‘How could you, Mrs Dick?’
Canadians of a certain age will remember a rather rude, though clever, school playground rhyme.
You cut off his legs.You cut off his arms.You cut off his head.How could you, Mrs Dick?
Mrs Evelyn Dick, formerly Evelyn MacLean, was a dark-eyed beauty who came to prominence when the body of her husband, John, was discovered on a pleasant spring morning in 1946. An unusual feature of the case was the fact that his head, arms and legs were missing.
Evelyn MacLean was born on 13 October 1920 in Beamsville, a small Ontario town situated just south of Lake Ontario. In the following year, her father, Donald, found work as a streetcar conductor, so he moved the family some 25 miles (40 kilometres) west to Hamilton. By all accounts, Donald MacLean was not a pleasant man. As well as being a drinker he was foul-tempered and unfriendly, to the point that he insisted that Evelyn be kept apart from the other children in the neighbourhood. And yet none of this behaviour hindered Donald’s advancement within the Hamilton Street Railway Company. He was soon promoted to an office job. There was, of course, an increase in salary, but this does not account for the fairly lavish lifestyle that the MacLean family came to enjoy. An explanation of sorts can be gleaned from the fact that young Evelyn was sent shopping with a purse full of nickels – the standard streetcar fare. As Evelyn entered womanhood, her visits to the shops were punctuated by the extravagant parties she hosted at the Royal Connaught Hotel and other glitzy venues. Clothed in expensive dresses, jewellery and furs, she began to be seen in the company of any number of wealthy older men.
Evelyn provided a lot of grist for Hamilton’s well-oiled rumour mill. However, the town gossips must surely have viewed 1942 as a very special year indeed. First, it seemed that the attractive 21-year-old girl was losing her figure. Then it was announced that she was pregnant. According to Evelyn the father of her child was her husband, a navy man named Norman White who was serving overseas. It seemed that none of the gossipers had picked up on the marriage – and no one knew of any Mr White.
Evelyn’s mysterious husband was not even present on 10 June 1942, when she gave birth to a daughter, Heather Maria White. Sadly, the child was mentally retarded. Evelyn’s second pregnancy, in 1943, was even more troublesome. This time she gave birth to a stillborn child. Before the end of the year she was again pregnant, and on 5 September 1944 she gave birth to Peter David White, a seemingly healthy boy. Again the elusive Mr White was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he was still serving overseas? But then how could Evelyn’s pregnancies be explained?
The rumour mill turned even more quickly when it became known that Evelyn was no longer Mrs White. On 4 October 1945 she married John Dick, a 39-year-old Russian motorman with the Hamilton Street Railway. The wedding came just weeks before the birth of young Peter. Not that the newlyweds were actually living together, mind you – the bride remained in a downtown apartment that she shared with her now-separated mother. Evelyn’s supposed second marriage was several weeks old when she joined her new husband at a house she had bought on Carrick Avenue. Where the young, unemployed woman got the money for the purchase has always been a source of mystery. John would not have been able to provide much of anything and his name is absent from the mortgage. And yet somehow Evelyn thought that the Hamilton Street Railway employee had a reasonable amount of money. She hoped that he would be able to enrich her lifestyle and help her to achieve a higher social standing.
An abrupt end
Whatever the relationship between John and Evelyn Dick, it came to an abrupt end in a matter of months. In early February 1946 the groom moved in with his cousin, Alexander Kammerer. The arrangement seemed to be working well enough, but on the afternoon of 6 March John Dick disappeared. On the following day some workmen found John’s shirt. It was bloody and buttoned up and the sleeves had been cut off. Although the Hamilton Police Department suspected foul play, they also wondered whether the missing man, despite his honest reputation, might not have run away from a problem. On 12 March, they received a phone call from an anonymous female who asked whether John Dick had been arrested for ‘Running away with money and tickets belonging to the company – the Hamilton Street Railway’.
Four days later, John’s torso was discovered by five children who had been playing on the Niagara Escarpment, a majestic formation that bisects the city of Hamilton. At first, the small group thought they had found a headless pig, but when they poked at it with sticks they realized in horror that the carcass was human. The police assumed that the children’s imaginations must have been working overtime, so they were reluctant to investigate. However, the juvenile sleuths were soon to be proved right. They had, indeed, stumbled upon a torso. A casual inspection revealed bullet holes and a wound that was deep enough to suggest that an attempt had been made to cut the remains in two. The surrounding area was sealed off immediately and a fruitless search for the head, arms and legs was undertaken.
Word of the shocking discovery moved quickly among the citizens of Hamilton. The missing man’s brother-in-law was soon contacted. Although there was little to see, he did not hesitate to confirm that the torso was John’s.
‘Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about it,’ Evelyn said, when she was informed about her husband’s shocking death.
And yet despite having denied any knowledge she quickly launched into a story about a well-dressed, though rough-looking, Italian who had arrived at the Carrick Avenue house in search of John. According to Evelyn, the man was in a rage after discovering that her husband had been fooling around with his wife. She told the police that the anonymous man had threatened to ‘fix’ the Russian motorman.
Web of lies
A far more valuable piece of information surfaced a few days later. The police learned that on the afternoon of 6 March, at around the time of John’s disappearance, Evelyn had borrowed a car from a man named William Landeg. She had later returned it with one of the front seats covered in blood. What is more, the seat covers were missing and the boot of the car contained two blood-covered items: a sweater and a tie. Evelyn’s story was that Heather had cut her face and had been taken to the hospital for stitches.
When the police discovered that the blood found in the car matched John’s, Evelyn came out with yet another tale. According to her revised account, she had received a telephone call from a second anonymous man, who had told her that John had impregnated his wife. The caller added that he needed to borrow a car. Faced with this situation, Evelyn had turned to William Landeg for assistance. She had then met the mysterious man, who had been carrying a large sack that contained ‘part of John’ – or so she was told. Together they had driven up to the escarpment, where the torso was then dumped.
Even though Evelyn protested her innocence, she was taken into custody. The widow then produced yet another explanation. This one involved an Italian hit man hired by a man named Bill Bohozuk. As part of the investigation, the police began combing through the Carrick Avenue house for evidence. There was plenty to be found. A pair of bloodstained ladies’ rubber boots was unearthed, as well as a quantity of ashes that contained traces of a human skull. When they went up to the attic, they found an old beige suitcase filled with cement. The police had not stumbled on John Dick’s remains, though. When the block of cement was broken open the tiny body of Peter David White emerged. He had a cord around his neck and he was wrapped in a Red Cross nurse’s uniform that had belonged to Evelyn.
Ever resourceful, Evelyn came up with one more excuse. Bill Bohozuk had killed her baby and her estranged husband. Most people would not know anything about Bill Bohozuk, who had come to figure so prominently in Evelyn’s stories. To the Hamilton police, however, he was a well known figure in the city’s underworld. As it turned out, 47-year-old Bohozuk was Evelyn’s long-time lover. Quite possibly he was also the father of at least one of the ‘White’ children. Evelyn continued to come up with stories in which various criminals had been cruising the city streets in the hope of abducting and killing her husband, but the Hamilton Police Department had long since stopped believing the widow. They continued their investigation.
One lead was provided by Evelyn’s mother, who told them that she had seen her estranged husband with the beige suitcase on the day before its discovery. A subsequent search of Donald MacLean’s house revealed more bone and ashes, a revolver, bullet holes, an axe, a saw, a butcher’s knife and a pair of bloodstained shoes that were thought to have belonged to John Dick. Four thousand dollars in cash and a large number of streetcar tickets were also found. This last find presumably represented the ‘money and tickets belonging to the company’ that the anonymous female had spoken about.
Evelyn, her father and Bill Bohozuk were then charged with what Canadians had come to call the ‘Torso Murder’. The trial took place at the Hamilton Courthouse. On 16 October 1946 Evelyn was found guilty of murdering her husband. She was sentenced to death by hanging. However, her sentence was overturned after an appeal by her defence lawyer. It was ruled that the trial judge had improperly instructed the jury. Not only that, the police had erred by improperly admitting into evidence seven of Evelyn’s contradictory statements. This notable victory was credited to J. J. Robinette, who was considered Canada’s greatest trial lawyer. The famed Robinette went on to defend Evelyn in her second trial, which resulted in an acquittal.
Bill Bohozuk walked away from his trial a free man after Evelyn refused to testify – she was the sole witness. However, he had another trial to face. Bohozuk and Evelyn had both been charged with the murder of Peter David White. When Evelyn stood in court it was revealed that no one had seen the infant since she had taken it out of the hospital. In fact, she had arrived home without the child. She had told her mother that the Children’s Aid Society had taken Peter for adoption – but this story was easily disproved in court. In the end, the jury found Evelyn guilty of manslaughter.
When it was Bohozuk’s turn to stand trial, the very same evidence was presented. However, there was little to connect him to the infant’s death. He had never lived in the house where Peter’s body was found and the Red Cross uniform was certainly not his.
Once again the prosecution relied on Evelyn’s testimony, but as before she refused to take the stand against her lover. Bohozuk maintained that he had not met Evelyn until after Peter was born. He also claimed that their friendship was never more than casual.
His testimony was supported by his wife, the jury was convinced and he was found not guilty.
The prosecution then made a second attempt at convicting Bohozuk for the murder of John Dick. But without Evelyn the prosecution had no case and predictably she refused to take the stand. The only person to be convicted for the murder of John Dick was Evelyn’s father, Donald MacLean, who entered a plea bargain that saw him convicted as an accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to a five-year prison term.
Evelyn had been cleared of the murder of her husband but she still had to answer for the death of her baby. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. She spent 11 years in Kingston Penitentiary before being released on parole. After she had been given a new identity by a dedicated civil servant, she went back into the normal world and was never heard from again.
In 2001, author Brian Vallée brought to light a curious fact. Evelyn had been given a full pardon under Canada’s rarely employed Royal Prerogative of Mercy provision. Without explanation, her record had been expunged and her files had been forever sealed. It seemed that Evelyn had also enjoyed a brief reunion with her daughter Heather at some point. But she would not even reveal her new identity to her only surviving child.
The scores of invented stories Evelyn Dick [left] fed to the police ultimately failed to cover her tracks.