ON MAY 30, 1949, the very same day Chaud wrote the Secretary of State advising the judicial murder of the Nova Scotians, Rufus James Hamilton, just twenty-two years old, and “sorry to say” that he had two convictions, dashed off his own sally to the “Guvnor General of Canada.” For his bit, Rue was “sorry to say this but I must: I have served 2 years in Dorchester penitentiary for a crime I was not at all to blame for…. I returned to this city only to marry a girl I realized I loved.” He applauded his “able attorney,” Carl Waley, for his careful “inventory of the events so that people would be convinced I, Rufus Hamilton, am innocent. I, the accused, did not take the life from a human being. I am sorry to say that I haven’t a clue who killed Burgundy.” Rufus was “a Young Man who had planned to get married on the 15 day of June 1949 and live a happy life because I was very much in love with the wonderful girl I was going to marry.”
Rue could not fake “humbling,” so he was brazen: “My Honor, the people of this City do not believe that I took a man’s life—all for a couple hundred dollars.” Such allegations were “lying evidence.” Suspicion ought to be directed on Plumsy Peters, “a plain liar” who’d claimed to be “a Friend of Mine,” but what a friend! “My Life Depends on You, Sir: On Rejecting False Evidence Presented Against Me in the Court.”