The story of one of the vilest murders in Canadian history.
One glorious autumn day in 1894, a drifter attacked thirteen-year-old Jessie Keith so violently that people thought Jack the Ripper must be loose in rural Ontario. To solve the crime, the government called in Detective John Wilson Murray, the true-life model for Detective William Murdoch of the popular TV series
Murdoch Mysteries. His prime clue was a black valise.
The Man with the Black Valise traces the killer’s trajectory through three counties, a route that today connects travellers to poignant reminders of nineteenth-century life. Chief among them stands the statue of the Roman Goddess of Flora, gesturing as though to cast roses onto Jessie’s grave.
Table of Content
PART ONE: Death in the Swampy Wood
1. Isabella Mc Leod’s Black Valise
2. Joseph Hall’s Well
3. A Change of Mood
4. The Swampy Wood
5. Suspicion Focuses on One Man
6. The Burial
7. A Star-Crossed Life
8. Manhunt
9. “I Expected It”
10. A Shower of Silver
11. The Legal Talent
12. The Celebrity Sleuth
13. The Interrogation
14. The Coroner’s Inquest
15. Confessions
16. On Trial for Murder
17. The Insanity Question
18. Ropes and Pulleys
19. Two Autopsies
20. The Healing
PART TWO: Chattelle’s Route Then and Now
21. The Goddess of Flowers and Springtime
22 Ailsa Craig: Teenage Hero
23 Lucan: Mass Murder of the Black Donnellys
24 St. Marys: Amédée Chattelle Goes Shopping
25 Fryfogel’s Tavern: Perth County’s First Settler
26 Baden: The Flax Kings
27 Stratford: The Prisoner’s Dock
28 Stratford: The Coroner’s Saddest Inquest
29 Stratford: Death by Fire
30 Stratford: The Rape and Murder of Mary Peake
31 Stratford: Death at Dorothy’s Delicatessen
32 Millbank: Kitchen Table Clairvoyant
33 Listowel: The Jessie Keith Memorial Tour
34 The End of the Line
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Image Credits
Index
About the author
John Goddard is an author, magazine writer, and former Toronto Star reporter. His books include Inside the Museums: Toronto’s Heritage Sites and Their Most Prized Objects and Rock and Roll Toronto, with pop critic Richard Crouse. John lives in Toronto.
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