Evelyn Dick vanished after serving time for killing her infant son. Did she also murder her husband?
Evelyn Dick offered up plenty of theories when the torso of her husband John was found on Mountain View Road in Hamilton by five schoolchildren.
Perhaps the killer was a hit man, Evelyn told police after the remains were found on March 16, 1946. Didn't her hometown of Hamilton have plenty of gangsters? She informed police that she heard rumblings that John had an affair with the wife of a hit man. That might explain why someone had cut off John's head, arms and legs after putting two bullets into his torso.
In those days before DNA testing, a coroner with the unfortunate name of Dr. William J. Deadman identified the victim through his black oxford shoes, a striped cotton shirt and a tie pin.
Perhaps John was punished for impregnating a local woman, Evelyn continued. Evelyn didn't know her name, but she let investigators know she had heard rumblings of such a scandal.
She went on to offer a half dozen different stories for the murder, and soon she was charged for the murder herself.
Local schoolchildren judged her to be guilty long before her trial was over and began skipping to a song which went:
You cut off his legs
You cut off his arms
You cut off his head
How could you, Mrs. Dick?
How could you, Mrs. Dick?
The victim, John Dick, 40, was a driver for the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR). He was, by all credible accounts, an honest man who made a disastrous choice in marriage.
His marriage began to crumble within days of the wedding ceremony, after he discovered that Evelyn's father was stealing a small fortune from HSR, where he also worked.
It also didn't help things for the newlyweds that Evelyn was apparently still dating a former boyfriend, Bill Bohozuk, a heavyweight stroker for the Leander Rowing Club, or that the couple had money problems.
Police investigating John's murder noted that Evelyn had borrowed a man's car and returned it smeared in blood, around the time that John went missing. Evelyn told police that perhaps the blood was from a cut sustained by her toddler daughter.
Evelyn's murder theories didn't convince a 12-man jury, who found her guilty on Oct. 16, 1946 of murdering her husband.
Evelyn Dick, the sentence of this court and upon you is you be taken from here to the place whence you came, and there be kept in close confinement until the seventh day of January in the year 1947, and upon that date that you be taken to the place of execution and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul," Mr. Justice F.H. Barlow told her in Hamilton court.
The Toronto Star's crime reporter Jocko Thomas observed the event and wrote: Mr. Justice Barlow pronounced the death sentence in sombre tones as Mrs. Dick stood at attention, her dark eyes flashing. There was no wavering or holding of the dock rail which so often is seen when men hear those dreaded words hanged by the neck.'"
Evelyn's mother didn't attend the trial and got details of the sentencing from Toronto Star reporter Marjorie Earl.
Their conversation took place in what Earl called the tastefully and expensively furnished living room of 32 Carrick Ave., the house that has become known in every quarter of the Dominion."
She had her faults," Evelyn's mother told Earl, between tears. She may have been wicked but she is my daughter, my only child, and I idolized her. I don't know what I will do without her. I miss her every day in hundreds of different ways and now - oh, how can I stand it? I think I will go crazy."
She was such a beautiful little child," Evelyn's mother continued. I've been crying all day. I left my glasses off. I'd just get them wiped dry when I'd start to cry again."
She had everything," her mother continued. Everything a girl could want. A good home, friends, money. We loved one another and she was a good daughter to me. My only child and I love her."
The execution was to take place at Wentworth County Jail, known locally as the Barton Street Jail, a grubby dungeon in the city's East End between Ferguson Avenue North and Elgin Street.
That would have made her the eighth prisoner - and first woman - hanged at the site since 1876.
She appealed the sentence. Her fate was now in the hands of the brilliant lawyer J.J. Robinette, who managed to have her damning statements to the police excluded from evidence.
That was enough to win her a not-guilty verdict for the murder of her husband.
However, she was now called to explain the contents of a trunk police found in the attic of her home. Inside it was a suitcase. Inside that was concrete, and, when that was chipped away, investigators found the body of Dick's infant son, Peter David.
Evelyn again began pointing fingers at people around her, including her boyfriend Bill Bohozuk.
The all-male jury wasn't impressed by her new round of stories and found Evelyn guilty of manslaughter in Peter's death.
Her sentence was life imprisonment.
She was sent to Kingston Penitentiary where she was reportedly well-behaved, and played the role of an angel in a Christmas pageant.
She was released on parole on Nov. 10, 1958 at the age of 37.
And then she vanished.
Her legend remained, however. There was a play and a TV drama and a noir musical.
There was even merchandise, including T-shirts, carry bags and shot glasses with slogans like The fastest way to a man's heart is through his torso" and Love you to pieces."
The long-forgotten Hamilton punk band, the Forgotten Rebels, wrote a song about her for their untitled 1989 album. It included a reference to the old children's skipping song from generations before, with the refrain, How could you, Mrs. Dick?"
The John Dick murder remains officially unsolved.
Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him via email: pedwards@thestar.ca