Rampage (15 page)

By August 8, 1832, Sovereign was standing before Justice James Buchanan once again. Throughout the proceedings, he stuck to his story of the home invaders, claiming the blood on the jackknife was his own. For what it’s worth, Ephraim Serils testified that the accused had seemed completely sober on the night in question. Before the jury deliberated his fate, Sovereign calmly addressed them, declaring, “The thought of murdering my family never once entered into my heart. I had always taken good care of them and loved them as a father and husband should do. God knows, if I die for the act, I die an innocent man.” Ultimately, the nine jurors disagreed, finding him guilty in less than an hour.

Henry Sovereign finally adorned the rope necklace atop London’s gallows on August 13, 1832. He protested his innocence before a crowd of three hundred astonished onlookers. As with
Thomas Easby
, following his execution Sovereign’s body was donated to a medical school for dissection — his death bringing more benefit to mankind than the totality of his wretched life. His eldest children, absent on the day of his massacre, would go on to start families of their own. To this day, the Sovereigns are a respected family in the London area, although time has yet to erase the memory of the drunkard who murdered his wife and children. Along with the 2006 massacre of eight Bandidos motorcycle club members in nearby Shedden, the Sovereign familicide ranks as the worst mass murder in Ontario’s history.

Patrick Slavin
   
      

“When I went in I saw Mrs. McKenzie sitting by the fire and the four children beside her. I struck her on the head 10 or 15 times. I killed them all. They did not cry much.”

Victims:
6 killed

Duration of rampage:
October 24, 1857 (mass murder)

Location:
Mispec, New Brunswick

Weapon:
Axe

Butchered and Burned

Robert McKenzie left his native Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century, settling outside Saint John, New Brunswick, in the Mispec area. Blessed with a shrewd business sense and determined work ethic, he rose quickly from tailoring to success in real estate, money lending, and chair manufacturing. By 1857, McKenzie had amassed a small fortune, and occupied a large house on Black River Road with his wife and children.

Unfortunately, word of his wealth fell upon the wrong ears. On the morning of Sunday, October 25, 1857, a visitor arrived at the McKenzie home to find only smoking black ruins. Soon after, the lifeless bodies of Mrs. Effie McKenzie and one of her babes were pulled from the ashes. In a burned outbuilding, searchers discovered Robert McKenzie’s torso — his head and arms severed and missing — along with three of the couple’s four children. Instantly, what had seemed like a tragic accident transformed into a full-fledged murder investigation. One didn’t have to look far for a motive; among the debris were the charred remains of a money chest that had been emptied prior to the blaze. Saint John police learned that a Mr. Williams had reportedly visited the McKenzie home in the days before the fire to inquire about working for Robert as a labourer. Having been hired on the spot, Williams had left on Friday, promising to return Saturday evening with his wife and personal belongings. When the enigmatic “Mr. Williams” came under closer scrutiny, investigators learned that he also went by the surnames Breen, Green, and McGuire. Furthermore, rather than returning to his wife that Friday, Williams had stopped at the home of Patrick Slavin in Simonds Parish, where he had been living sporadically for the past month.

Like Robert McKenzie, the middle-aged Slavin was an immigrant. During the potato famine of the 1840s, he had relocated from Ireland to New Brunswick, where he found employment as a railroad construction worker and labourer. But while Robert McKenzie had found wealth in the new world, Slavin remained impoverished, sharing a tiny log hut in Loch Lomond with his wife and three sons. Not only was the cabin a mere five kilometres from the crime scene, but Slavin’s neighbours reported spotting his children playing with a suspiciously large sum of cash. Speaking with Slavin’s wife, the investigators ascertained that the man who had visited the McKenzie home was actually named Hugh Breen. Though Mrs. Slavin acted oblivious to any of her husband’s misdeeds, one of her children admitted overhearing Breen and his father discussing the murders. According to the boy, they had left Saturday with his brother Patrick Slavin Jr., only to return later with darkened demeanours and an abundance of coin.

Putting two and two together, police obtained a warrant to arrest Slavin, Breen, and Patrick Slavin Jr., who was believed to be an accessory to the murders. The three suspects were soon found hiding in a woodland sixteen kilometres from Simonds Parish, and were taken into custody. During the coroner’s inquest, Slavin Sr.’s youngest son, Jamie, formally testified that his father, brother, and Mr. Breen had left the house together on the evening of October 24, 1857. Later they had returned with a substantial amount of money and stolen property. This account was corroborated by additional witnesses. Indeed, the police had uncovered a stash of eighty sovereigns, prompting the jury to reach a verdict of willful murder.

Like Father?

Patrick Slavin Sr. was officially charged with the slayings of Effie McKenzie and her unnamed child. Caught red-handed, he and Breen entered guilty pleas at their November trial. Only Patrick Slavin Jr. pleaded not guilty. Throughout the proceedings, the jury heard testimony from each of the three men. Breen admitted to masterminding the crime, but placed the blame for the murders squarely on the shoulders of Patrick Slavin Sr.:

I went to the house and asked McKenzie to come down as my wife had come. Old Slavin said not to make a fire, and after it was made we put it out. McKenzie came down with a candle in his hand and old Slavin took the axe used for chopping wood out of my hand. His son was there. There were two or three in the house. Slavin was in one place and McKenzie in another. When McKenzie came in, Slavin came out and said “She is on hand” (this was referring to my wife’s coming). He had the axe in his hand and hit McKenzie on the breast. He said “Dead dogs tell no lies.” He hit him on the breast with the back of the axe. McKenzie groaned but did not speak. We put him into the cellar and old Slavin afterwards brought him up when we went to the upper house. Slavin asked me if I knew the house; he told me to go in and watch the door till he got a view of her. He then went in and Mrs. McKenzie was sitting at the fire with a child in her arms. She asked if she was coming (meaning my wife). Slavin then struck her with the axe on her head and she fell over the edge of the stone; he then struck her three blows on the body. He then struck the children who were standing round their mother crying, he killed the whole of them; the children cried, but Mrs. McKenzie did not. Prisoner [Slavin Jr.] and me took no direct part in the murder; we were standing in the porch at the time.
[31]

Though he took full responsibility for the slayings, Patrick Slavin Sr.’s account of the events cast Breen in a slightly darker light:

We went up to the house, Breen and I. I was first. Breen showed me the way. I did not take the axe. There was one at the door, Breen gave it to me. When I went in I saw Mrs. McKenzie sitting by the fire and the four children beside her. I struck her on the head 10 or 15 times. I killed them all. They did not cry much. We searched the house and found over 100 pounds of money. It was myself that ransacked the chest, the money was in gold. It was in a yellow bag, like the one in Court. There was a purse also and portmanteau. The boy was knocking about keeping watch. We had something to eat. We thought it best to set fire to the houses. Breen and I both did it.

In an “extraordinary” turn of events, both the prosecution and defence called upon Patrick Slavin Sr. to testify on their behalf. The Crown sought to establish that even though Slavin Jr. had not wielded the axe, he had entered the home to collect loot and was therefore, under English criminal law, as guilty as his father. Simultaneously, the defence attempted to use Slavin Sr.’s account as evidence of his son’s diminished mental capacity and subsequent lack of culpability:

I have three boys: Pat Slavin, 15 to 16, Johnnie Slavin, 10 to 11, and Jamie Slavin, 6 to 7. Pat knows right from wrong; I have sometimes been too severe to him. He did not know when we left what we were going to do; if he had refused to go, I would have made him. He is a tender hearted boy and has not looked the same since. It was I that killed them all. I am aware that the sentence of death will be passed on me. I have told the truth.…

Slavin Jr.’s supposed lack of agency was buttressed by the testimony of several witnesses who referred to him as “simple,” and a neighbour who admitted that though the younger Slavin lacked common sense, he was far from a “bad boy.”

Despite their efforts, prosecutor Charles Fisher wasn’t buying it. Not only did he effectively dispute the implications that Patrick Slavin Jr. was mentally impaired, he even labelled the teen as having “a most diabolical nature, and not fit to let loose on this country.”
[32]
As the trial neared its ending after three days, an emotional Judge Robert Parker dismissed the coercion defence, and informed the jury that they were to concentrate on Slavin Jr.’s ability to discern right from wrong. In the meantime, he sentenced Patrick Slavin Sr. and Hugh Breen to hang on December 11, 1857. Both men accepted his decision with stony faces.

Eventually, the jury concluded that Patrick Slavin Jr. was guilty, and he too was condemned to the gallows. Judge Parker penned an elaborate justification for his decision, qualifying it with a recommendation that the executive government reduce the younger Slavin’s sentence of capital punishment to a term of incarceration in a provincial penitentiary. If they didn’t, the teenager would be dangling at the end of a rope by March 4 of the following year.

Slip Slidin’ Away

Meanwhile, the elder Slavin and Breen’s date with death was fast approaching. On a Sunday evening five days before the scheduled execution, a Mrs. Doherty visited Hugh Breen in his cell at around 6:30 p.m. Twenty minutes after she departed, a Miss Creighton came to see him, but was alarmed when he didn’t receive her. She summoned a priest, who arrived just before 7:00 p.m. to find Breen kneeling in his cell “suspended by an old yellow silk handkerchief from a small piece of wood, one end of which rested on a shelf and the other on a cleet [
sic
]. A bit of wood, which had a hole bored in it and fitting on the stump of an old nail, assisted in the support of the cross stick.”
[33]
As there was no point in the room high enough from which to hang himself, Breen had stood on the tips of his toes, leaning the full weight of his body against the ligature until he slowly strangled to death. He was taken down and subsequently interred in the Almshouse Burying Ground.

Evidently in less of a hurry to be cast into hell, Patrick Slavin Sr. kept his December 11 appointment with the hangman. Riflemen from the British garrison were deployed to maintain order, as a crowd of five thousand onlookers gathered around the platform outside the county jail. At 10:10 a.m., Slavin ascended onto the gallows with his priest Reverend Sweeny, High Sheriff Charles Johnston, and a Constable Pidgeon. Sheriff Johnston secured the noose around the prisoner’s throat, and the constable pulled the mask over his visage. Then, joining Reverend Sweeny in prayer, Slavin stepped onto the trap. Sheriff Johnston severed the support, and Slavin plunged through the gallows. In less than a second, the rope went taut, snapping his neck. With that, the Irishman who had murdered the McKenzies in cold blood became the second conspirator to pay for his crimes. Interestingly, just weeks later, Slavin’s wife made news by wedding a man who had been acquitted of rape that same year.

Fortunately for Patrick Slavin Jr., on the recommendation of Judge Parker, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in a Courtenay Bay penitentiary. After fourteen years of incarceration, he managed a daring escape, crossing the border into Maine. As there was no extradition treaty with the United States at the time, Slavin lived the rest of his life in freedom, albeit constantly looking over his shoulder.