
But that scream… As soon as he heard it his mind began racing.
At first he “thought it a family quarrel.” When her attacker “got up and ran up the lane to the north [and] disappeared into the darkness,” though, he knew something was wrong.
“The girl got up and staggered along the boulevard to a birch tree about 50 feet west. She grasped the tree with her hands and clung to it for a moment, and then slid down to the ground.”
He took another puff, flicking ash with a trembling hand.
“Then I saw this car come from the west. I could see in the lights of the car a form lying on the ground.”
Lajoie said he rushed outside, barely dressed, to see what had happened. There he saw the Contis tending to Dorothy’s bloodied body. He ran back home and called out to his landlord, Henry J. Gobeille, to get dressed. By the time the two made their way back to the scene, only a few moments later, Dorothy disappeared — Cron told him she was en-route to the hospital.
By 11:30, backup arrived. Nearly the entire station showed up — with them was most of the Detectives Department. The four constables quickly briefed their superiors with what they’d managed to uncover.
John Leslie, the fifty-six year old Chief Detective Inspector took charge. The steely-eyed, long mouthed, grey-haired Scotsman was no better choice. Leslie was a cop’s cop. He joined the ranks of the Dunbartonshire Constabulary at eighteen, and had three decades of experience in Edmonton.
Chief Constable Anthony Graham Shute made a rare out-of-station appearance. He was a stern-looking figure. Chubby cheeks gave him a near perpetual frown, and blocky eyebrows furrowed judgment. A big man — and avid wrestler — he commanded the room. Even he was at a loss for words.
No sooner had the Chief arrived did reporters from the Bulletin and Journal hound him for comment. He didn’t know what to say. “[This was] the work of a maniac” — his deep, rocky voice stuttered in revulsion. “I think this is the most atrocious crime ever committed in this city… and one of the most brutal slayings I have ever heard of in Canada.”
Detective William McDonald arrived as Shute fended off the swarm of journalists. An Aberdeenshire-native, McDonald had been with the force since 1914, and had plenty of experience with murder. By trade, McDonald was a Coroner’s Officer, “called on to conduct investigations into accidental, suicidal or untoward deaths that occurred in the city.” Since taking the posting in 1924, he’d been responsible for overseeing 1,250 cases.
Joining them were members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Speaking to the Bulletin, Colonel W.F. Hancock, assistant commissioner of the R.C.M.P.’s Western Division, said his men were at the disposal of the City’s force.
“As soon as I learned of the murder, I informed Chief Shute we were ready to render all possible assistance.”
Three Mounties were quickly dispatched: Detective-Constable J.G. Ozarko, Detective-Corporal J.S. Stanton, and Detective-Sergeant F.A. Broadribb.
Broadribb was an old cop by that point. An original member of the long-defunct Alberta Provincial Police, he served in Southern Alberta. Following the A.P.P.’s merger with the R.C.M.P. in 1932, he served with the Settler and Vegreville detachments. In 1935 he made his way to Edmonton.
Leslie assigned McDonald and Broadbribb to the case’s heavy-lifting. They didn’t mind. The two had previously worked together — they were both on the Edmonton Police Department’s roster in 1917.
Not long after, Inspectors M. Kelly and J.T. Shaw, along with Detectives Peterson, Foster, Graham, Smith, and Taylor of the City Police arrived to help direct the investigation.
It was nearing midnight.
The wet sleet gave way to dry snow — it sure wasn’t any help to police. With it, what tracks Dot’s assailant may have made were quickly being buried. [5]
Constable Nelson trudged down the sludgy alley. He may have been wearing an overcoat but he was still shivering. That damned cold.
Each frigid breath dried his mouth out more and more — if the brass wasn’t around, he may have warmed up with a swig of whisky — but he continued on. He had his orders: ‘survey the scene and report anything you find.’
Flashlight in hand, that’s just what he did, counting every step north of 98th Avenue along the way.
Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine.
Back and forth the beam of light penetrated each dark corner and crevasse along the murder’s likely trail.
Nothing.
Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four.
At sixty-five paces he stopped. Something had caught his eye. It was just a glint. Probably nothing. The alleys were filled with all kinds of junk — likely just a milk bottle.
Sixty-six, sixty-seven…
Again, he stopped. Maybe he’d double check, cold be damned — there could be a citation in it for him.
Nelson approached the trash heap. Bottles, bags, garbage cans.
Then he saw it.
A knife!
It was an English make, a Taylor of Sheffield. The company’s distinctive trademark glinted near the centre of the 7¾ inch long, blood-caked blade.
‘I’ve got something!’ he yelled back over his shoulder.
Leslie, Broadbribb, Shute, Graham, Smith, McDonald, everyone in earshot rushed over to huddle around the kneeling constable.
Nelson passed the tool over to Leslie. He noticed something instantly — it belonged to an amateur. A coarse sharpening tool was likely used on the blade, and it showed. Another recognized the make as one commonly used by hunters for skinning purposes.
Its location was marked and the piece bagged.
Nelson continued on.
Sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two…
At seventy-five paces there was something else. A leather glove. It lay haphazardly atop an ash can. Maybe nothing — but that’s what he thought last time. Marked and bagged.
Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight.
Nelson stopped. The last piece of evidence lay to the side of the alley. It was the matching glove, divinely marked by the warm glow of a streetlight. He picked it up — something was wrong. It was damp, sticky almost. Turning it over, he saw why. The mitt’s light leather had turned maroon with blood.
Again, the detectives crowded around. The gloves revealed plenty, and not just their owner’s guilt. Two things stood out. Firstly was that they belonged to a labourer, that much was certain. Worn in the middle and on the fingertips, they were large, likely size elevens or twelves. Secondly was that the insides were fur-lined, suggesting someone who worked outside.
The constable bagged it for travel to the station. There all three pieces would be handed to Detective H.S. Reynolds for future tests.
Sunday’s morning sun crept over the horizon as Detective Reynolds arrived on scene.
Although searches continued until dawn, and policemen maintained a perimeter all morning, little happened since Saturday night’s orgy of chaos. Everyone was waiting for him, for Reynolds.
The man dosed his smoke as he passed by unformed constables. It was his field’s best practice — never contaminate the site. Even as he put his pipe away, the detective’s thin, fox-like eyes peered over his bifocals, looking for anything of interest.
The spectacle-wearing, bowtie sporting, balding fifty-one year old walked with a perpetual hunch and affected every word with a sharply pronounced English accent. Reynolds was a caricature of a scientist but there was no doubting his genius.
He joined the force in 1924. A wizard with numbers, the Department initially hired him as an accountant, although when it came out that he had trained as a criminologist, officials soon found other uses for him. In-between his bookkeeping he became Edmonton’s part-time scientific officer and “identification expert.” Considered one of Canada’s leading hand-writing and fingerprint analysts, the Department pulled him out for investigations deemed high priority.
The detective surveyed the scene with a bag of tools and 4x5 Speed Graphic in hand. Samples needed taking. Blood. Fibres. Fingerprints. Photos needed snapshotting. Streets. Homes. Alleys. Bloodstains. The birch tree Dorothy grabbed hold of. Photos of the poor girl’s body. Everything and anything needed documenting.
Modern forensic science was still in its early days, but Reynolds made damn sure Edmonton would be its standard bearer. If nothing else, his work would be good visual reference for a jury.
Elsewhere, detectives had one mission: paint a picture of Dorothy and her last hours.
Their first stop was Stanley Mother, a one-time tennis player and hockey star. A teacher at Grandin Separate School, he’d personally known Dot for years. The news devastated him:
“It is the heaviest possible blow we could have been struck. Dorothy Hammond was a splendid pupil. She was full of fun and very popular with all her classmates. She was also a particularly attractive girl. She will be missed and missed terribly.”
Friends of the girl explained that “Dorothy took part in the Federation of Community Leagues’ carnival at the arena last winter,” and that “she played the part of the canary in a skit from the ‘Cat and the Canary’ murder mystery at the university rink” four years prior. Another remembered that she was “an expert roller skater” who frequented the Silver Glade Roller Rink in Inglewood.
Mrs. W.T. Rice, secretary of the Federation of Community Leagues, knew Dorothy from when the family lived in the Alberta Avenue area. “She was well-known to the community. She was a sweet girl and very well mannered.”
Everyone they spoke to described her the same way — the Edmonton Journal’s eulogy echoed the thoughts of hundreds:
“Her life was full.
Dorothy Hammond loved the outdoors and outdoors sports. She could play baseball with marked ability; speed skating was real fun for her. She could swim, roller skate and cycle. She loved an active life.
She sang in the choir of Sacred Heart church. Her friends say she had a good voice.
Winter, summer, spring and fall, there was not a game that Dorothy would not try. Life was particularly sweet for her, a blonde, with dimples and blue eyes. She was pretty.”
At the girl’s home, “Mrs. Hammond and her son, Robert Hammond, sat in stunned silence for a great part of the day Sunday.” The two took turns describing their lost relative as hoarse chords or bouts of tears stopped the other.
Between muffled sobs, Evelyn explained that Dorothy suffered a bad bout of scarlet fever when she was twelve. The affliction had been so severe that she missed a full school year. Sporadic fevers continued to knock her out every few months. In the week prior to her death, Dorothy was bedridden.
It was a sad irony, Robert pointed out, that Saturday night was the first time in days she had felt like herself. Although she had classwork to catch up on, their mother let her out of the home as a ‘pick-me-up’. A guilt-ridden cry bellowed deep within Evelyn — Robert tended to her as he continued.
Dorothy was planning on going to the Strand, her favourite theatre. They had no worries about her going alone — she usually went with friends — and even still, the streetcar was a quick walk from their home. From there, the direct ride was ten minutes.
Robert remembered how happy she was that morning. The cold didn’t bother Dorothy in the slightest, and she’d see a movie rain or shine. She planned to go with a girlfriend, Jean McNeill, that night, but couldn’t reach her.
A shaky breath escaped Evelyn’s mouth as she tried, desperately, to regain her composure — the words that tumbled out were a hardly audible whisper, meek and delicate. Her daughter left, “dressed in her dark green coat, print dress, brown shoes, and stockings,” after dinner, sometime around 5:40 p.m.
Her eyes watered again.
She went to see a detective film, James Hogan’s Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime. If Dorothy loved one thing, it was a good mystery. A smile flashed at the thought of fonder times — it gave way to tears.
They found Ted Routier at the Strand. The eighteen-year old boy served as doorman and usher the night Dorothy stopped in. He remembered the girl walking in “nearer to 7:00 than to 5:00.” The two had a passing familiarity, and had known each other for four or five years — he was certain of his identification.
Was she with anyone?
“No. She was by herself. I spoke to her when she went in. We didn’t have any special conversation. I just said: ‘Hello!’ and that’s all I remember saying.”
He couldn’t recall her leaving the theatre prior to the end of his shift at 7:00 — the movie was still in.
“I just saw her a couple of times when I was ushering in the theatre. She was on the right side.”
From there, detectives pieced together that she likely headed home around 8:35, again boarding a tram. It would have stopped on 109th Street, near the Provincial Administration Building, at about 8:50.
A dash across the road would lead her to a path favoured by many Westend children. The popular shortcut, crossing the Canadian Pacific Railway’s tracks between 109th and 110th street, led to an empty lot across from her school.
She would have marched down 110th towards 98th Avenue. Rounding the corner, she pressed on through the cold towards the family’s house a mere two blocks away.
Then her attacker came.
By Sunday afternoon, the police had only three suspects. One, unnamed by papers, had “served a short term for technical assault of a woman [and] was closely watched.” “Interviewed at length in the city police station” they found him clean.
Another was an eighteen year old boy by the name of Leonard Goltz. [6] On high alert, hospital staff called police when he arrived with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He’d tried to kill himself in the wee hours of the morning with a .22 calibre pistol. Constables found a bloodied blue blazer among his belongings, but further tests revealed that “the stains were caused by a head wound from a revolver bullet. The boy’s friend [was] questioned as to his whereabouts during the night — at the time of the slaying. Police said their stories showed that the boy had been at a party elsewhere in the city.” The young man recovered in hospital. “The bullet entered the right temple and passed up through the top of the head.”
Lastly was Maxine Papin, who’d been arrested fifty minutes after the assault. A bus driver at Union Depot called it in. Papin had boarded his bus, bloodied and looking for a quick ride to Calgary. Not ten minutes before, the driver learnt of Dorothy’s death from a cabbie while on a smoke break. He told police that Papin “had blood on his face and clothing and [had] been behaving like a person demented. He had several times demanded to know why the bus didn’t get underway at once.”
“Taken to police cells, the man was found to be intoxicated, and it was later learned he had been in a fist fight, that accounted for the blood on face and clothing.” The following morning he was released. It’s likely racial bias played some role in the police’s suspicion. Papin was Métis. The papers’ disgustingly called him a “half-breed.”
It seemed like leads were running thin until they found someone else: Chester Warren Johnston.
Johnston cut an unassuming figure. He was “a typical young man in his early 20s. He held a job, took the usual interest in girls, was pleasant to his neighbours and seemed well-adjusted.” Standing “five-feet, 10 inches tall, with black, curly hair” his friends described him as “very good-looking.” Going off to war was his sole ambition.
Johnston was an unlikely suspect and only came under suspicion thanks to the keen minds of two individuals; Mrs. A.E. McDonald and Constable Arthur Johnson. McDonald went to the police on Sunday, November 16th. The night prior, while mulling the murder, Johnson remembered an old case he’d worked on.
This was back on Sunday, January 29th, 1933. At 8:00 p.m., near his home, a fifteen year-old Johnston had stabbed a neighbourhood girl — his rage came out of nowhere. McDonald, a personal friend to both him and the sixteen year-old victim, [7] remembered that day:
“My girl friend had gone to the store and on her way home had met Johnston. He was going the same way and together they walked up the hill. After taking a shortcut which was practically through my backyard.”
“Just before he left her he suddenly stuck her on the back of the neck. It wasn’t until the girl got home that she knew she had been stabbed and a minute or so later she collapsed onto the floor.”
Police caught up to him soon enough. After seeing what Johnston had done, the brother of the girl took off after him, went into his home, dragged him out, and “held him until police arrived.” Outside of attending the same high school and sharing a mutual friend they hadn’t known each other.
Records suggest he attacked her in “a sudden fit of madness. They believed he intended to attack the first woman he came to.” It’s likely. His knife was a killer’s weapon, freshly sharpened with a 4¾ inch blade — McDonald called it “a butcher’s tool.” She remembered him marching around the neighbourhood, blade drawn, for weeks before the attempted murder. He’d spent his evenings sharpening it on his family’s steps.
Fortunately, his victim survived. Her thick winter coat bore the brunt of his thrust, but the blood oozing from the wound hid its severity. When she arrived at emergency, doctors discovered Johnston struck in a downward motion. The knife had cut through her coat and dress, from collar to shoulder blade. Although her condition was serious, and blood poisoning a constant fear, she managed to recover. Had his cut been a half inch to the left, she may have been left paralyzed.
Johnston pled guilty. Convicted of attempted murder, the courts sentenced him to the Red Deer Provincial Training Centre for the Mentally Deficient. After three years of repeated psychiatric tests, steady progress, and good behaviour, they released him in 1936.
Interestingly, in the wake of Dorothy’s death, that girl’s mother came forward as a witness. Johnston had been lurking around the neighbourhood for weeks, she’d said. It culminated with a visit to their house not ten days before Dorothy died. He wanted to speak with his victim. “The shock was so much that the girl had to leave town, near a mental breakdown.”
Had he wanted to strike her again? The mother thought so, and that revelation was enough for police to question him.
Detective Inspector Leslie, Detective McDonald, and City Probation Officer W.E. Jewett found Johnston living in his family’s hovel. It sat in the shadow of the Legislature bluffs, bound by dirt streets and the railway tracks of the Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific. Grimy white clapboard siding, dirt basement, a worn roof that barely justified its existence — it was a miracle the rumble of passing locomotives hadn’t shaken it apart.
A suspicious glance met the plainclothes as Johnston opened the frail screen-door. Placated by introductions, he became cordial enough and invited them in. As the three funnelled into the dank, crowded living room, Johnston’s grandparents, Mathias and Isabella, came over. The two said nothing, but their faces contorted in fear.
Sitting down on a shabby chesterfield, Johnston struck a match on his shoe and lit a smoke. Taking a puff, he gestured for Leslie, McDonald, and Jewett to sit and start.
How about his life?
The Johnstons had it rough, he told his interviewers. They were Mormons from the Metiskow area. His father had left before he was born and was farming somewhere east of Edmonton. His mother, meanwhile, died six days after his birth. Blood poisoning.
He gestured over his shoulder to the two figures looming behind him.
Her parents, his grandparents, were all he had left. They’d moved to Edmonton where they’d watched him since.
And school?
As he told it, he had a hard time. He’d gone to Donald Ross, near his home, for his primary education, and attended McDougall Commercial High. He passed “in literature and writing but failed in other subjects” and teachers repeatedly strapped him “for talking and chewing gum.”
What of the ’33 case?
He felt terrible about it and that’s why he wanted to speak to his victim. He was adamant that his time at Red Deer completely reformed him, however. Before, he’d suffered from “fainting spells” brought on by stress — doctors thought it might be epilepsy. More common was his “fighting spells” where an unbridled rage boiled within him, needing an outlet. It had been so bad he’d have to “walk up the river to walk off these impulses” since he was “afraid [he] might meet someone” and lash out.
Silence loomed for a moment before he asked them a question.
Was that why they were there?
They didn’t answer.
Flipping through their notes, the detectives finally got to Saturday night. Where was he between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m.?
Johnston was getting uncomfortable. He explained that he’d intended to go to a movie that evening, but long lines had kept him away. After a visit to the library, he walked to 107th Street, and went home straight after. At first,” it appeared that he had a cast-iron alibi and while it appeared he might ‘a little tense,’ he talked cooly.”
Did he go past 109th Street?
“No,” he answered cagily.
His face twisted, and his lip quivered. He looked on the verge of tears. Why were they there? Did something happen to his victim? That’s what Mathias wanted to know — he “was curious about our line of questioning,” McDonald remembered — but before he had any chance to ask, the three finished.
Seasoned veterans, the three had kept their cards close to their chests, and weren’t planning on giving anything up, not yet. With nothing to charge him on but their suspicions, Leslie, McDonald, and Jewett got up, exchanged pleasantries, and left. But as they walked away from the Johnstons’ shack, the three couldn’t help but shake a feeling of unease. In particular, “it was the inability of the accused to fully satisfy police concerning his movements.” While his story seemed plausible, no witness could completely corroborate his actions that night. His obliviousness also struck them as odd — surely he had to have an idea why they were talking to him? The whole thing stunk, and “that caused them to maintain double vigilance on the man’s every move.”
Downtown was sullen that Monday morning. There, the wet haze of a light snow glowed red in the hum of neon signs. Nowhere was the bloody mist more potent than over Chester Johnston’s place of work.
“Gainers’ ‘Superior’”
Perched atop the Blowey-Henry Block, the giant neon letters were impossible to miss. The four storey Jasper Avenue building had come to house Henry, Graham & Reed — a furniture wholesaler — in recent years. They hired Chester in 1940. His employers called him hardworking, friendly, and knowledgeable. “You couldn’t find a finer fellow to work with,” a co-worker would say.
It must’ve came as a shock when at 11:30 a.m. City Police barged through the front door looking for him.
The Department was sure they had their man. Detective Reynold’s tests, conducted on the afternoon of the 16th, confirmed that both the knife and glove featured human blood of the same type as Dorothy’s. Further tests conducted by University of Alberta pathologist James Macgregor, confirmed the results. And although no fingerprints could be lifted from any surface, it was a near certainty they belonged to a worker.
Everything they had — evidence, a prior record, and a feeling — pointed towards Johnston. On Chief-Constable Shute’s orders, Detective-Inspector Leslie called for his arrest. They’d question him again.
At Johnston’s store, Detective McDonald and Detective-Sergeant Broadribb, with a band of constables in tow, went straight to management. Worried glances from customers and employees followed the procession.
A manager directed them to the rear of the store. Johnston was working in the warehouse, as usual. In between the darkly lit, tightly packed alleys of furniture, the two detectives spotted him. Identification was easy. He stood wearing an unzipped brown leather jacket, a tired wool sweater, and high-waisted dark blue slacks. It was how he’d been dressed during his interview the day before. McDonald was “convinced the man [had] not changed since Saturday night.”
A sharp whistle attracted Chester’s attention. His steely demeanour broke, just for a second, as he recognized McDonald. He looked to his manager for comfort — a sympathetic nod, saying ‘come here,’ was all that met him. With a shaky breath he dusted his hands on his jacket, and shuffled over.
No pleasantries were exchanged this time. ‘Chester?’ MacDonald dryly asked, handing him the murderer’s knife and glove.
Are these yours?
The twenty-three year-old bit his quivering lip. His cords strained, but he didn’t try to lie.
“They are.”
Right then and there, “I told him to come with me to the police station,” MacDonald remembered.
A crowd had formed in the showroom. Secretaries, workmen, customers, management. Everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of what was going on through the backroom windows — they parted like the Red Sea as the two detectives and posse of constables ushered their man towards the front. Before they got there, Broadribb stopped him and turned.
‘Does anyone know this man?’ he called out.
It took a moment before a few concerned head nods and calls of ‘Chester Johnston’ came from the mass.
The Detective-Sergeant pulled out the murderer’s leather glove, holding it high. ‘And does anyone know who’s this is?’
“It’s Johnston’s,” a meek voice in the back called out. It came from George Harris — the crowd’s gaze turned towards the truck driver. He hated to admit it. He’d known Chester personally for fifteen years and had worked with him daily for the past eleven months.
‘Are you sure?’
A glum nod confirmed it.
With that, the police pulled him outside and dragged him off for questioning. He went without a hassle.
The crowd left behind was shocked. Some couldn’t believe it. “One woman employee, shivering as she thought of the danger associated with the past two days, said he had a very mild manner, was polite and the last person one would suspect of a crime.” An executive officer with the firm said that Johnston had been as cool as could be. “He performed his duties during the last few days without a seeming care or worry.”
The only thing that had stuck anyone odd about him the morning after the attack was a cut. “I noticed a scratch on his nose near his eye on Monday when he came for some shipping bills,” one woman remembered. “He told me he had scratched his nose with a nail in the lid of a pack case.”
Another woman also pointed it out. She later told a reporter she’d talked to Johnston about it. “You’d better look out or they will be arresting you for this murder,” she’d joked — he laughed.
George Moore remembered a cryptic response. That morning he said the two were discussing the crime. George jokingly asked Johnston “what he was doing the night of the murder?” “That’s what the cops would like to know,” he dryly responded. Taken aback, Moore pried for detail. “The cops were down on me Sunday” — he didn’t clarify.
The blinding white walls of Central Station’s integration room wasn’t what bothered Chester — it was the waiting. His captors thought it’d be hard to make him talk, so, they let him stew. All he could do was thumb a pack of four matches he’d kept in his pocket. That’s all he did for an hour.
Finally his jailers funnelled in, pens and notebooks at hand. A young stenographer trailed behind. Again, they pulled out his gloves.
Again, his face stayed blank.
Again, they pulled out his knife.
Again, his face stayed blank.
Again, they asked if they were his.
Again, he repeated himself.
“They’re mine”
He had no interest in dragging it out.
“I identify the knife and gloves now shown to me as my property. I bought the knife at Uncle Ben’s place on 101st in Edmonton about two weeks ago. I have had the gloves a long time and don’t remember where I got them. I have lent these gloves to George [Harris], the truck driver, but don’t remember when. I used to keep the knife in the basement at home.”
Did he know what that meant?
He gave a solemn bob of the head.
Then why’d he do it?
Even Johnston didn’t fully know. He sat in silence for a moment, contemplating his words. He fondled his matches.
“When I left home on the evening of November 15th, I took my hunting knife with me for the purpose of stabbing some person. I had no particular person in mind, but I felt the impulse to kill somebody.”
He looked down, ashamed in retrospect.
“I [had] a notion to go back to the warehouse and lock myself in the garage…”
His voice trailed off — he knew his defence fell flat.
“I had supper and left home between 7:15 and 7:20 in the evening and went uptown. I met a young man named Adams or Adamson who was in uniform, being in training at Red Deer. I spoke to him for two or three minutes, then went to the Capitol Theatre, and finding a crowd there went to the Public Library. I stayed there about an hour and then went back to the Capitol Theatre and found it still crowded, so I went west to 107th Street on Jasper Avenue, and then back to 105th Street.”
Again, he stopped, but the gazes of his two interrogators and their assistant pushed him on.
“I went south on 105th Street to 99th Avenue, and then walked west to 109th Street across to 110th Street then saw a girl walking south on 110th Street and followed her. She turned and went west on 98th Avenue, and I caught up with her pretty close to the lane, on the north side of the avenue between 110th and 111th Streets…”
Silence fell over them until the regret-tinged words tumbled out.
“I wanted to kill her…”
“I caught up to her, grabbed her around the head from behind with my left hand and threw her on her back. I had my hunting knife in the right hand pocket of my windbreaker. I drew this knife out of my pocket and stabbed the girl several times. She started to scream and I kept on stabbing her away at her. I wanted to kill her through an impulse that came over me.”
“After I had stabbed the girl several times, I got up and ran away. I went north on the lane between 110th and 111th Streets. I dropped my knife and gloves in the lane, then ran through the Grandin School grounds back to 110th Street and then over the bridge at 99th Avenue and down 99th Ave. to 105th and home.”
He pointed to his scar.
“After I got home I found my face scratched under my right eye, this was probably done during my attack on the girl.”
But if all this was true, why had he lied to detectives on Sunday?
He’d forgotten. His anger, his rage, it was animalistic, primal. It was like he wasn’t himself, like he was possessed. His memories had been repressed, erased. Only when he heard about Dorothy’s death that night on the radio did it all come flooding back. He’d remembered. Every second. Every thrust. Every scream. That’s why he came with them, he knew what he’d done — he wouldn’t dare lie about it.
So he took responsibility? For everything? For Dorothy’s murder?
Another nod.
‘Then repeat after me,’ the Detective-Sergeant instructed.
Johnston did as he was told.
“I make the foregoing statement after having been charged with the murder of Dorothy Hammond, and that I need not say anything, that I have nothing to hope from any promise of favour, and nothing to fear from any threat that may have been held out to me to induce me to make any admission of guilt of confession of guilt and that anything I will say will be used against me at my trial.”
With McDonald signing the statement as witness, the deed was done. Chester Warren Johnston was charged with the murder of Dorothy Maxine Hammond and taken downstairs to the cells. Detective Percy Appleby, the man who’d arrested him back in ’33, was given the ‘privilege’ of watching over him.
In that dank basement prison, the remorseful, curly-haired killer sat quiet and content — he knew what was coming. Folding his leg over his knee, he hunched forward and went back to thumbing his matches.
The announcement that the police had caught their man threw the entire city into a frenzy. No-one was more excited than the reporters of the Bulletin and Journal who descended on the Johnston family’s small home to hound them for comment.
Isabella Johnston, matron of the shack, was taken aback at the news. Her faint voice was at a loss for words, though her tensed hands and white knuckles showed “she struggled for composure.”
“I can’t realize what has happened… I hardly even believe it. Chester was always such a fine boy, quiet, and kind… I sometimes felt he kept too much to himself.”
She showed photos to the reporters as if to make a point. “Thumbing through the album Mrs. Johnston pointed out snaps Chester in a play, one of him in full kit while training at Camrose in October of last year; another with a pal… autographed by the accused’s hand.”
She shifted their attention again.
“Chester loved to make things.”
On the mantel lay carvings of a battleship and cruiser, laboriously carved out of wood by hand. She thumbed a wooden sailor he’d made. “Blue eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses were clouded with tears as Mrs. Johnston fingered these objects so patiently carved by careful fingers.”
She broke, “talking to herself, hardly noticing the reporter who hovered in the background.”
“I don’t know what happened… I don’t know… He couldn’t have known what he was doing for a moment. It’s one of those awful things that sometimes come to people… One of those things we simply can’t understand…”
A neighbour, Mr. Alvin Oman, was as surprised as Johnston’s grandmother. Him and Chester had attended Donald Ross together, and while not friends were long-time acquaintances. “Chester was a little queer before he was sent to the Red Deer school, but I thought they had cured him there. He used to take spells,” he told a reporter.
Over dinner, while reading the paper, Oman recalled the ’33 case to his wife:
“It would be strange if Johnston had been responsible for the death of the Hammond girl…” he’d mused.
“Chester seemed like an awful nice boy,” his wife countered.
Both dismissed the idea then and there.
Johnston’s grandfather, Mathias, was less understanding. Upon hearing of his grandson’s arrest he stormed to Central Station demanding a personal audience with Chief Constable Shute himself.
“If you knew him, chief, you would know that he would never do a thing like that if he was in his right mind. He must have been under a spell!”
“Chester was just the finest boy you ever knew. He was good to me and his grandmother. He worked hard and he didn’t waste his money. He always gave his grandmother money for his board.”
Dorothy Maxine Hammond was buried on November 19th, 1941. Her service took place at St. Joseph's Cathedral. Five-hundred Edmontonians turned up to pay their respects. Six of her closest friends led the procession — six more schoolmates carried her casket. Her body is interred at St. Joachim’s Catholic Cemetery north of downtown.
Chester’s preliminary hearing followed not long after. Handcuffed, “he sat calmly throughout the session, showing a keen interest in the evidence. Only once did he appear uneasy. That was when Dr. John W. Macgregor, pathologist, was testifying concerning the number and nature of each of [the fourteen] knife wounds inflicted on the body of Dorothy Hammond.”
Subsequent inquiries confirmed the police’s findings. Although his grandparents sought clemency — doctors declared Johnston as “not completely mentally normal” — the Dominion Department of Justice refused. A jury convicted him of murder on January 26th, 1942.
Chester Warren Johnston went to the gallows at the Fort Saskatchewan Federal Penitentiary on May 6th. The Journal said:
“[He] went calmly to his death... Bareheaded and wearing a prison shirt and pants, he walked steadily up the 21 steps of the scaffold between two prison guards. He twice refused an opiate.”
“As Johnston mounted the scaffold, overhead lights threw an artificial glow over the silent, otherwise dark courtyard. With the 24-year-old warehouse worker was Major Richard Shaw of the Salvation Army, Johnston's spiritual advisor.”
“According to Maj. Shaw, Johnston repented his crime and ‘acknowledged Christ as his personal saviour.’ He was calm spiritually and physically, Maj. Shaw said, and was more than confident of his redemption shortly before his death than at any other time.”
Although Mathias and Isabella were unsuccessful in their bid for mercy, they were successful in other ways. The Department of Justice granted their request to have his body released for a burial at a site of their choosing. Traditionally, death-row inmates were buried on-site.
Brought back to Edmonton, a small ceremony, attended by his grandparents and a half-dozen personal friends, sent Chester into the ground. He rests at Edmonton Municipal Cemetery.
His grave is less-than five-hundred feet from Dorothy’s.
Our lips cannot tell how we miss her.
Our hearts cannot tell what to say,
God alone knows how we miss her,
In a home this lonesome today.
— Sadly missed by her parents, sister Evelyn and brother Robert.
“In Memoriam,” Edmonton Journal, November 14th, 1942.
Link to Map, Featuring a Visual Description of Events and Key Locations
A Note on Editing:
For transparency’s sake, I would like to clarify one thing:
I don’t have access to the Edmonton Police Service’s records on this case (if they even still exist). As such, my work draws heavily on the excellent reporting and transcription done by the Edmonton Bulletin and Journal. The down side to this is that it presents a slight historiographical problem with the way I’ve structured my narrative: I present the quotes from those interviewed here as if it’s the police asking them, and not journalists.
The reporters of Edmonton’s two big papers were on their A-game and in many instances questioned witnesses mere hours after the police did, posing similar questions as the police did: who are you?; where were you?; what did you see? In other instances, quotes come from the court transcripts of Johnston’s trial.
This choice was simply a narrative one. The best way to present this story — in my mind, anyways, after mulling it over for three years — was to present it as it happened, and that meant following the officers of the Edmonton Police Department as they uncovered what happened. So, in light of publicly inaccessible first-hand sources, second hand sources were pressed into the role.
Their use is based on inference from how the story unfolded. For instance, we know the police spoke to A.J. Lajoie at around 11:00 p.m. We know he told them what he saw. We know it directed them to search the alley. What we don’t know is exactly how he told them — it was in these instances where after-the-fact quotations were used.
In other instances, where we lack any record — the interviewers questions most notably — ‘faux’ quotes have been included. As these are my words, based off inference from the interviewees answer — an answer like “no, she was by herself” meant that they almost certainly asked something like, “was she with anyone?” — or how the event played out, they either lack quotation marks and are formatted as a regular sentence, or include apostrophes.
As I say, these choices were a narrative decision. Previous attempts at telling this story, without the use of quotations in this way, read more like a fact sheet than an engaging piece of history. For something like a building that may work, but for this kind of human tragedy it felt woefully ill-suited.
But why bring it up at all? I simply felt it would be exceptionally dishonest to make this kind of alteration without letting you, the reader, know.
— Dane.
Cited Notes:
D.A. Petrie’s home at 9749 111th Street. It still stands as the historically designated “John T. Ross Residence.”
The original Misericordia Hospital stood along the west side of 111th Street between 98th and 99th Avenues.
Nadeau was somewhat of a local icon within Edmonton’s arts scene during the era, being a well respected vocalist and band leader.
John Leslie was appointed to Chief Detective Inspector in July 1939.
There are conflicting reports about the weather that evening. Constable Harry Nelson, first reporting, told the Edmonton Journal there was snow, although no visible footprints. Yet, John Leslie, Chief Detective Inspector, is quoted by the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix as saying that “it was not snowing or raining at the time of the alleged murder.” Subsequent weather reports in the Journal and Bulletin suggest sleet. Nelson’s testimony is likely closer to the truth, as Leslie arrived some time later.
Leonard Goltz’s parents described him as “despondent” — he never grew out of it. In 1944 he got fifteen days in jail for breaking windows after “feeling annoyed.” In 1962 he again went to jail, serving a nine month term for stealing stockings. By then he had “28 previous convictions of theft.” (See: “Police Court: Fine $30 For Issuing Bad Cheques,” Edmonton Journal, February 16th, 1962.)
Johnston’s earlier conviction was a youth charge, so the public wasn’t privy to his — or his victim’s — name. All that has ever been revealed publicly about his target is that she was a member of the “Richards” family. (See: “Doctor Declares Johnston Is Not ‘Mentally Normal,’” Edmonton Journal, January 27, 1942.)
The Two Families:
The Hammonds:
Ross Middleton Hammond was born on May 5th, 1885 in Almonte, Ontario. Of Scottish decent. At age twenty-one he moved west to Saskatchewan, and purchased a plot of land near Manitou Village.
Evelyn Marie Hammond, née Poisson, was born on August 13th, 1891.
The two married on January 26th, 1916, at Winnipeg.
They were both Catholics.
Together, Ross and Evelyn had three children:
Evelyn, Robert, and Dorothy Maxine.
For a time the family lived in Saskatoon’s affluent City Park community. The three children attended St. Paul’s Separate School.
They moved to Edmonton in 1934, settling in the city’s Alberta Avenue neighbourhood. They later moved to the Grandin area, where Dorothy attended Grandin Separate School. The family visited McCauley’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
The Johnstons:
Born in 1865 in the United States, Matias S. Johnston immigrated to Canada with his parents in 1870. He became a naturalized citizen in 1888. Of Irish descent.
Isabella Johnston, née Moore, was born in 1873 at Wellington, Ontario. Also of Irish descent.
The two married on December 8th, 1891 at Wiarton, Ontario.
They were both Mormons.
Together, Isabella and Matias had four children, all born in Ontario:
Three boys: Wilfred Warren, Albin, and Austin.
And one daughter: Hazel.
The family relocated and settled near Metiskow, Alberta. They were farmers.
While there, Chester Warren was born — his mother passed six days later from blood poisoning.
Mathias and Isabela became young Chester’s guardians and the group moved to Edmonton early in the boy’s life. He attended Rossdale and McDougall public schools. As of November 1941, he still lived with his grandparents.
Sources:
Fourth Census of Canada, 1901, Province, Ontario, District No.82 N. Leeds & Grenville, pg.13.
Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 1906, Province, Manitoba, District, Lisgar, pg.2.
Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 1916, Province, Alberta, District No. 32, pg.24.
Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928; Reel: 92.
Henderson’s Edmonton City Directory, (1941) s.v. “Hammond Robt,” pg. 479.
Henderson’s Edmonton City Directory, (1941) s.v. “Cron Peter,” pg. 395.
“Spruce Grove Triplets Aid In Bringing Slayer To Justice In Belgium,” Edmonton Bulletin, January 14, 1932.
“Youth Stabs Girl, Is Held by Police,” Edmonton Journal, January 30, 1933.
“Youth Held On Stabbing Charge,” Edmonton Bulletin, January 30, 1933.
“Girl Is Recovering From Knife Wound,” Edmonton Journal, January 31, 1941.
“Knife Wound Perils Life Young Girl,” Edmonton Bulletin, February 1, 1933.
“Pair of Gloves Just Like Baton,” Edmonton Journal, July 24, 1937.
“‘Prowler Boys’ Keep Order While Edmonton Sleeps,” Edmonton Journal, October 4, 1938.
“The Weather,” Edmonton Journal, November 15, 1941.
Jack DeLong, “Widespread Police Search For Slayer Of Edmonton Girl,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 17, 1941.
“Fiendish Slayer Stabs Girl, 15, To Death,” Edmonton Journal, November 17, 1941.
“Vicious Slayer Stabs Girl To Death On City Street,” Edmonton Journal, November 17, 1941.
“Youth Attempts To End Life By Gunshot Sunday,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 17, 1941.
“Where City Girl Brutally Slain as Vicious Killer Plunged Knife Into Body Ten Times,” Edmonton Journal November 17, 1941.
“City Man Arrested: Is Charged With Knife Murder Of 15-Year-Old Girl,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 18, 1941.
“Claim Warehouse Worker Here Blames Slaying Hammond Girl on ‘Impulse to Kill,” Edmonton Journal, November 18, 1941.
“Woman’s Keen Memory Led to Johnston Arrest,” Edmonton Journal, November 18, 1941.
“Stunned by News of Arrest, Grandmother Tells of Lad’s Life,” Edmonton Journal, November 18, 1941.
“Ross Flats Home of Man Accused as Killer,” Edmonton Journal, November 18, 1941.
“Grandparents Of Accused Youth Grief-Stricken,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 18, 1941.
“Dorothy Hammond, Who Loved Life, Victim of Killer, Taken to Grave,” Edmonton Journal, November 19, 1941.
“C.W. Johnston Remanded For Hearing Nov. 26,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 19, 1941.
“Murdered Girl Buried,” Calgary Herald, November 20, 1941.
“Edmonton Child, Stabbed to Death, Was Born in City,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, November 21, 1941.
“Dying Girl Tried To Speak But Couldn’t Inquest Hears,” Edmonton Journal, November 26, 1941.
“Open Verdict Returned By Jury In Slaying,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 26th, 1941.
“10 Are Witness In Stabbing Case,” Edmonton Journal, December 12, 1941.
“Alleged Statement: Accused To Face Trial For Murder,” Edmonton Bulletin, December 13, 1941.
“Sent to Trial In Knife Case,” Edmonton Journal, December 13, 1941.
“Johnston Pleads Not Guilty, 13 Witnesses Give Evidence,” Edmonton Journal, January 26, 1942.
“Murder Trial Is Continued Here Tuesday,” Edmonton Bulletin, January 27, 1942.
“Doctor Declares Johnston Is Not ‘Mentally Normal,’” Edmonton Journal, January 27, 1942.
“Sparkling Comedy Here Next Week,” Edmonton Journal, March 21, 1942.
“Sgt. George Edwards Recalls 30 Years Service In Force,” Edmonton Journal, April 11, 1942.
“Johnston Hanged Early Today; Goes Calmly to His Death,” Edmonton Journal, May 6, 1942.
“Johnston Buried in City Cemetery,” Edmonton Journal, May 9, 1942.
“Card of Thanks,” Edmonton Journal, November 14, 1942.
“Staff Inspector, John Leslie Dies,” Edmonton Journal, November 29, 1943.
“Belcher Replaces Darling As Head of R.C.M.P. Here,” Edmonton Journal, October 2, 1947.
“Early Crimes Recalled: Tributes Paid Two Retiring Veteran City Detectives,” Edmonton Journal, January 5, 1948.
Marc Horton, “Chester’s ‘Voices’ Told Him To Kill,” Edmonton Journal, November 8, 1980.
“Nov. 15, 1941: Girl, 14, Stabbed to Death on Dark City Street a Block From Home,” Edmonton Journal, November 15, 2013.
A.J. Mair, E.P.S. The First 100 Years: A History of the Edmonton Police Service (Edmonton: Edmonton Police Service, 1992) 71, 73.
