The Bastard of Fort Stikine Page 17
McLoughlin’s cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the chest from “a bullet which seemed to have entered his back between the shoulders and came out through the gullet above the breast bone,” “having broken the spine as it passed.” The slug wreaked havoc on McLoughlin’s anatomy, and “the wounds made by the ball were very large, both openings being circular and three inches in diameter.”
Now the comparison of physical evidence, spatial relationships, and witness statements begins. According to Kakepé, Captain Cole, and William Lasserte, McLoughlin was making his way along the front of the men’s quarters when Urbain Heroux came around the southwest corner of the house. Heroux then stopped and raised his weapon — a Northwest or “Indian trade” gun, known as the Hudson’s Bay fuke — firing the lethal shot as “the Deceased was about four feet from the muzzle of the Gun.” Both men were on level footing, standing on the wooden platform built to protect pedestrians from tidal flooding, and both men were of similar stature.
There is only one problem: the angles are all wrong. The physical evidence and ballistics do not match the story, as is made clear by the trajectory (the bullet’s flight from the gun to the target) and wound track (the path of the bullet through flesh). At a distance of four feet, a standing man firing a long gun at another standing man would inflict a level wound track, with the bullet entering and exiting the body at roughly the same horizontal plane. McLoughlin’s wound track indicates the shooter was behind him and significantly below him, resulting in the gunshot wound described. Furthermore, the trajectory of a bullet travelling at the angle indicated by the wound track would not have hit the carpentry shop door, as was reported by several witnesses, but would have struck a point well above the shop’s entrance.
The only armed man in a position to fire at McLoughlin from behind and below was William Lasserte, who was hiding at ground level between the bathhouse/carpentry shop and the men’s kitchen. Lasserte, however, could not have been the shooter. Given Lasserte’s location, the bullet needed to defy the laws of physics by completely reversing direction, hitting McLoughlin and then travelling back the way it came, in order to strike the door of the carpentry shop. Furthermore, all three witnesses repeatedly swore they saw Heroux fire the fatal shot: “The night was clear and Lasserte says when the shot went off, the flash of the powder in the pan enabled him to see Heroux most distinctly.”
When such inconsistencies arise in criminal investigations, physical evidence always trumps eyewitness testimony, but in this case there is another piece of the puzzle to consider. Several witnesses stated McLoughlin was moving “in a stooping position looking very intently before him,” crouching as he made his way along the platform and hugging the wall for protection. Taking McLoughlin’s altered stance into account, the shooter, the bullet’s trajectory, and the wound track now align.
This brings us to the crux of every homicide investigation: intent. According to George Simpson, Heroux shot McLoughlin in self-defence, yet a crouched man cowering along a wall with his back to the shooter does not represent an imminent threat. Indeed, shooting a man in the back has long been thought to be an act of cowardice, not self-protection. But was McLoughlin’s hunkered stance an indication of fear or of menace? Could he have been creeping along the wall, stalking his prey, Urbain Heroux? Forensic reconstruction provides proof of the victim’s posture, but it cannot determine why he was in that position. McLoughlin’s stance alone does not conclusively answer the question of either man’s intent. It is a curious artifact, which both Dr. McLoughlin and Simpson could argue in their favour, and it remains a question best left for you, reader as hypothetical juror, to decide: was McLoughlin hiding or hunting?
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A virtual autopsy of McLoughlin’s body also helps dispel or confirm other aspects of the divergent accounts. For instance, in both historical versions of the killing, McLoughlin insisted Urbain Heroux shot him in the arm, giving the chief trader ample cause to hunt Heroux down, yet even as McLoughlin nursed his wound, doubts swirled as to the validity of his claim. He displayed his sleeve to Louis Leclaire minutes after the alleged shooting, pointing to an area near the elbow where it was torn. When Leclaire told him he heard no shots fired, McLoughlin became agitated and shouted: “Look where the balls passed through which they fired at me.” A similar exchange took place moments later between McLoughlin and Charles Belanger, who testified: “I examined his arm but could discover no wound nor any appearance of a ball mark on the shirt.”
Schematic showing the relative positions of Heroux and McLoughlin at the time of the fatal shooting.
Leclaire and Belanger were not alone in their skepticism. Antoine Kawannassé also discounted McLoughlin’s claim: “I heard no report, Which I could not have missed doing if a gun had been discharged within the fort.” Thomas McPherson swore: “I saw no blood upon his shirt…I looked at his arm but saw no wound, the shirt only was torn.” In fact, most witnesses believed the chief’s shirt was torn as he wrestled with Fleury while trying to put the drunken man to bed, and many felt McLoughlin exaggerated the attack, either to garner sympathy or to create a reason to detain Heroux.
One witness, Simon Aneuharazie, thought McLoughlin was simply lying. Aneuharazie later testified: “I saw him tear the arm of his shirt with his teeth and exhibit the rent as produced by the passage of a ball.” Aneuharazie was the lone voice accusing McLoughlin of fabricating the injury to his arm, and his allegation must be viewed with caution. What is certain is that, when the Kanakas washed and prepared the body for burial, there was no bullet wound or laceration to McLoughlin’s arm.
There were, however, other injuries to the body that warrant further consideration. The first: “one of his hands were swelled from a blow he had given it some days before.” The trauma may explain why McLoughlin could not load his own guns, and why he never drew his pistols. He was right-handed —his correspondence lacks the telltale ink smears of a southpaw — and though his injury would not have prohibited his use of a long gun (in which the left hand pulls the trigger), he might have lacked the grip strength or range of motion needed to fire a pistol with his wounded right hand.
The swollen hand has other implications. Both the timing and source of this injury are relevant in assessing whether McLoughlin could have brutally beaten several of the men, as George Simpson claimed. Thomas McPherson was one of two witnesses to notice the hand swelling, though all he knew of its cause was that Mr. John “had hurt it the day before.” The injury likely occurred on April 19, the date of McLoughlin’s last journal entry. It is unclear if the “blow he had given it” occurred during one of McLoughlin’s alleged beatings or in some other manner. It can also be argued the swelling and pain related to the injury prevented the chief trader from administering such corporal punishment. Whether McLoughlin’s swollen hand was the result of his excessive abuse of his troops, or evidence he was physically incapable of committing such violence, is again a question for the jury.
John McLoughlin’s body sustained one final injury, “a large gash in his forehead,” “a perpendicular cut…in a line with the nose.” The cause of this injury was a major point of contention. Pierre Kannaquassé swore the forehead laceration occurred when McLoughlin fell on the barrel of his rifle. Urbain Heroux stated McLoughlin received the wound “from an Indian with his dog,” although both Iroquois had reason to be deceitful. Less biased witnesses cite an entirely different source for the injury. Captain Cole was in his room when he heard the gunshot just outside his door. As he ran out, he saw McLoughlin “lying on his side, but still breathing audibly and Urbain…seized [McLoughlin’s] rifle and struck him a severe blow to the forehead, and in doing so broke the rifle, after which he replaced it by the body.”
Cole’s insistence that John was alive and breathing is at odds with Kannaquassé’s recollection, in which Kannaquassé approached the body “and with one hand under the neck raised the head and trunk when a deep aspiration followed which was the last sign of animation. He had previou
sly perceived no signs of life.” All other eyewitnesses side with Captain Cole. According to many of the Sandwich Islanders, the gunshot wound was not instantly fatal, and McLoughlin “did not appear to be quite dead, as there was a slight motion of the chest.” Several Kanakas also reported hearing McLoughlin draw a few laboured breaths, “writhing in the Agonies of death.”
Captain Cole offered a more detailed account, testifying that McLoughlin “made an attempt to rise after he fell.” This statement may seem implausible, given McLoughlin’s traumatic chest injury, but medical evidence supports Cole’s claim. The wound path destroyed his upper thoracic vertebrae but bypassed the cervical column and the nerves of the brachial plexus. Therefore, the injury was low enough on the spinal column to allow at least the potential for movement in the neck and arms. Cole’s testimony is also corroborated by others. From his vantage point on the upper gallery, Kakepé saw Heroux put his foot on McLoughlin’s neck “to prevent his rising.” Heroux kept his foot on the dying man’s neck, “as if determined to accomplish his villainous purpose,” and he pressed “upon it with his whole force, until Mr. McLoughlin ceased to breathe and life was extinct.”
Curiously, none of the men who prepared McLoughlin’s body for burial noted the presence of bruising or lacerations on his neck. That is not unusual with this particular type of injury, and the absence of evidence must not be misconstrued as evidence of absence. The sloe, or characteristic discolorations associated with bruising, takes time to develop fully. In modern autopsies, histological sections (tissue samples examined microscopically) are needed to accurately assess contusions, especially in the immediate aftermath of an assault. Today it is customary to put victims of suspected blunt force trauma on a twenty-four-hour “bruise hold” to give sufficient time for the contusions to manifest after death. McLoughlin also had a full beard, which may have hidden any damage associated with this specific injury. Even after his face was scraped clean by Belanger’s razor, it is possible the sloe would not yet be evident.
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The final physical evidence to consider is the guns, specifically McLoughlin’s firearms. The question is whether McLoughlin had a working gun when he was shot, as it is crucial to the issue of self-defence. In his narrative, Kannaquassé was adamant that, as the killer stood over McLoughlin’s body, “Urbain had no gun.” Charles Belanger was equally certain Heroux had “seized the deceased’s rifle and struck him in the forehead, after which he pushed the rifle under the body.” Captain Cole’s account concurred, adding that Heroux struck with such force, he “broke the rifle.” Had Heroux grabbed a loaded long gun by the barrel and struck it down with sufficient force to break it, the gun would have discharged, potentially harming or even killing the man holding it. That the weapon did not fire indicates it was not loaded.
Others tell different tales regarding the damaged rifle. Kakepé swore that when McLoughlin was shot, he fell so hard against “the door of the men’s house…as to break the stock of his rifle.” George Heron believed the gun fractured when McLoughlin dropped it after being struck by the bullet. Heron did not see the actual event, but from his hiding place he heard “a noise as if a musket had fallen on the platform.” All he could say for certain was he later “saw Mr. John’s rifle standing against the house with the stock broken.” Although the men could not agree how the rifle was broken that night, virtually all agreed it was irreparably damaged, a fact that becomes relevant in light of what followed. To garner support for Simpson’s ruling of justifiable homicide, the depositions taken by Donald Manson and James Douglas specifically addressed whether McLoughlin was armed when he died. Each witness was asked “Was his rifle loaded when he was killed?” Most deponents replied they did not know or offered hearsay, swearing only that they “heard it was.”
Two men gave more specific answers. Thomas McPherson and Antoine Kawannassé claimed to have loaded McLoughlin’s weapons in the moments before he died. When asked if McLoughlin’s rifle was functional, Kawannassé replied, “When he first came out with his Rifle, he fired a shot at random. I reloaded it and he did not again discharge it. It was loaded when he fell.” McPherson corroborated Kawannassé’s account in his deposition before Donald Manson. McPherson also swore that, on the day after the murder, he fired McLoughlin’s rifle and pistols, proving his guns were still loaded.
Perjury can be difficult to recognize in the moment, and nothing in McPherson’s claim struck Manson as questionable. Even the victim’s father missed the inconsistency when he reviewed the statement sometime later. But in hindsight, McPherson’s sworn statement reads false on one crucial point: how was he able to fire a broken rifle? In his testimony, McPherson made no mention of the weapon being damaged in any way, and he had no idea it had been rendered inoperable during the murder. Claiming to have fired it the next day suggests intentional deception, and, as will soon be evident, it was not the only lie Thomas McPherson told regarding the death of John McLoughlin Jr.
twelve
The Judas Goat
Sometimes it is what is not captured in the historical record that speaks loudest.
Simpson’s machinations in the John McLoughlin investigation had turned it into a sordid potboiler that appealed to the baser instincts of his HBC colleagues. Company men of long tenure inevitably drew parallels between the faulty investigations of McLoughlin’s killing and the unnatural demise of Simpson’s cousin Thomas. Sir George had learned how to rewrite history when he whitewashed his cousin’s death, and the same telltale signs of manipulation are evident in the documentation relating to John McLoughlin.
Take, for example, the testimony of Benoni Fleury, who hinted in his depositions that McLoughlin was very controlling of his country wife, and who claimed to have witnessed domestic violence on at least one occasion. Fleury testified that McLoughlin “attempted to use a dirk Against a woman who lived with him,” an assault which his valet “prevented by snatching it away.”
On closer inspection, this account becomes suspect. No other trader witnessed such aggression, and McLoughlin’s wife never mentioned any violence during her interview. Indeed, she expressed nothing but love for her husband, although such denials do occur with battered women. Furthermore, those who knew him best felt McLoughlin actually had very little tolerance for the abuse of women; indeed, the mere suggestion that McLoughlin beat his wife once angered him to the point of violence. Joe Lamb said McLoughlin tried to stab him with a knife on Christmas Day “because I told the other Kanakas he had been thrashing his wife.”
Digging still deeper, it appears Fleury’s tale of abuse was lost in translation. On the night McLoughlin died, all in attendance agreed the fatal sequence of events began with the quarrel between McLoughlin and Fleury, but what Simpson’s initial depositions failed to record was the true catalyst of that fight. According to eyewitnesses, the squabble was not the result of Benoni’s intoxication but, rather, his actions as he retired for the evening: “Fleury began soon afterwards to beat his wife, and Mr. McLoughlin went into his house to endeavour to quiet him.” The testimony of other traders revealed that it was McLoughlin who wrenched the bludgeon from Fleury’s hand on the night of the murder. The narrative in the Governor’s deposition was easily altered because Benoni testified in French, but his statement was recorded in English by Simpson. It now falls to the jury to determine whether the mistranslation represents legitimate human error or intentional manipulation.
The same holds true with Simpson’s persistent insinuations that McLoughlin had played fast and loose with the books. Early in the investigation, Sir George told the dead man’s father there had “been a very wasteful expenditure of property, given by the deceased to women, which has not been charged to his account.” Had Simpson bothered to examine the inventories, he would have known McLoughlin kept meticulous records. When Donald Manson searched McLoughlin’s desk after his death, the following note was discovered: “Deliver the following goods to Fleury’s wife, and keep this note to show me this evening…8 yds Reg
atta cotton, blue; ½ lb white En. Beads; 1 Yd corn blue strands;…1 Rice, Cotton Handfs; 1 sm Blkt…4 Leaf Tobacco; 6 Yds White cotton; 1 Fine Ivory Comb,1 Doz Needles…Saturday October 30th, signed J. McLoughlin Jun. B.O.”
Why McLoughlin bestowed these trinkets on another man’s wife was not committed to paper. If the goods were intended as a love offering to a secret paramour, as Simpson implied, McLoughlin was a poor Romeo indeed, for the gift and its mode of delivery would have failed to warm any woman’s heart. The note was addressed to Thomas McPherson, who procured the materials for the lady in question under the following loveless instructions: “If their [sic] is no Blue Regatta in the shop, I can suit you a little — but endeavour to make her take what there is. (Signed) McL.” The entire exchange was well documented, right down to a cover letter reading “goods given to Fleury’s wife on my acc. Signed JML,” rendering Simpson’s accusations of theft and underhanded dealings moot.
Simpson’s poor opinion of McLoughlin extended beyond the fort’s storeroom and into the dead man’s bedroom. On this point, the Governor found an unlikely ally in Roderick Finlayson, McLoughlin’s former assistant and supposed friend. McLoughlin’s body was not yet in the ground when rumors began circulating that Finlayson had joined McLoughlin in his excesses of drink, theft, and debauchery. Finlayson caught wind of the malicious gossip, and he feared Simpson might believe such idle chinwags. When he was later questioned as to his boss’s predilections, Finlayson felt compelled to explain why he had not told his superiors of McLoughlin’s more sordid “habits,” and he spoke out to protect his own reputation.
Finlayson was “an extremely proper young man, virtuous, religious, perhaps even a little self-righteous, and very worried about his job.” He was eager to please and had heard tales of McLoughlin’s indiscretions through the Company grapevine, yet when pressed for his recollections, Finlayson swore, “The only thing I had to bring forth was his criminal connexion with Indian women.” Although he was McLoughlin’s right-hand, Finlayson never saw him drunk or needlessly violent, and he had never known McLoughlin to steal from the Company store. The only thing troubling young Finlayson was “the deceased’s attachment to women, which was well known to Sir George & others.”