In the Courts

 

This week I am writing about the court case of my grandfather, Robert Woodman, in 1937 the year my mother was born. This is a recent discovery that I stumbled into on Newspapers.com. I had been working on my Gran’s ancestors, specifically her father Archibald Wood. Newspapers.com is a new resource for me and now as I’m working on an ancestor, I check it out. So, I did a search for Archibald Wood and got nothing. Then I remembered that he was usually referred to as Arch. I did a search for Arch Wood and BINGO a hit!

His name appeared twice at the bottom of page 3 in the Kingston Whig-Standard, Monday, November 8, 1937. From the preview I could also see the word Northbrook which was where he lived. I opened the link feeling that there was a good chance that this was referring to my great grandfather. The paragraph was reporting on the testimony of Mrs. Ezra Wood describing where she lived and that “Arch Wood lives near there.”  Further along she spoke of being at his house and seeing Robert Woodman there on an afternoon in February. Hmmm, I thought… what is going on here?

Have you ever started a small fix-it job that snowballed into something big?  This article was about to snowball. I scrolled to the top of page 3 and the headline read “Trial of Woodman is Resumed at Napanee.” I read on. The article started with the “Trial of Robert Woodman of Flinton, charged with the murder of…” and I thought “Oh no, not again.”  If you’ve followed my posts, you might recall my dad’s father being involved in a trial in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. I haven’t found the outcome of that but have two cousins, Donald, and Joanne, who are working on it.

I continued to read this article that outlined witnesses called by the Crown to tell of their acquaintance with both grandpa and the victim and the last time they had seen the deceased. A part of what Mrs. Ezra Wood (who is Arch’s sister-in-law), said was that on February 13 she had taken Mrs. Woodman up to Northbrook to get her husband who was in the beer parlour, and they had taken him home.  This gobsmacked me. My mother was born February 20, 1937. I thought about my poor gran, pregnant with her first child and dealing with that.

I found several articles from May 3, 1937, to November 10, 1937, about the trial. I saved and sorted them chronologically for reading and got to it. 

It was quite a sensational trial for the area and the time. Provincial police investigators were brought in to assist local authorities and forensic sciences were used to test clothing and other items in evidence. A “government medico-legal” expert testified that the bones found were human bones of what he believed to be an adult male. The authorities believed them to be a missing man who was a friend of my grandfather. Several articles mention the “considerable interest in the trial” and “a packed courthouse.”

Grandpa plead “not guilty” to the murder charge he was facing. He is described in the first article of the trial as “a young man of 23 years of age and is dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and dark tie, and wears glasses. He has dark brown hair.” 

Grandpa, unsure of age, but appears to be in his 20's or 30's

I read the graphic details of the state the body was found in and how it was found. As well as all the testimonies from individuals who knew of them and the police who conducted the investigation. I am not a legal expert, but as I was reading testimonies and details of the investigation, I remember having thoughts of “that's strange" popping into my head. I wondered why neighbours were imposing themselves into the police investigation.  Hanging around and involving themselves when inspectors were at a crime scene. Also, why things people claimed about my grandpa were taken as factual evidence. I’ve watched enough CSI to know that you don’t contaminate a crime scene and you need more than circumstantial evidence to convict someone.

On Jun 14^th, Inspector Gurnett was on the stand and stated that two inspectors (Gardiner and Barrett) were sifting through some ashes while he took a dog owned by Inspector Gardiner and accompanied Lessard (a neighbour) to do some investigation. He had taken Officer Gardiner’s dog and accompanied by one Lessard, made an investigation. He said that he found a bone and “I called the dog and the latter got busy and soon we discovered a part of an arm.”  The judge later questioned Inspector Gardiner about the dog, remarking that he knew something about dogs. Gardiner told him it was an Irish setter and the judge said he never heard of an Irish setter or any other setter picking up a cold trail like that when it was so wet. Stating, “were it a hound, it might.”

There seemed to be a lot of focus on the victim having large amounts of cash on him all the time. Witnesses said it was common for him to have $400-$500 on his person. The defense council cross-examined witnesses about his work and earnings. The cash he was alleged to have couldn’t be matched to his earnings as a trapper. It does make me wonder (pure speculation) if he might have been involved in something nefarious that led to his death. That might even explain some of the unusual and changing witness testimony including the individuals who found the burned body contacting his mother instead of police.

Clip from Newspapers.com 

On November 9th, the Defense Attorney stated that they would not call any witnesses. According to the news article, “it created one of the rare situations in the history of Canadian murder trials.” They had summoned 11 witnesses, but Mr. Simpson (his attorney) felt that it was unnecessary in view of the evidence presented by the Crown. Apparently, the last afternoon of the trial was a parade of Crown witnesses, and several were let pass without any cross-examination by defense counsel. Grandpa’s sister Daisy was one of them and when she failed to answer the Crown’s questions with any degree of certainty, she had been warned by the judge that she would be declared a hostile witness if she didn’t cooperate.

In one of Daisy’s responses I found what I consider a sad reference to my mom’s birth when she said she did not know when the baby was born to her brother’s wife. 

Archie Wood said that grandpa was building a log cabin on his property. I suspect that was because he now had a family to provide for.

Many crown witnesses “circumstantial evidence” was that grandpa had been spending a lot of money. A local storekeeper was cross-examined and said he had not seen any large sums of money spent in his store by my grandfather.

On November 10, 1937, the verdict of “Not Guilty” was given and grandpa was discharged. The jury left to consider the case at 10:59 and returned at 1:20. Justice McFarland accepted the verdict and said that the jury were quite justified in their action. He spoke to grandpa and said the police had been within their rights to arrest and hold him, but that he concurred in the verdict which the jury returned. In his charge to the jury, Mr. Justice McFarland said, “I give it as my opinion, that the body found in the fire was the body of [the victim]. This case is either murder or not. Manslaughter does not enter, and the jury must find the accused guilty or not guilty of murder. In this case the evidence is circumstantial or presumption because no one saw the actual act. Circumstances can’t lie but witnesses can lie about circumstances.”

Clip from Newspapers.com 

Grandpa was taken into custody May 2^nd on a charge of vagrancy and was held in Napanee until the trial was over. My Mom was born on February 20, 1937, she was only 10 weeks. She was almost 9 months old when he was discharged.

 Granny and mom, 1938