Edwin Alonzo Boyd

by Brian Vallee

  “Well we better look through all this again,” said Payne. They had already searched the luggage and other items several times, but Payne was going through it once more to irritate Dorreen. She spoke up when he picked up the box of Tampax.

  “Please don’t embarrass me,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Boyd,” said Payne, quickly dropping the box.

  She gave police Frank Lamb’s address on Ennerdale Road near Eglinton, and her belongings were delivered there. Frank and his wife Flo were buying the house and had agreed to rent the basement and one upstairs room to Dorreen for her and her children. Dorreen telephoned Frank Lamb later in the day.

  “Have those suitcases arrived yet?” she asked.

  “They’ve been here about ten minutes,” said Lamb.

  “Open the blue one,” ordered Dorreen.

  “For what?”

  “Just open it. Is Flo there?”

  “No, she’s out shopping.”

  “Well open it,” she repeated, “and take out the Tampax.”

  “What the hell do I want Tampax for?”

  “Just see if it’s all together. If you look careful, you’ll see one that’s open.”

  “I have to do this?” asked Lamb.

  “Yes. Yes. There’s money for rent in there.”

  Lamb worked one of the packages open. “Oh yes! It’s here, Dorreen.”

  “Thank God. I was worried the police had found it.”

  The Tampax held more than $6,000 in $100 bills, which Ed and Dorreen had tightly rolled and inserted in the tampon tubes.

  On April 2, 1952, Steve Suchan was returned to Toronto. Ed Boyd was surprised when he was assigned a neighbouring cell in No. 9 Hospital. Suchan wasn’t his favourite person, having brought down the police pressure that led to Boyd’s arrest. But he could also see that Suchan was very ill from his wounds and he felt sorry for him. By now, Suchan knew about Tong’s death and didn’t seem to care if he recovered or not. Boyd thought Suchan’s presence was a strange way of answering his prayers.

  The prison doctor came to the cells twice a day, and after the fifth day told Brand that Suchan was so sick he would have to be hospitalized. He was sent to Toronto General Hospital under round-the-clock armed guard.

  With Suchan gone, Boyd realized just how isolated and lonely he was, and despite his access to reading materials, he again fell into a depression. On April 10 his lawyer, F.J. McMahon, wrote to the sheriff, J.D. Conover, who was technically in charge of the jail:

  Due to previous circumstances which are well known, my client is being held under special security conditions in a cell sometimes known as ‘The Death Cell’. The Governor of the Jail has at all times been exceptionally considerate to this prisoner and cooperative to myself. He has done all possible to insure the comfort and well being of Boyd and has cooperated in every way in permitting me to interview my client under suitable conditions for the preparation of his defense.

  However the Crown has asked for and received remand after remand and indicated in court this morning these remands might well run into months before charges are proceeded with. From my interview with Boyd and from discussions with members of his family who have seen him, I am firmly convinced his present confinement in what well could be referred to as solitary confinement is preying upon his mind and creating a despondency which is neither desirable nor in the best interests of his defense.

  McMahon said that if the trial was carried over to the fall, arrangements should be made to treat Boyd as a remanded prisoner “in the sense that he is not held in solitary confinement.”

  Sheriff Conover wrote to Col. Basher on April 17, enclosing McMahon’s letter. The sheriff said he had talked it over with Brand, and although keeping Boyd confined by himself might not be in the best interest of his health, “in view of his past performance, it might be very risky to transfer him to a corridor with other prisoners. The Governor has arranged for Boyd to get an hour’s exercise in the yard each day when it is not being used by other prisoners, and as soon as Boyd’s associates are physically fit they will be moved in with him so that he will not lack company.” In his letter, Conover asked for Basher’s advice.

  Basher responded the next day: “I believe that it is in the interests of Boyd’s own protection that he remain precisely where he is, as there is a definite feeling against him throughout the Institution.… Therefore to place this man in a corridor with other inmates would be inviting a disturbance and probably injury to Boyd. Our limited staff would perhaps be unable to provide the protection which he would need.… we cannot afford to accede to his request, except perhaps allowing him some limited freedom within the confines of No. 9 Hospital.”

  Basher said later that the letter was largely designed to satisfy McMahon, because they planned to keep Boyd at the Don for an extended period, and if McMahon were aware of that he would have continued agitating. There were some negative feelings towards Boyd because his escape had caused a loss of some privileges and the removal of the much-liked Governor Sanderson, but for McMahon’s benefit, Basher probably overstated the depth of those feelings.

  The surveillance at Joe Jackson’s Jarvis Street address finally paid off for Payne and Craven, and on April 16 they arrested Jackson and his brother-in-law Allister Gibson, who was living at the same address. Both were charged with armed robbery for the March 4 hold-up.

  Through evidence gathered during the investigation of Joe Jackson, it became evident that his brother William R. Jackson might well be implicated in robberies prior to his arrest on December 18, 1951, in Montreal.

  Payne had a busy spring and summer meticulously investigating the Boyd Gang, including all the peripheral players. He conducted a series of identification line-ups at which scores of bank employees and other witnesses tried to pick out the gunmen from the many robberies.

  On May 2, 1952, Mary Mitchell and Ann Jackson jointly applied for a restaurant licence at 338 Queen Street West. The licence was granted, but six days later, Payne arrested Mitchell at her restaurant for aiding and abetting Edwin Alonzo Boyd. She was remanded to May 15 on $5,000 bail. Around the same time, Elizabeth and Joseph Lesso were also arrested for harbouring Boyd and Willie Jackson.

  On May 14, Willie Jackson was returned to the Don Jail from Kingston Penitentiary to face charges for two hold-ups: the Bank of Toronto at Boustead and Dundas on November 20, 1951, and the Leaside branch of the Royal Bank ten days later. Jackson was brought down from Kingston by Payne and Detective-Sergeant Charlie Cook.

  The next day, Ed and Norman Boyd’s request for bail was denied by Magistrate Tupper Bigelow,25 who said “the charges are so numerous and so serious that I don’t consider bail could possibly be granted.” In addition to eleven charges of armed robbery, Ed was facing charges of escaping the Don Jail, conspiracy to rob, and possession of an offensive weapon, as well as two charges of car theft. Norman was facing charges of aiding and abetting his brother’s escape, two charges of armed robbery, and a charge of conspiracy to rob.

  That afternoon, Steve Suchan and Lennie Jackson were officially remanded on first-degree murder charges in the death of Eddie Tong.

  Preliminary hearings for some of the gang began in June. Ed and Norman Boyd, Joe and Willie Jackson, and Allister Gibson were ordered held in jail and committed to trial in September. Mary Mitchell and the Lessos were released on bail. They too would go to trial in September.

  Edwin Alonzo Boyd couldn’t believe his eyes when Willie Jackson was brought to No. 9 Hospital and lodged next to him in the vacant cell next to the grille gate. The boisterous Willie would certainly break the monotony. And with another brain at work, who knew what possibilities lay ahead? Boyd was ecstatic – his prayers were being answered.

  28

  Keyed Up

  Boyd soon had Willie Jackson reading the Bible and trying self-hypnosis and visualization. They even had limited success trying to read each other’s minds. They decided to pray for deliverance from the Don Jail. “Nothing happened f
or a couple of weeks,” remembers Boyd, “and then Willie suggested we might be directing our prayers to the wrong place.”

  “Why would God want to help us escape from jail?” asked Willie. “We should be praying to Satan.”

  At first Boyd thought it was a silly idea, but eventually he decided it had some merit. “You can see how I was always open to suggestion in those days,” laughs Boyd. “So I thought, well, I might as well try it.” But how does one pray to the Devil? “The same way as you pray to anyone,” says Boyd. “You just pray – pray to get out.”

  While Willie and Ed were praying to the Devil, Lennie Jackson was engaged in a more down-to-earth plan over in No. 3 Hospital. The broken bones in his right hand were healing and some of the strength and feeling was returning to his left hand, although he let on to the prison doctor that he wasn’t doing too well. Except for the inmate sent in to help him from time to time, Jackson was usually alone in his cell with the wooden door closed. Sometimes there was a guard posted on the landing outside the door, but there wasn’t the manpower to keep Jackson under continual surveillance, and besides – the administration believed – it would be a while before he recovered from his wounds. Not much of an escape threat there.

  Jackson was a quick judge of people, and he liked what he saw when he met guard James Morrison, a thirty-year-old Scottish immigrant on the job just three or four months. Morrison was unmarried and lived with his father in a rooming house on Rose Avenue near Parliament and Wellesley. Jackson soon engaged him in conversation and discovered that Morrison was unhappy in Canada. By their third or fourth meeting they were like old friends. Morrison was from Glasgow, and Jackson had been there during the war when he was with the merchant navy. They talked about a couple of pubs and hotels they both had been to. Morrison became nostalgic.

  “I don’t like it over here,” he said. “I want to get enough money to get back to Glasgow. That’s where I belong.” Jackson knew that a guard at the Don Jail started at about $2,200 a year. After rent, food, and a few beers every week, there wasn’t a lot left for travel.

  “There are ways and means of getting money,” said Jackson.

  “And how is that?” asked Morrison.

  “There are people on the outside who pay for things.”

  “What things?”

  “Someone on the outside will be in contact,” said Jackson.

  A few days later, Morrison was approached by Jackson’s underworld mentor, Frank Watson. Watson gave the guard $20 and asked him to smuggle in a couple of chocolate bars for Jackson. Morrison agreed and made the delivery. Later he received $100 in twenties through the mail from Watson. The bills were counterfeit, said Watson, but “it’s good stuff … better than real dough.”

  “He told me it was ‘queer’ money,” Morrison said later. “I didn’t want to take a chance, so I burned it.”

  About two weeks later, Watson gave Morrison hacksaw blades to take to Jackson. Morrison delivered the blades along with a wrench Jackson needed to remove the screen over the window in his cell. Jackson had long studied the window and knew he would have to cut out one vertical bar and one cross-bar to create a large enough opening to pull himself through. His cell was on the second storey, and he would have to tear his sheets and blankets into strips to fashion a rope to lower himself to the boiler-room service yard below. Once in the yard, he would have to find a way to either climb the eighteen-foot wall, or force the padlock on the gate through which coal was delivered to the boilers. With proper planning, he could get outside help with the delivery gate.

  Jackson used the wrench to loosen and remove the square-headed screws holding the screen in place, and then began sawing the bars, first lubricating the blade with soap as Boyd and Willie Jackson had done in the November escape. He was still weak from his wounds, and the work was slow and painful, but the bars were soft and each day he could see progress. Probably, he never worked more than half an hour at a time before leaving the saw blades out of sight on the windowsill, camouflaging the cuts in the bars with a mixture of soap and dirt, and replacing the screen. His cell was often searched, but no tools were ever found. Because the screen was in place, the guards never gave the bars more than cursory look. By their logic, if the screen was in place the bars couldn’t be touched, especially by an inmate who needed help shaving, washing, and going to the toilet.

  It’s likely Jackson hid the wrench in his cast or splint, or perhaps Morrison took it in and out of the cell for him. Another guard twice saw Morrison arrive at work early, go up to Jackson’s cell, and speak to him through the slot in the door.

  By late July, Jackson had sawed through the top of the vertical bar and was almost through the two cuts on the crossbar, leaving just a fraction of an inch to hold the bar in place. It would take only minutes to finish those cuts and remove the bar. The only major work left was the cut to the bottom of the vertical bar. By July 30 he had started on that cut. He would be ready to make his break in a matter of days. Frank Watson would arrange for him to be picked up outside the jail, and Morrison had agreed to smuggle in a gun just before the escape.

  But on July 31, police picked up Frank Watson on suspicion of bank robbery, and in his pocket they found an envelope with the name James Morrison on it. Police ran a check on the name and found there was a James Morrison working as a guard at the Don Jail.

  On August 1, shortly after 7 a.m., Morrison was arrested as he started his shift at the Don. He was interrogated at the jail by the governor, Thomas Brand, and by Inspector John Nimmo of the Toronto police. Morrison was charged with aiding and abetting a prisoner to escape. He confessed to giving Jackson a screwdriver, although none was ever found. He didn’t mention the wrench and said he had given the saw blades to Ann Jackson. She denied it. Governor Brand had implemented strict visiting procedures for members of the Boyd Gang: they could meet only clergy or their lawyers in private; all visits from family or friends were one-to-one, with a guard in the room beside them and another posted at the door outside; and inmates were thoroughly searched after the visits. It would have been impossible for Ann Jackson to pass her husband the saw blades. The blades and the wrench had to come from Morrison.

  Morrison was arraigned and remanded in custody until August 8. Police spirited him to a cell “somewhere out of the city” for his own protection and because Brand didn’t want him in the Don, where he was familiar with security procedures. He would later be sentenced to two years in jail.

  With the arrest of Morrison, the guards were all over Lennie Jackson’s cell. Every crack in the wall and every split and joint in the wooden floor were checked with a high-strength magnet, but nothing was found. At that time they didn’t realize that Jackson had access to a wrench; they also missed the saw blades on the outer windowsill, once again concluding that the bars could not have been touched since the screen was in place. Brand had a night light installed in the cell, and ordered that two flat steel bars be secured horizontally across the window screen. He also had Jackson strip-searched, and had his clothing sent to his office, where Brand himself checked it. “We did not find a thing in No. 3 Hospital, or on Jackson’s person or clothing,” Brand would tell a Royal Commission later in the year.

  Brand did not stop at searching Jackson’s cell and person: he again sent the inmate’s artificial foot and his shoes for a fluoroscopic examination. The results were negative. Convinced that blades or tools must be buried in the exercise yard, Brand asked the army to lend him a mine detector, as well as two experienced operators to run it. With Brand supervising, two army technicians began scanning the yard at 10 p.m. on August 4. By first light the next day, they had found only a shoe horn, a tin cup, and a pair of pliers. In frustration, Brand decided his only option was to move Jackson out of No. 3 Hospital.

  Steve Suchan had been returned to his cell in No. 9 Hospital in June after two months at the Toronto General. Now three of the cells were occupied and only cell No. 4 – the one next to the wall beside Suchan – was still empty. But when
Governor Brand had Lennie Jackson moved in, all the cells were filled – and the Boyd Gang was back together.

  Brand believed that No. 9 Hospital was the most secure area in the prison, and thus the best possible location for the Boyd Gang while they awaited their trials, which were scheduled for mid-September. He knew that Suchan and Leonard Jackson were escape risks, since they were facing capital murder charges and would possibly be hanged. And Boyd and Willie Jackson had already escaped once and were facing long prison terms.

  No. 9 Hospital was considered almost escape-proof because each night the four inmates were locked into their individual cells. And even if they should somehow manage to get out of their cells, the corridor in front was secured by the locked grille gate and the window had a double set of bars. And beyond the corridor there was the antechamber with the oak door, which was manned by a guard on the landing when it was open.

  Besides all the physical barriers, there was the microphone in the ceiling, which picked up even the slightest sounds coming from the cells. On one of his visits to Brand’s office that summer, Basher was impressed as they listened to the sounds coming over the microphone from No. 9 Hospital. Except for the voices, the sounds were completely foreign to Basher, but Brand knew the source of each one.

  “Now what’s that sound?” Basher would ask.

  “Oh, that’s somebody drawing off a cup of water,” Brand would say. He had purposely installed the microphone and speaker while Boyd was present, describing it as “a psychological weapon.”

  Under ideal circumstances, there would have been guards posted at No. 9 Hospital between the oak door and the grille gate twenty-four hours a day. But Brand had the whole jail to worry about and simply didn’t have the manpower for continuous observation of the Boyd Gang. Also, the Boyd Gang had been reunited at the peak of the vacation season, when a number of guards were taking their summer holidays.