JULES FORTIN AND DANIEL
O’CONNELL: A BAG OF
RUBBER BOOTS
At just about any other time, a double police murder in a major Canadian city would merit banner headlines on the front pages of newspapers. But on May 9, 1910, the death of King Edward VII on May 6, and the succession of King George V, had pushed everything else to the inside pages. Nonetheless, the slaying of two Montreal police officers stunned the country; and the cause of the tragedy was a bag of stolen rubber boots.
Timothy Candy, thirty-seven, was a Liverpool Irishman who had come to Canada in hope of finding a better future than what was available to him in England. He had left his wife and children in Liverpool, and expected to send for them when circumstances permitted. Two weeks before the incident that would change his life forever, Candy was hired as a watchman in the warehouse of the Ames-Holden Company, which manufactured rubber boots. His position required him to carry a revolver.
Candy decided to supplement his income by helping himself to the stock in the warehouse. He stole six pairs of boots (total value $18) and went around to stores trying to sell them. On the evening of May 6, he was in a second-hand shop on St. James Street, trying to convince proprietor James Cowan to buy the boots. At the same time, an off-duty policeman, Constable Daniel O’Connell, was taking a stroll along St. James. He was not in uniform and was not armed.
Cowan suspected that the boots were stolen, and did not want to buy them. Candy left the store, and Cowan followed him, intending to go to another shop to buy a cigar. He was an eyewitness to what happened next.
When Candy left the shop he came face to face with O’Connell, a five-year veteran of the Montreal Police Department, who was immediately suspicious of a man carrying a bag full of boots. The constable asked Candy where he got the boots, and was not satisfied with the answer. He took Candy by the arm and said he would have to go with him to Number Six Station, which was a short distance away. Candy resisted, and the two began to struggle.
Just then, Constable Jules Fortin passed by on the St. James streetcar. Fortin was in uniform, but was not armed because he was just returning to Number Six Station from an errand. Fortin had been with the department only ten months. He had recently been off work with an injury, after a man he was arresting slashed his arm with a broken bottle. Now he saw a fellow officer having difficulty with a suspect. Fortin jumped off the streetcar to assist his colleague.
With two policemen to contend with, Candy seemingly gave up the struggle. He started off with them, toward the station house. Neither officer had searched him for weapons. They had reached Chanoillez Street, when Candy suddenly pulled his revolver and pointed it at the officers. There was a scuffle in which Candy lost his hat. He fired a shot, putting a bullet into Fortin’s brain and killing him instantly. Candy fired again and O’Connell collapsed with a slug in his stomach. Candy fled the scene, leaving behind his hat and the bag of rubber boots.
A Sergeant Chartrand was sitting at his desk in Number Six Station when he heard two gunshots. He rushed out immediately, calling other officers as he did so. He came upon the scene of the shooting and found twenty-five-year-old Jules Fortin already dead, and Daniel O’Connell, thirty-one, seriously wounded. Several people had seen the shooting and gave the police a description of the suspect: a short, thick-set man with a heavy grey-brown moustache, wearing a gray shirt. O’Connell was taken to Notre Dame Hospital where he died on May 9. He was able to tell police what had happened and describe the man who had shot him and Fortin. O’Connell left a wife and seven children. Fortin was unmarried.
After shooting the two policemen, Candy hurried to the Ames-Holden warehouse and punched the time clock at 9:26 p.m. This was about five minutes after the shooting, and nineteen minutes before his starting time of 9:45. Candy hoped that his punched time card would provide him with an alibi. When his shift was over, he told his employer that he was quitting his job. He said he’d had a message from his wife; she was ill and wanted him to return to Liverpool.
The following day, newspaper coverage of the crime included a description of the boots that the killer had been trying to sell. Someone at the Ames-Holden Company read it, and realized that the boots were their merchandise. A quick inspection of the warehouse revealed that some stock was missing. The manager informed the police.
Officers went to the company to question employees. They were told of Timothy Candy, who had punched in minutes after the shooting, had been in possession of a gun, and who had suddenly quit. Employees identified the hat the police had found at the crime scene as his.
The police found Candy at his boarding house. He seemed very nervous when they questioned him, and he could not give a satisfactory account of his whereabouts the previous evening. Then, to the officers’ astonishment, Candy’s landlady reported that he had told her all about the shooting. Later, several second-hand shop owners identified Candy as the man who had tried to sell them a bag full of rubber boots.
Candy wasn’t in custody for long before he made a full confession. He said he had not intended to shoot the constables. He claimed that he had pulled the revolver to scare the officers so that he’d have a chance to escape. The shot that killed Fortin, Candy said, was an accident. The gun had just gone off. Then O’Connell tried to take the gun away from him, and it discharged again. Candy’s tearful explanation that the whole thing had been accidental did not sway the coroner’s jury at an inquest held on May 10. They reached the following verdict:
We find that Jules Fortin died in the city of Montreal on the 6th May, instant, from a bullet wound at the hands of Timothy Candy, and Daniel O’Connell died on the 9th of May also from a bullet wound inflicted upon him by the same Timothy Candy, who is to be held criminally responsible.
Candy was tried on September 12, and found guilty. He was sentenced to hang on November 18. There was no recommendation of mercy from the jury. Ironically, Daniel O’Connell’s widow made a plea for the life of her husband’s killer. She said she did not want Candy’s wife and children to endure the kind of loss she and her children had suffered. Mrs. O’Connell considered it her Christian duty to request that the death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Ottawa did not agree.
On the morning of November 18, Timothy Candy walked to the gallows in the yard of the Montreal jail, maintaining what the press described as “a wonderful composure.” This would be Montreal’s last public hanging. Fifty people had official invitations to the execution, but from beyond the jail walls about five hundred people looked on from windows and rooftops. Newspaper columnists lamented that many of these were “women and children of tender years.”
Hangman Arthur Ellis made a quick, clean job of it. Candy was pronounced dead ten minutes after he dropped. The case remains tragically unique in the annals of Canadian crime. Three deaths, over a bag of stolen rubber boots!