1953: Marguerite Pitre, the last woman hanged in Canada
January 9th, 2010 Headsman
Thirty-five minutes past midnight this date in 1953, the 13th and last woman executed in Canada, Marguerite Pitre, was hanged in Montreal’s Bourdeaux gaol.
Pitre was condemned an accomplice to Albert Guay in the latter’s 1949 airline bombing, which killed 23 people just to get rid of Mrs. Guay.
The “dark and buxom go-between in Guay’s affair”* with a teenage waitress had rented Guay a room to install the nymphet when the girl’s father got wise to the frolicking and kicked her out of the house.
Pitre actually testified against Albert Guay in his trial, describing how she bought dynamite at his instruction and delivered a “mystery parcel” to the air freight on the doomed plane.
In fact, she helped blow open the case at the outset by attempting suicide 10 days after the crime and blabbing in the hospital how Albert had made her do it. Pitre insisted, though, that her own involvement was unintentional, and that she thought the box held a statue even though it was her own brother who had fashioned the explosives into a time bomb.
But after Guay’s conviction, both Pitre and her brother were arrested and separately tried for the plot themselves — both of them to follow Guay to the gallows for the audacious crime.
* Chicago Tribune, Jan. 9, 1953.
On this day..
- 1836: Pierre François Lacenaire, Manfred of the gutter - 2020
- 1453: Stefano Porcari - 2019
- 1864: Luke Charles, ex-policeman - 2018
- 1824: John Thurtell, the Radlett murderer - 2017
- 1899: Bailer Decker, Theodore Roosevelt's first - 2016
- 1945: Karolina Juszczykowska, who couldn't say no - 2015
- 2013: Rizana Nafeek, Sri Lankan maid - 2014
- 1386: The Sow of Falaise, seeing justice done - 2013
- 1900: Louisa Josephine Jemima Masset - 2012
- 2010: Six drug traffickers in Isfahan - 2011
- Death Be Not Proud: Executed Today wins a Clio - 2010
- 1980: Islamic extremists for the Grand Mosque seizure - 2009
- 1923: Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,France,Hanged,History,Milestones,Murder,Women
Tags: 1950s, 1953, albert guay, bourdeaux gaol, january 9, love triangle, marguerite pitre, marguerite ruest-pitre, montreal
4 thoughts on “1953: Marguerite Pitre, the last woman hanged in Canada”