Murder on the Prairies

One winter in particular stands out in my memory. It was a terribly cold winter and coal was at a premium. All trains were late, and especially those that carried coal. Word was noised abroad one day that the next day a car of coal would be brought in to Lumsden. I remember George got up early and set off with the big sleigh and team for Lumsden in order to be there as soon as the car came in. It turned very cold and blustery that afternoon, and I had just finished up the chores at the barn, such as milking and feeding all the stock, gotten in the wood and water for the night. We had to pump and carry the water in from a pump in the yard. Now, if there was one thing I was scared of, when alone, it was a peddler. One drove up to the door and asked if he could put his team in the barn and stay with us for the night. He was poorly clad and hungry looking; his team was thin and miserable looking too.

At first I said no, that there was another house about a mile further on —Mr. Binnie’s - and by the way Aunt Mary’s father’s place — and they had lots of room and could put him up. The poor fellow looked around at the gathering storm, then back at me and said, "Lady, my ponies are tired and hungry. I am cold and tired and hungry too. It is almost dark and it is stormy. If I were not a good man, I would not ask you to let me stay. Please, lady, let me stay." I said, "Very well, but remember, I am alone with my little children and my husband may not be home tonight; but put your ponies in the stable and give them some feed, then come in and get warm and I’ll give you something to eat." So he did just that. With a prayer in my heart, I began to prepare things for supper. I was terribly afraid. Peddlers, or some men pretending to be peddlers, had been causing a lot of trouble in our vicinity that year and I was so terrified of anything that looked like a peddler that I just about passed out with fright if one came near our place.

Well, George arrived home just about the time I had supper ready, to my great relief. He and the peddler became quite friendly. George was a good talker and they soon were chatting away as though they had known one another for years. The peddler was very interesting. He came from a country called Syria. It is spoken of in the New Testament. The Turks had killed his parents and persecuted all people who were Christians. He had hidden when the Turks came, and had escaped their cruelty. He had often been to Joseph’s Well, also written about in the New Testament. He told us of having seen the place where Christ was crucified and many other interesting things about places that we have read about in the New Testament. I was ashamed of my fears; he was the nicest and most interesting person we ever had in our house.

But, still my fears persisted even after that experience. There was a band of men, about eighty of them, supposedly from Armenia, who infested that part of Canada one summer. They were reported to have separated, or broken up their band at Brandon, each gone a separate way, and roamed all over the country. They each had a printed card with - supposedly - their name on it and a plea printed also on the card, asking for help to aid them in returning home to Armenia where their people lived. The card stated they could speak no English and each was sup-posed to have lost an arm. At least two of these men came to our house - not at the same time — but several days apart. The first one just presented his card and I do not remember whether I gave him any money or not — most likely not for it was seldom I ever had a penny. He went away and was no more trouble. But, one morning after we had finished breakfast, another one came and tried to force his way into the house and, only that Uncle Joe was there, would have succeeded. Uncle Joe put the boots to him. He was very insistent on getting into the house. Then, that very same day, he came back and tried to get in again. George was in the house and frightened him off.

One stopped where the Stewarts lived in the Qu’Appelle Valley. He, too, had his card and an arm all bandaged up. One of the Stewart men made him take the bandage off his arm, suspecting it was a fraud, and, sure enough, here he had a piece of raw meat bandaged or tied on his arm, making it look like a raw sore. Of course, they kicked him off the place. The police (Mounted) were notified and before long had a lot of them in jail. I never did hear what was done with them.

Then, too, one winter’s day a man came to Charlie Stewart’s house and asked to get warm and for something to eat. Mr. Stewart had gone to Regina and she was there with her little children. She gave the man his dinner and, after eating it, he grabbed the butcher knife and chased her around the room and tried to kill her. She said she would never know how she had strength to fight him; but she grabbed the carving fork and fought him off. She said she never knew how she got the door open and got him out. He then started walking away. She watched him until he hit Albert Street, a short distance from their house and saw he continued north on the road. Shortly afterward, her brother-in-law came in on horseback on his way to Regina from the Valley. She told him what had happened and where the man had gone. He said, "That must have been the fellow I met a mile or so back on the road," so he got on his horse and started in pursuit of the fellow, caught up to him, gave him a horsewhipping and drove him ahead of him all the way to Regina, where he found the man was an escaped lunatic and had been in jail at the barracks, but by some means had made his get-away.

Then, a mile or two out of Bethune, a man entered the house of his best friend, when the friend had gone to Regina on business, dragged his friend’s wife out of the house to a wheat field raped and murdered her. It was a wonder he did not kill her two children as well. They saw him pull her down the stairs and out the door and her body was found in the wheat field. Her husband came home on the midnight train from Regina, to find his children panic-stricken and to find his wife dead and murdered by his best friend.

So, you see, it wasn’t much wonder I was so terrified to see a stranger coming near the place, and the longer I lived on the farm, the more terrified I became.

There was another murder case at Disley, not far from Lumsden. A Mr. Warwick was murdered in his stable. His wife was arrested on suspicion of having committed the crime. George and I went to her trial in Regina. The story she told was they had been to town that day, and then when they returned home in the evening, she went in the house to prepare supper. Her husband took the team of drivers to the stable and, as soon as he had them unharnessed and fed, was to come in for his supper. Well, she said she got the supper ready, waited and waited, but he never came in. So, after waiting a long time, she went to the stable to see why he was so long about coming in for supper and found him lying under the driving team’s feet, his head smashed and covered with blood. She said the team was still there with their harness on, so she took the team out, hitched them to the buggy and went for help.

Previously, she had told how this team was so wild that she always had dreaded something would happen to Mr. Warwick (or Warick) when he was around them.

The Prosecution asked her how, when they were so wild, was she able to get them out of the stable and drive to a neighbors? She said she would never know. The trial lasted only a day or two, but a lot of evidence was brought out against her as an accomplice, both before and after the murder was committed. It came out that she, on her own testimony, had been very intimate with a man by the name of Price and that Mr. Warick knew all about it. She told of different times meeting with Price and of having been intimate with him; of having kept house for him and that he had been intimate with her while she was keeping house for him. Others told things about her when called to the witness stand, which were very damaging to her reputation. Told of how she was seen meeting him in lonely places at different times, and many other things.

One witness was a neighbor woman who, when she heard Mr. Warick was murdered, went over to the Warick place and took Mrs. Warick back with her to her place that night. She told how, after Mrs. Warick had gone to bed and was asleep, Mr. Price had come and wanted to see Mrs. Warick and how she had refused to let him in. And that he came back the next night and, at Mrs. Warick’s suggestion, had allowed him to come in and see Mrs. Warick. She said that after Price had gone, Mrs. Warick was in a terrible state of mind and told her neighbor how Price had told Mrs. Warick that he had killed her husband. He had clubbed him to death with a heavy piece of timber about three or four inches thick and about three feet long. This piece, covered with blood, was found in the stable.

Price then left Mrs. Warick, drove to Moose Jaw, got a room in a hotel there and shot himself to death, leaving Mrs. Warick to face the music. It came out at the trial that Mr. Warick had been suffering with stomach disorders for a long time and that Dr. Anderson had been called to attend him during the summer, also Dr. Ball of Regina. But whether Warick had told them of his fears, or not, they did not testify to that. But, according to some of the witnesses, he had a hunch his wife was trying to poison him.

People were very bitter against her. Bryant, her criminal lawyer, pleaded her case. He was a wonderful pleader and ended his plea with the words of Christ, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." Court was adjourned shortly before noon after the judge had addressed the jury. The jury filed out and the crowd all went out for lunch. Court resumed about one o’clock; the jury filed in and took their seats. On being questioned by the judge as to how they found the prisoner, the foreman rose and, addressing the judge, said, "Your honor, we find the accused not guilty." One could hear a pin drop. The silence was terrific. Many felt she was guilty, if not of the actual crime, then as an accomplice both before and after the crime.

However, many others felt sorry for her, because both she and some of the witnesses had testified that Mr. Warick had ill-used her in many ways and that she, herself, was innocent.

I never heard anything more about her — where she went, or what became of her. This crime was committed near Disley, up the line a short distance from Lumsden on the C.N.R.

It is strange, in a way, how crime affects ones whole life. This woman had had her friends before this murder was committed but I heard they had nothing to do with her after the trial. Whether this is the Christian way to treat one who has been a friend, or not, is hard to say. In the minds of so many, although she was acquitted, there still hung a suspicion of her guilt, although no one breathed it to another. The law had pronounced her innocent: what more could they want. Yet everyone shunned her. There were so many instances where she had been, by her own testimony, unfaithful and intimate with Price, it was hard to brush that part of it out of their minds. Perhaps she had been unhappy in her marriage and, as in so many cases, had turned to Price for sympathy. Who can tell! Her life was ruined.

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