The harsh reality of Canada’s criminal justice system in earlier times was chronicled by the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on this date in 1934. The paper gave extensive coverage of the hanging that day of a 19-year-old boy, convicted of murder in a robbery, who had been a client of a Saskatchewan lawyer named John Diefenbaker.
“The trap of the scaffold was sprung by Arthur Ellis,” the story said. “Canada's official executioner, and Bohun was pronounced dead nine minutes later. The neck was fractured.”
You can read the newspaper story in full below.
Star-Phoenix: With Scriptural words ringing in his ears, "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near," Steve Bohun, the 19-year-old slayer, went to his death on the gallows at the provincial jail here this morning.
The calmness of the lad, who failed to show emotion, surprised even jail officials. The condemned youth did not leave any message, not even for his young sweetheart… and their infant son. The girl and baby were expected here to spend a short time with Bohun before morning but, for some unknown reason, they failed to come.
The boy slayer was hanged at 6 o'clock this morning for the murder of Peter Pommeruel, aged storekeeper and postmaster of Redberry, Sask. Robbery was the murder motive and Bohun obtained a sum of money, supposedly for the purpose of marrying the Barchuk girl, but the marriage never took place. Tracing the boy by means of a borrowed rifle, police found Bohun asleep in his sweetheart's home. Part of the stolen money was beneath the pillow.
Comforted in his last moments by Rev. William Bonney, his spiritual adviser mutation who put up a fight for commutation of the sentence along with defence counsel (John Diefenbaker), Bohun was buried two hours after the hanging after last rites conducted by Mr. Bonney. Hamilton's funeral home had charge.
The trap of the scaffold was sprung by Arthur Ellis. Canada's official executioner, and Bohun was pronounced dead nine minutes later. The neck was fractured.
A dramatic last-hour plea gained Bohun two weeks' respite. His counsel, John G. Diefenbaker, K.C., on February 22, the day before the original execution date, obtained from Mr. Justice Donald Maclean at Saskatoon a two weeks' stay of execution.
The jury which convicted Bohun had strongly recommended mercy, bearing in mind evidence of low mentality offered at the trial. His counsel claimed further mental tests should be made.
Representations were made to Ottawa for consideration of the case. An Ontario doctor made an examination and the governor-general-in-council ruled the law should take its course.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.