Holdback, Ep. 1: "R. v. Todd (1901)"

You do not go to church to get evidence against this man. You go into the back lanes and gutters of this city to look for his tracks. You’ll hear defence counsel say the means used to trace his movements and find out the truth were vile. The methods and evidence were no more vile than the man against whom they were directed. If respectable citizens are ruthlessly murdered by thugs, are those thugs to be protected by the mire in which they wallow, or shall we stir up that mire to uncover the criminal? — R.A. Bonnar, chief Crown counsel, 8 February 1901

At 8:10 p.m. on the 17th day of October 1899, Tomlinson Carris, a cook from England, found young, moneyed, man-about-town Johnny Gordon lying on the sidewalk of Portage Avenue with a bullet hole in his forehead.

The pistol ball was later dug out of the dead man’s head by John Thompson, the undertaker. A clerk at the Hinkston Smith Arms Company identified it as a 38-calibre cartridge. It had left the barrel of a revolver at approximately 8 p.m. There was no revolver at the scene. People in the area reported hearing the gunshot but no one left their home to investigate. It was a cold night, near freezing; respectable citizens didn’t frequent these streets; there were 53 brothels in the area. Eleven just up the hill on Thomas Street, with between 10 and 20 inmates in each. Every house sold illicit liquor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Tomlison Carris worked at Ada Russell’s house, which was the biggest. He was the first on the scene and, two years later, after the undertaker’s opening testimony, the first to take the stand.

“I was cooking for Miss Ada, No. 1 Thomas Street, this was before Miss Glendenning took over. Before that, I worked a mountain rail line for a firm of Mormon contractors, but I never acquired their peculiar habits. I go to the English church most Sundays and I live alone. Prior to Miss Ada, I worked as a cook on a farm in southern Manitoba. I’m a carpenter by trade. Back in Yorkshire, I was a baker.

On the night in question, I cooked dinner for nine or ten people and I worked the bar and did some chores for Miss Ada. It was a quiet night, there were plenty of noisy drunks but no real troublemakers. I left the house at 15 or 13 to 8o’clock to go to the city to get my paper. I came through Calloway’s field to Portage Avenue, and I saw a man lying across the sidewalk just past Calloway’s fence and a little east of Kennedy’s gate. His head was to the southeast and his legs were to the northwest but doubled up under him. His vest was buttoned but his coat was thrown wide open. I did not see any articles of clothing or bundles lying around. There was no watch or watch chain on him and no revolver near him. If he had a watch, it had been swiped before I got there. I did not hear a revolver shot as I came along. I don’t carry a revolver and I’ve never owned one. I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies, but I had no idea this one was dead. Drunk, I thought. I had seen him many times before in that condition. I was wearing a black Christy stiff hat. The electric light pole was a little to the east. It would have taken me about 12 minutes to walk from Miss Ada’s to the place where I found him. I did not meet anyone. Freddy Smith’s hack passed me on my way towards where the body was lying, and as I stood next to the body two men came towards me on their way west. Then Freddy came back down the hill in his cab, I guess after dropping a fare at one of the houses. I know Freddy well, I saw a lot of him. Miss Ada told me that customers used the pay phone at the house at least 50 times a day to call horse cabs and taxis. There and back cost a buck. Freddy did the run to Miss Ada’s and to all the other houses dozens of times a night. Sometimes I helped load drunks into the hack. On this night I hailed him with both arms. I was standing near the body two or three minutes before he reached me. I had not touched the body prior to his arrival.

The two men I spoke of before then came along. They asked for our names. We said we were here first and asked for theirs. One of them was the accused, Todd. I didn’t recognize the other, but that’s him sitting over there. Both were wearing grey hats. Todd was drunk. He was carrying a bottle and could barely stand. He stumbled a bit and went down next to the body and put his hand under Gordon’s vest and said his heart was beating faintly. Shortly afterward, the other man bent down likewise and felt and said, ‘He’s deader than dirt!’ And then the two men walked away westward, and Smith and I went in his hack towards the city, and at Fort Street, we met Constable Ross and I gave him my name and then went to Christie's for my newspaper. We did not see anyone else around and we did not look for anyone.

After remaining in the town for two hours I returned to the western houses by way of Ellice Avenue, because it is the shortest route. The reason I did not take the shortest route to get there was on account of the mud. When I returned the mud would have been frozen. I did not speak of the murder while I was in the city because I did not know for sure the man was dead. It would be 11 o'clock before I returned home that night. I did not drink anything. I never touch liquor.”

Upon arriving at the scene Constable Ross checked the body for a pulse, and that was when Donald Todd showed up for the second or, the chief prosecutor would later argue, the third time.

“He was staggering from drink,” said Ross during his testimony. “He tried to light a match—to see the dead man’s face he said—but couldn’t muster it. There were other bystanders by then. I took down their names and asked if any of them knew the dead man and they all said no.”

At the undertakers, Ross shared his notes with his colleagues. One of them, a fellow flatfoot named Eli Stodgell, knew Donald Todd and Johnny Gordon well. He was their age and he grew up with them in St. James. So when Constable Ross told him Donald Todd said he didn’t know who the dead man was, Eli Stodgell knew he was lying.

That’s what started everything.