Jim Coffin’s mother did not buy newspapers and maintained the fixed radio station in the country music channel.
He would keep his son away from little black and white television and the runoff of the house using the back door.
During the first 11 years of Jim’s life, he had no idea that journalists would stop on his grass, hoping to ask his father who was convicted of murder in a high profile case and subsequently executed in 1956.
He knew that his father was dead, but they told him that he had died in a car accident. It was only on a trip back to Gaspé, that. When that version of the events was shattered.
“Some of the children were mocking me that my dad died and hung,” said Jim, 77, who now lives in Sechelt, BC
“I just lost it … That’s when my mother told me what had really happened. He said I couldn’t stay away from that.”
On February 10, 1956, in Burgundy prison in Montreal, Wilbert Coffin was hanged by the murder of Richard E. Lindsay, 17.
Despite his conviction, he went to his grave swearing that he had nothing to do with the murder of the young American tourist.
The case captured public attention as a true mystery of crime, stimulating theories and inspiring the publication of books, podcasts and movies, several that suggest an unfair conviction.
Almost 70 years later, the fight to clear Coffin continues as a new spontaneous abortion of the Justice Review Commission gives hope to his family.
The family had faith in the system
Three years before Coffin’s execution, three Americans, a man, his son and a friend, disappeared in the forest while on a hunting trip in Gaspé.
His remains, devastated by animals, would not be found for weeks.
Police turned to Coffin, who helped in the search in 1953. He became the last person known to see living men, and then the only suspect
Coffin admitted to having met men and helped them when their truck had mechanical problems before their disappearance. He also admitted to being in possession of some stolen articles from the victims.
A cat of all the trades and a search engine that knew the forest spent as the back of his hand, Coffin became an “ideal suspect,” says Kathryn Campbell, a criminal defense lawyer and professor of Criminology at the University of Ottawa.
She says that former Quebec Prime Minister Maurice Dupplessis probably felt that triple homicide would have a negative effect on tourism of US hunting associations.
“I needed to solve this homicide quickly,” said Campbell. She does not represent the family, but has investigated the case and has produced a podcast about it.
“It seemed an inevitable conclusion from the beginning that was going to be convicted and that it was going to be hanged and would be a message for Americans.”
She states that the government was pressing the police for a resolution and Coffin was an obvious and “vulnerable” suspect.
The “distinctive stamps” of a spontaneous abortion of justice were evident, she says: vision of police tunnel, judicial misconduct and ineffective assistance of a lawyer.
“His family had faith in the system,” said Campbell. “They thought: ‘Well, he didn’t, so he won’t be convicted, right?'”
The jury condemned him unanimously for the murder of the youngest victim, condemning him to hang. Coffin was not responsible for the death of the other two Americans.
The attempt to appeal Coffin’s judgment was not successful.
In 1963, journalist and politician of Montreal, Jacques Hébertpublished a book – J’accuse Les Assassins of Coffin – Raising doubts about Coffin’s guilt and helping to launch the creation of a provincial commission to analyze his conviction.
The controversy was so great that in 1964, the Brossard commission met to investigate the case and listened to hundreds of witnesses. Finally he determined that he received a fair trial.
In 2007In the midst of the growing pressure of the family and the fans of Coffin, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion that requested a quick investigation into the case. Nothing came from the symbolic movement to a large extent.
The Federal Justice did not answer CBC’s questions regarding the result of the investigation. In a statement sent by email, he said out of respect for “individual privacy, we cannot provide any information about specific criminal convictions.”
Previously, the Minister of Justice would decide whether a case could be tried again or sent to an Appeals Court if he believed that a spontaneous abortion of justice probably occurred, says Campbell.
“That was that the government made decisions about the cases that had gone through the government. Therefore, there was a conflict of interest,” he said.
But a new bill approved in December 2024 seeks to remove the revision process for cases of the Minister of Justice and deliver it to an independent commission dedicated exclusively to spontaneous abortion of justice revisions.
Imposing a Full -time chief commissioner and others eight others full -time commissioners or part -time, says the federal government DRAFT C-40 will do the process easier, faster and more fair for potentially convicted.
In an email, the Justice Department confirmed that it may analyze posthumous cases such as Coffin, but refused to comment when the commission will be established or how it could choose cases.
“You never really overcome it,” says a 94 -year -old sister
Marie Coffin-Stewart tries to remember her older brother as a kind soul and a good cook with a sense of humor. But the way he died changed his legacy.
“You never really overcome it … This has been a horrendous nightmare my whole life,” said Coffin-Stewart, his voice that broke.
Requesting his hands, he said “he dreamed that he would end up as he did.”
At 94, Coffin-Stewart has never left in his conviction that his brother was not what the government painted him. She argues that he was a “scapegoat” and hopes that now, after all these years, the Canadians will begin to understand how this case was handled.
Coffin’s lawyer did not ask any witness and did not testify.
Coffin-Stewart says that his brother was transferred to the Quebec city prison before his execution in Montreal.
“To say that it was a shock is putting it gently. We couldn’t believe it,” said Coffin-Stewart.
The last time he saw it was in prison, through a glass sheet.
“I couldn’t hug him. I couldn’t hold it, touch it,” said Coffin-Stewart. “The next time I saw him, I was on the coffin.”
One of the 11 brothers, all of whom have died since then, says that the circumstances of his brother’s death pursue her.
“There is no way that those Americans may have killed and I think it’s time for something to be done and that the public should be aware,” said Coffin-Stewart.
The defenders say that a new federal review process could be the progress they are waiting for. Matthew Kupfer of the CBC explains.
The new non -profit legal commission hope the new commission
The family campaign to clear Coffin officially began when Innocence Canada connected with them about 15 years ago.
A non -profit Canadian organization, Innocence Canada advocates unjustly convicted and has helped exonerate 30 innocent people since 1993.
Director James Lockyer hopes that the organization can demonstrate that a spontaneous abortion of justice may have occurred, and provide another reminder about the dangers of the death penalty, which was abolished in Canada in 1976.
“The wind in our candles to advance in the case the best we can is the family members,” Lockyer said. “It’s just a case to come to this closed door where we could not enter.”
That closed door refers to documents of the Brossard Commission. Although it generated materials that were not previously available and interviewed people who did not testify at the trial, Lockyer says that much of the work was put under a prohibition.
“Heaven knows why this is. We are not talking about state secrets here,” Lockyer said.
“I have never met a closed door like this and you have to tell yourself: ‘Why is he first?’
“It makes me very suspicious.”
Recently, Lockyer says that the organization requested the help of a new Quebec city lawyer to review the French and English material that could help its case.
Unable to obtain material that Lockyer believes that it would allow them to challenge Coffin’s conviction, he says that the new Federal Commission, probably given the citation and investigation powers, can obtain access.
‘I don’t want to die to the son of a convict killer’
With doubt surrounding Coffin’s conviction, several theories have appeared over the years.
A 1986 Radio-Canada report suggested that several people may have seen a potentially taking a separate group of Americans. A man told Radio-Canadá that he thought that the enrollment seemed to be Pennsylvania. The court did not take this into account.
Another theory suggests that a Quebec man, Philippe Cabot, could be responsible for the triple homicide. In 2006, years after his death, his daughter Micheline Cabot told Radio-Canadá that his brother admitted that he was witnessing his father hit by one of the Americans with his car and shot the other two with a firearm.
Micheline’s brother, Jean-Gabriel, and his father, Phillippe Cabot, were dead at the time of this revelation, which is rumors and not receiving in court.
Jim Coffin says he wants to see his clear father in his life. He says that some police files on the case have been sealed for 99 years. The Quebec Ministry of Justice did not respond to the request for clarification of CBC on the duration or reason behind the restrictions.
“I’m going to live enough to make sure they see [the files] Open, “said Affin.” If I could walk towards those gallows, I can stay.
“I don’t want to die to the son of a convict murderer.”
