Ep 4 - The Unsolved Murder of Daniel Tessier
Show Notes
Hosts Lauryn and Nima uncover the perplexing case of Daniel Tessier, a seemingly forgotten story of murder, family, and unanswered questions. In the fading township of Dalton Mills, Ontario, the year 1946 saw tensions rise as illicit fur poachers clashed with regulated trappers, forcing Dan to make a fateful choice between his livelihood and his community. Beyond the surface of feuding bushmen lies a web of lethal family secrets, waiting to be unraveled. With the passage of time, the unsolved case sheds light on the enduring consequences of trauma and the mesmerizing pull of an unresolved mystery.
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Credits:
Research, writing, hosting, editing, and production: Lauryn Macdonald
Hosting: Nima Hodoudi
Music: Lindsay Macdonald
Rooted in Crime is an independent production.
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Episode Transcript
Nima: [00:00:00] Rooted in Crime contains coarse language and mature themes such as violence and sexuality, which some listeners may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.
Lauryn: Hey everyone! Before we get into today's show, I wanted to ask a quick favor of you. If you've been enjoying the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could rate and review the show on your favorite listening platform.
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Now on to the show.
Welcome to Rooted in Crime. I'm your host, Lauryn Macdonald.
And I'm Nima Hodoudi.
And this is the podcast that uncovers the hidden stories of historical true crime through the lens of genealogy. Together we're going [00:01:00] to look at historical criminal cases from around the world using a modern perspective to dig deep into the secrets of the past.
We've had some really incredible feedback from you listeners after our last episode, the Stanley Park Babes in the Woods murders. From Instagram DMs to comments left on the Shownotes pages, it's been amazing to hear how you liked the episode and even stories from your own family trees that are similar.
It's been so cool to me to see how many people can find ways to relate to these cases that we cover, even if they happened decades before we were born. Keep the comments coming, we really love getting to see them. Something I haven't talked about much yet on the podcast is how I find cases to cover on the show.
The way I do it is actually how I first got the idea to create my first podcast, Sepia Crimes, and still often how I begin researching cases. One day in 2020, I was looking at some historical newspapers while researching my own family tree. I was looking for something like a birth announcement or an obituary when a different article caught my eye.
There was a report about a man who had [00:02:00] slit his wife's throat, but she survived, and he was charged with attempted manslaughter. There wasn't much reported other than his name, which was enough for me to start looking into him on Ancestry. ca. There weren't any modern articles or other sources about the case, only what the historical records showed us.
That's what really spoke to me. There are so many true crime stories out there, these micro histories as I like to call them, that were so significant at the time and to those involved, but so quickly those stories fade into history. I feel very compelled to tell these stories, and there's a few different ways I'll go about finding them.
Sometimes I'll broadly google a time and place along with a certain crime, like Ontario Unsolved Murders 1940s.
Other times, I'll be more specific, like wondering what was reported on a specific date. So on June 13th of this year, I went on to newspapers. com, and I searched for the term murdered, and set the date as June 13th, but for any year. From there, I read a few different [00:03:00] articles, and one in particular from 1946 caught my eye, because it referenced a case where several of those arrested in connection to it were actually the victim's nephews.
I knew there would be more that the genealogical story could tell us, so I decided to start researching the unsolved murder of Daniel Tessier, a lumber mill worker and fur trapper from the remote northern community of Dalton Mills, Ontario. Other than one recent Toronto Sun article that briefly listed several murder cases from 1946, there was nothing outside of historical news articles that I could find on the case.
In June of 1946, Dan vanished from his trapping cabin in Dalton Mills, just 8 miles from his home. Before leaving for the cabin, he told his wife that if he didn't return home by a certain time, to send the police for him. When he didn't return, his wife asked his best friend to go look for him at the cabin.
His best friend went to the cabin where Dan was nowhere to be found, but his boat was floating [00:04:00] along the shore close by, covered in bloodstains and bullet holes. This case became the community's most infamous unsolved murder. But what happens to an unsolved case when the community itself becomes a forgotten relic of the past?
Let's talk about the unsolved murder of Daniel Tessier, one of the many stories that should not fade away with time.
Nima: Let's do it.
Lauryn: This week, we're returning to Ontario's Algoma region along Lake Superior to look at this case. Dalton Mills is about a three and a half hour drive or just over 300 kilometers north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, sitting further east inland from Lake Superior along Chickwamqua Lake. Dalton Mills is on Robinson Huron Treaty Territory, which is the traditional territory of the [00:05:00] Anishinaabeg.
The settler community began in 1921 when the Austin and Nicholson Lumber Company opened a new mill and a small town site with just six dwellings built for the mill employees and their families. The operation grew very quickly, allowing the town to boom, and by 1930, the small community was home to about 600 residents.
Daniel Tessier, known as Dan to family and friends, was among the residents who worked at the mill and called the town home. Dan was born around 1902 in Hull, Quebec, which is right next to Canada's capital city, Ottawa, Ontario. He was the youngest of eight surviving children, born to French Canadian parents, Emeril Tessier, who worked as a general labourer, and his wife, Philemon Laroque.
Emeril passed away in 1919, and by the 1921 census, Daniel was the last child living at home with his mother in Hull. Around 1926, Daniel moved from the Ottawa area to Dalton Mills to take up work in the lumber [00:06:00] industry at the Austin and Nicholson Lumber Company. In the early 20th century, lumber companies would often go to the Ottawa and Gatineau areas to recruit laborers, often attracting French Canadians into Ontario's remote northern interior.
Three of Daniel's four sisters actually married men who also worked at the Austin Nicholson Mill. I wasn't able to find out who went first and why, but it's safe to assume that they all moved with their husbands when they were looking for work. I'm going to speculate that it was possibly one of Daniel's older sisters who convinced him to take up work in Dalton Mills, since he was living with his older sister Blanche and her husband Joseph Bouchard, who also worked at the mill, and their eight children when the 1931 census was taken.
It doesn't appear that any of Daniel's brothers moved permanently to Dalton Mills, but in any case, he did have family in the area. Dan married Florence Saunders, a 17 year old indigenous girl, in June of 1942. Dan would have been somewhere between [00:07:00] 37 and 39 years old at the time of their marriage.
Nima: Oh, good.
Lauryn: Sources vary to his exact age.
Nima: Oh, so like about the same age as that girl's father, probably.
Lauryn: Uh, well, it's, it's funny, because, um, it seems that... Dan and her father were in the same, like, hunting and trapping circles, so I'm gonna speculate that maybe that's how Dan came to know each other. It seems that they were friends.
Nima: Perfect.
Lauryn: Uh, but yeah, her dad was only, like, a few years older than him.
Nima: And they got married when she was, she was 17.
Lauryn: She was 17 and he was somewhere between 37 and 39, years older than her, give or take. Amazing. Together, they had two sons, Arthur Henry, who was born around 1943, and Edward, who was born around 1944.
Although the town's lumber mill had strong outputs, the Dalton Mills community never grew that large. There was a large fire at the mill in 1939, which temporarily shut down operations, however they were able to rebuild and reopen at a reduced capacity, and the town's [00:08:00] population slowly began to get smaller as work became stagnant.
Coincidentally, Dan worked as a firefighter at the mill during the peak summer months of the year. In addition to being a firefighter, Dan was also a licensed fur trapper and relied on trapping both for income and food during the winter months, which was his off season from work. Fur trapping is the trapping of certain game animals primarily for their furs rather than their meat.
So animals like mink, fox, and beaver are popular in fur trapping, especially in Ontario. Fur trapping had been the backbone of the Canadian economy well before Canada was Canada. The French first began to exploit furs in North America in the 16th century, and companies like the English Hudson's Bay Company were key agents in colonizing present day Canada, as they established trade posts for furs and other goods throughout the interior.
As the fur industry exploded in the coming centuries, so too did the over trapping of many animals which devastated game populations across the country. The demand for fur [00:09:00] continued into the early and mid 20th century, and fur trapping had to become heavily regulated in order to ensure animal populations recovered.
As regulations came in, trappers operated in one of two ways, as legal licensed trappers or illegal poachers. By the 1930s and 40s, when Dan was trapping in the Dalton Mills area, he held a license with the Province of Ontario to trap within his designated township. He was obligated to report his trapping details, like total animals trapped and records of the sales of their furs, all of which was reported to the Department of Game and Fisheries.
Dan understood the delicacy of the ecosystem around him, and was a respected trapper in his community. Of course, there were those in the Dalton community who opted to poach rather than legally trap and continue to deplete the legal fur supply and market. By the winter of 1945 1946, game populations had fallen substantially.
Dan used to trap anywhere from 10 to 15 mink over the winters, but that [00:10:00] season he was only able to trap two.
Nima: Wow.
Lauryn: Yeah, so a really big drop.
Nima: Big drop.
Lauryn: By the time the beaver season started that December, they'd already been trapped out, so Dan wasn't able to trap any whatsoever.
Nima: Wow.
Lauryn: In addition to illegal trapping, poachers and others in the illegal fur trade would often steal furs from licensed trappers.
Dan had been a victim to these fur thieves, having had his trapping cabin broken into about four or five times over that winter where stored furs were stolen. Fatal. By the spring of 1946, Dan had had enough with poaching activities along the trap line, and he went to the Department of Game and Fisheries with a list of those involved in the area's illegal fur trade.
Dan's information ended up leading to the arrest of 15 individuals from April to June of 1946.
Nima: Oh, wow.
Lauryn: Which spurred rumors and discussion throughout the community. Uh oh. Three of the men that he named on this list were Emile, Aurelle and Maurice Bouchard. Do you remember the last name Bouchard? Oh. Those were his [00:11:00] nephews.
Nima: Oh.
Lauryn: His sister Blanche's sons.
Nima: Right, right.
Lauryn: And these were the same nephews that he lived with in 1931.
Nima: Oh, okay.
Lauryn: He was very close with this family, it seemed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was living with them. Right. Emile, who was age 24 at the time, was an army deserter, having been on the run from the Canadian army for about two years by the beginning of June 1946.
So keep in mind, World War II wrapped up about a year ago. Right. Um, so he would have enlisted while World War II was still going on and he deserted while actively serving. Yeah. Having grown up in the bush of the Dalton Mills area, Emile was an extremely experienced bushman and was able to evade the police out in the remote backcountry.
Emile was charged with breaking and entering into Dan's cabin. Now both the Army and the Ontario Provincial Police, the OPP, were looking for the deserter. Aurel, who was 23, was charged with carrying a gun unlawfully in a nearby game preserve and illegally possessing muskrat pelts. Maurice, who was 18, was charged with [00:12:00] stealing a boat from Alfred Bougie, Dan's trapping partner, whose cabin was right next door to Dan's.
Dan was set to testify in the cases against Emile and Maurice on Friday, June 7th. He was actually set to be the star crown witness in the majority of the cases he brought to game officials, due to the nature of his information. Dan started receiving threats around town as the arrests began, and in one incident in late May of 1946, Dan got into a very heated exchange with another man on the town's train platform.
It was overheard by a woman who lived in town, but she couldn't understand the argument because it was in French. In other cases, we've seen how in the past people often like to mind their own business and not necessarily get involved in reporting criminal activities. Yeah. Especially to the extent which Dan did to expose his poaching ring.
Nima: Yeah, you gotta be careful.
Lauryn: Yeah, I mean, we all know the old adage. Snitches get stitches, yeah. 100%,
Nima: 100%.
Lauryn: However, with the depletion of game and fish populations, those with influence in hunting, trapping, and fishing in [00:13:00] Ontario spoke out against poaching activities and strongly encouraged licensees to report illegal activities to game wardens.
Dan ultimately chose to protect his trap line and his livelihood, even if it meant turning in those close to him in his community. Community members were shocked when the Bouchard brothers were named in connection to Dan's expose. One Dalton Mills resident told a North Bay Nugget reporter that the Bouchard boys would have gone to bed hungry many nights growing up if it wasn't for Dan, so it sounded like he helped provide for his sister's family when the children were younger.
Now, just a speculative side note, maybe that's actually why Dan came out to Dalton Mills. You know, maybe Blanche's family or his other sister's families were struggling and they would have benefited from having somebody help contribute to the household while they still had all these young children. I mean, the Mills wages weren't that great and it wasn't uncommon for large families to help support each other by sharing food, clothes, childcare, and pretty much any other resources.
Nima: Yeah, that makes sense.
Lauryn: Now, obviously, [00:14:00] you haven't been in this particular situation, but what do you think you would have done in Dan's shoes, knowing his nephews were involved in the poaching ring?
Nima: Oh, I mean, that is tough. But I guess it's maybe just his way of, like, hey, this is how I'm gonna teach you a lesson.
Um, but poaching is a big deal, and it is now. I don't know if it was as big of a deal back then.
Lauryn: Well, the fur industry was huge at the time. So there was a very delicate balance. That's the whole reason why all this legislation came in to regulate hunting, fishing, and trapping because game populations were falling So much but you needed that supply not just for food But because there was this huge industry that was relying on it the fur industry.
Yeah, so sorry to go back to your point
Nima: Yeah, I mean the other thing is I would imagine that if they were close that he's had the conversation with them, right? So if he's already had the conversation it feels like they're not figuring it out Then this is his way of like hey, you know what? This is my livelihood This is how i'm going to teach you guys a lesson and maybe you won't do this next time Right, so [00:15:00] I don't know was there even was there like a monetary reward at all for them reporting or
Nothing that I saw but there were 15 arrests, right?
Lauryn: So it was a pretty big poaching ring and there were in quite a few articles different, uh, police officers from local police up north and then also, uh, some police came up from the Toronto area to help investigate once things got a little bit further. And I remember seeing some reports that one officer said the poaching ring was much bigger than they initially thought when they first started investigating it, and they wouldn't have been able to uncover what they uncovered if it wasn't for Dan's information.
Nima: Right. Okay.
Lauryn: And he was set to testify in several of these cases, so they really did rely on What he knew to be able to serve justice with this.
Nima: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, in my shoes, I I don't know what I would do if I'm honest. Probably not, but.
Lauryn: You wouldn't turn them in?
Nima: Probably not, but I don't know.
Lauryn: When your livelihood is on the line, you've got two young boys and a wife at home.
Nima: I mean, if I'm going to testify [00:16:00] against those guys, then I might as well testify against all, because then if I'm withholding information, right?
But again, like, I'm not in that position, so I don't know for sure.
Lauryn: It's tough to say. In any case, tensions reached a peak in early June of 1946, resulting in a series of events that would scar the community for the rest of its history. We'll get into what happens next after a quick break.
Nima: Sounds good.
And we're back.
Lauryn: We are back. Dan's first court date to testify in the poaching cases was scheduled for Friday, June 7th, 1946. On Tuesday, June 4th, Dan had to head out to his trapping cabin about 8 miles southeast of Dalton Mills along Shikwamkwa River. There were two different reasons reported as to why he went to his cabin that day, which wasn't typical for Dan because it wasn't trapping season.
The first one reported was that [00:17:00] he needed to go get a broken lock from his cabin, which was being used as evidence in the breaking and entering case against Emile. The second was that local police had told Dan that his cabin had been broken into again, and he was going to check out to see if there was any damage, etc.
I think the first reason was actually correct from what I read, it seems like the second reason was actually just a mix up in information reported. Okay. Like I said, it wasn't trapping season, and Dan was working the evening shift at the mill that day, beginning at 3pm. He left for the cabin around 9: 30am, telling Florence as he left that if he didn't return before work to call the police, since something will have happened to me.
Nima: Yeah, that's really interesting that he says that beforehand.
Lauryn: Yeah, he definitely is feeling that there are eyes on him throughout the community. I mean, he's already had run ins that we've seen, you know, just on the train station, at the train station the other day.
And It was reported [00:18:00] by Florence that there were some other incidents where he had spats with other people in town and he was always kind of looking over his shoulder pretty much anytime he went out and he, you know, wasn't at the mill with his co workers. Right. This eerie message to his wife was reported in two ways, with Dan either saying if he wasn't back in three hours to call the police or if he wasn't back by 2 pm in order to get ready for his shift, then call the police. Okay. So, even though it wasn't too far away to get to the cabin, only about 8 miles or so, Dan's boat only had a 3 horsepower motor, so it took about 90 minutes each way to get there. So I think the 3 hour warning was more likely what was actually said, especially if he was only going to get that broken lock.
He probably knew exactly where it was, just needed to quickly get out, grab the lock, get back in his boat. Exactly. His best friend and trapping partner, Alfred, saw Dan loading his... 303 rifle into the boat before heading to the cabin, giving him a wave as they [00:19:00] saw each other. Alfred was the last person to see Dan Tessier alive during the morning of June 4th, 1946.
As he seemed to prophesize, Dan did not return home to get ready for work later that day. Instead of calling the police, Florence asked Alfred to go to the cabin to look for Dan. I wasn't able to find any reason reported as to why the police weren't called immediately. It was also unclear when she asked Alfred to look for him, since he didn't head out to look for Dan until Wednesday morning.
Alfred did state to a reporter that he was working on Tuesday, so maybe Florence wasn't able to speak with him until later that day or even on Wednesday. Yeah. In any case, the timeline's a little bit blurry here, and the first 24 hours of Dan's disappearance are a bit uncertain.
Nima: Never a good start.
Lauryn: Wednesday morning, Alfred and Joe Descoteaux, the lumber mill's heavy river boat chief operator, went to search for the missing trapper. When they reached Dan's cabin, they found his small metal boat about 250 yards away from his cabin, [00:20:00] covered in bloodstains and bullet holes. Dan was nowhere to be found.
Alfred just knew that his best friend was dead as soon as he saw the boat. He and Joe called the OPP upon the discovery of the boat on Wednesday, June 5th, and the police search began. Alfred's description of the boat really stood out to me. He told a Nugget reporter that when they found the boat, the tank was full of gasoline and primed to be started.
There were some of Dan's belongings in it, and the seat was covered in blood. So from the way that the bloodstains and bullet holes looked, Alfred guessed that Dan was sitting down getting ready to start his boat when he was ambushed from behind. Yeah. The wind had kept the boat along the shore of the river.
Alfred and Joe took the engine off of the boat, stored it in the woodshed, then dragged the boat over to Alfred's cabin nearby to keep it secure for the police. Local police started their investigation on Wednesday, searching the area for Dan and his rifle by dragging the bottom of the river, but the search stayed small for the first couple of days.[00:21:00]
On Friday, June 7th, when Dan failed to appear in court to testify for the Crown, the search widened, and Inspector Franks from the Criminal Investigation Bureau, or CIB, a provincial investigative body in Toronto, was called to lead the investigation for the missing man. Apparently, a lack of direct evidence that Dan had been harmed slowed the investigation, and it was not showing up to testify in court that seemed to signal the urgence of his disappearance.
Nima: Interesting.
Lauryn: So, the disappearance wasn't reported in the area's major papers, the Sault Ste. Marie Star and the North Bay Nugget, until June 8th, when the CIB was involved in the investigation. So, let's just recap the investigation so far. Okay. No one looked for Dan until nearly 24 hours after he was last seen.
Right. His best friend and a colleague moved Dan's boat, so the crime scene evidence has already been tampered with. Yep. Local police do some searching in the area for Dan, [00:22:00] but it isn't until four days into his disappearance that major media get involved and the investigation really ticks up. So what are your thoughts on this?
Nima: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that they didn't think they had a crime scene, but I guess because it's a boat. Maybe they thought, and it's a hunter's boat, a hunter and trapper's boat, maybe they thought, oh, there could be blood on there, uh, for whatever reason.
Lauryn: Like if he had an animal that he'd killed on the boat?
Nima: Sure. Yeah.
Lauryn: Okay.
Nima: Yeah. Who knows, right? Even though I know you said it's not hunting or trapping season. Realistically though, considering what he said, considering what his friends saw, considering what they did at that time. I mean, I hate that they moved the boat. That's just me. It's just always tampering with evidence, right?
At this point. I think it seems pretty obvious that someone's killed him, and based on the people that don't like him, I mean, there's at least 15 of them, we know [00:23:00] that. Yeah. Even if they're his family, they... He got them in trouble, right? So that's all I can really think is okay. Who did it? Did it was it with his gun?
That's one thing. I'm wondering was it with his own gun? Was it an ambush like it was said? So I'm curious to see where
it goes.
Lauryn: Yeah, it's funny to me that it's a lack of direct evidence that he was harmed You know, there's that kind of benefit of the doubt of ooh, maybe something bad didn't happen. Yeah The bullet holes, well that, those could be anything, the blood could be anything when it seems highly suspicious that he and his rifle are missing.
Nima: Right.
Lauryn: But a bunch of his belongings are in the boat as if he was either just arriving or just about to leave. Yeah. But where is Dan?
Nima: Yeah, exactly. Where is Dan?
Lauryn: Like I said, it wasn't until four days into his disappearance that we really see the case being reported in major papers. And we start to get some really interesting details about Dan's disappearance and the cases with his nephews.
There's quite a few timelines here, so we'll go case by case at this point. Okay. [00:24:00] So let's start with Emile. He was the oldest of the nephews charged in connection to Dan's information. He wasn't actually in police custody at the time of the June 7th court hearing, since he was still on the run. In the week leading up to Dan's disappearance, word had spread around town that Emile was going to turn himself in because he wanted to marry his girlfriend, 21 year old Annette Martel.
So it seemed like, although it wasn't super clear in the papers, he was basically like camping out in the area. Um, they did say several times he was a super experienced bushman. He'd been on the run, hiding out in the bush for... About two years as an army deserter. So I'm not super sure if he was staying with any family or friends, probably a little bit, but it seems like he was out kind of just like living in the bush for a little bit.
Nima: Yeah. Got it.
Lauryn: Emile didn't appear in court on the Friday, and a police warrant was issued for his arrest, in addition to being wanted by the army on the deserter charges. An air search of the area was actually conducted on June 7th, [00:25:00] but this didn't give any clues as to Emile's location, although he had apparently been in the area on Tuesday, June 4th, and Wednesday, June 5th.
Nima: Hmm.
Lauryn: And keep in mind, Dan went missing on the 4th.
Nima: Right.
Lauryn: On the evening of Sunday, June 9th, Emile turned himself in to army authorities in Sudbury, then was taken to train by Chapleau, which is about an hour drive southeast of Dalton. And when he actually got into Chapleau, he would then be taken into provincial police custody.
Inspector Franks had told the Nugget that Emile would be questioned in relation to Dan Tessier's disappearance, and subsequently taken back into Sudbury to be held in the OPP jail there. Emile had apparently told the guard in charge of him on the train trip from Sudbury to Chapleau that he believed Dan had taken off on the CNR tracks, the Canadian National Railway, in order to skip town and give the impression that he had disappeared or met foul play.
How do you know that, Emile?
Nima: Yeah, that's weird.
Lauryn: Aurelle, the middle nephew involved, had appeared in court on Friday and was [00:26:00] jailed due to being unable to pay the fines against him for his two convictions, carrying the gun unlawfully and illegal possession of muskrat pelts. He was being held in jail in Sudbury at the time of Emile's surrender.
Maurice, the youngest nephew involved, had his case remanded until July 15th, and he was allowed out on a 100 bail, which he paid himself, which is the equivalent of about 1, 664 Canadian dollars today.
Nima: Okay, not so bad.
Lauryn: By Monday, June 10th, six days after Dan had disappeared, two of the Bouchard boys were in custody and one was out on bail.
Now you remember how I said there were 15 arrests that Dan's information led to, right? Yeah. Well, another four people, so this brings it up to 19, were arrested on the night of Friday, June 7th as a result of Dan's information. Three men, brothers Adelard and Raymond Desbiens, Broskis love to be in cahoots with each other in Dalton Mills, it seems.
Yeah. And their friend Armand Madore, they were all arrested on the westbound platform of the Dalton train station. [00:27:00] They were caught with over 150 beaver skins illegally in their possession, and a train porter was also arrested in connection to the case for helping store the furs ahead of time. The furs were worth about $8, 000, which today would be about $133, 000.
Nima: Not bad.
Lauryn: Yeah, pretty decent.
Nima: Good chunk of change.
Lauryn: The Desbiens brothers and Madore appeared in court on Tuesday, June 11th, and had their bail set at $3, 000 each, or just shy of $50, 000. Okay. For today's dollar. Their cases were also remanded until June 18th. So at this point, we have six men, including three of Dan's nephews, who have been named in connection to his disappearance and their own criminal cases in relation to the poaching ring.
I know we just covered a whole bunch of information there with all of those different cases. So before we get back to the search for Dan, Nima, did you have any questions or anything you wanted to hit on with those different timelines?
Nima: Um, I think one thing was the [00:28:00] arrests that happened for the last three that was after the After he went missing, correct?
Lauryn: Yeah, so that was friday and he went missing on the tuesday
Nima: Okay, so that's one thing I wanted to clear up for sure No, I think i'm kind of letting things stew in my head and letting that you know Letting those things fester and I don't want to speak too soon I want to listen and hear more stuff until I I have my own pre judgments right now But I don't want to get too far into it
Lauryn: Sounds good.
Well, following all of those arrests, police efforts honed in the search for Dan. So I'll let you know how it continued to play out after a quick break.
Nima: Sounds good. And we are back.
Lauryn: We are back. Dan's wife, Florence, reportedly couldn't eat or sleep for the first week that Dan was missing, and their two young sons were out of sorts, not understanding any of what was happening around them. Although she didn't speak much with reporters, [00:29:00] understandably with her grief, Florence did make a few comments which struck me.
She told the Nugget that, with respect to Dan's disappearance, furs have nothing to do with it. The trouble started over something that happened last spring. I won't say any more about it. Oh. So, I tried looking to see, you know, is there any sort of incident she's talking about or anything like that. Yeah.
And I couldn't find any newspaper reports about any incidents in Dalton Mills or the surrounding area in the spring of 1945 about Dan or any of the family members or any of the other poachers that were named.
Nima: So, it sounds personal.
Lauryn: It does.
Nima: Okay.
Lauryn: It sounds like something that would have happened behind closed doors.
Nima: Okay.
Lauryn: Perhaps that family is privy to, but
Nima: Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Which kind of leads into my Prejudice, but anyways, let's keep going
Lauryn: It's also worth noting that Dan's sister Blanche, the Bouchard brother's mother. She had passed away in 1942 So there were other events [00:30:00] prior in the family that could be contributing to tensions, right?
Again, we're only really getting the details directly regarding this story. So there's a lot of gaps with what could have happened leading up to what happened to Dan. Yeah, for sure. Florence's dad Tom had come to stay with his daughter and grandsons while aiding for the search for Dan. And from what the search had discovered, he believed that Dan had been murdered.
Nima: Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think so, too. Yeah, it seems Just from what
we've heard.
Lauryn: It seems like every person who's been interviewed has said, yeah, Dan's been killed for sure. Yeah. It seems like it was widely known by the community that people were out to get him. Yeah. On Sunday, June 9th, the search party of police and local Bushman volunteers discovered two spent .303 shell casings about 75 yards across from Dan's cabin.
So remember, he had a .303 rifle, and they are finding these .303 casings across from where he was shot. So it makes sense for the position of where he was shot if he was shot from behind. Right. It [00:31:00] was really difficult to kind of put together exactly what the crime scene would have looked like because they weren't, there weren't like maps or anything in the reporting and like the Google images of, of the area aren't great either.
Yeah. But it seemed like there was a bank further back. So somebody would have been standing on that bank about 75 yards out and shot Dan. One he was turned away from him. So their his back would have been to the shooter.
Nima: Oh, I see Okay,
Lauryn: and then the shells were found on that bank. So where they would have been standing interesting Okay, so although dan had a .303 rifle alfred did say in one news report that Basically, everybody in the area has a gun, from a .22 to a .303.
They're super common. It could have been anybody's gun, is what he said.
Nima: Right. Right.
Lauryn: It was also reported that after forensic examination of the boat, that there were two distinct bullet holes, which matched the size of the recovered shells. So it seems to be lining up with what we initially thought.
Nima: Yeah, makes sense.
Lauryn: This is what finally gave investigators the evidence of murder to begin investigating as a homicide investigation [00:32:00] rather than a missing persons case.
Nima: Well, how long was that then?
Lauryn: This is June 9th? June 9th.
Nima: So that would have been, what, five days?
Lauryn: Five days.
Nima: Okay. Oh, not horrible, but not great either.
Lauryn: No. We all know how important the first 48 are.
Nima: Yeah, exactly. That's like one of my favorite shows is the first 48 because it makes sense. It's the most important, right? Yeah, we're way past that.
Lauryn: Oh, yeah. Search operations picked up with searchers combing the banks on either side of the river near the cabin, but river dragging operations were hindered by high waters and rainfall.
By Wednesday, June 12th, the dragging operations had resumed and it was believed Dan's body would soon surface. It was reported by the Owens Sound Daily Sun Times that local bush lore said bodies would come up to the surface after nine days.
Nima: Oh.
Lauryn: I mean, it's, it's... The northern remote bush. It's not crazy for people to meet a treacherous end in the waters and come up after a few days.
So it makes sense [00:33:00] that people would know, like, after X amount of time, a body will come up.
Nima: Nine days, though. That's the number, I guess.
Lauryn: Well, at the same time, Inspector Franks from the CIB reportedly told the Nugget that based on the water temperature, the body would likely surface soon. And this is because of the way that the cold water changes the rate of decomposition of a body.
So with the release of gases... from the body in those temperatures, eight or nine days to surface would actually be expected if Dan's body was in the river.
Nima: Okay. So cool.
Lauryn: There actually was a little bit of knowledge to that Bush lore.
Nima: Very interesting.
Lauryn: Just as predicted on Thursday, June 13th, nine days after Daniel Tessier had gone missing from his trapping cabin, his body was discovered by his best friend, Alfred, and his father in law, Tom, about a half a mile downstream from Dan's cabin floating in the Jack Pine River at the junction where it empties into the Shikwamkwa River.
Nima: Brutal.
Lauryn: And there are some small rapids that are separating the lake from the river. So to me, it doesn't seem like [00:34:00] the body naturally floated that way. So the river empties into the lake. Right? Okay. There's rapids separating it. Yeah, yeah. And Dan's boat was in the lake and he would have only been getting in and out of the lake to get to his cabin.
Nima: Yeah, that makes sense.
Lauryn: So there's no reason for him to be on the river. And there's no way that his body would have naturally floated that way because the rapids go the opposite
way. Because it's the other way.
Nima: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I see what you're saying. So someone dumped him in the river. Is what you're saying.
Okay, I gotcha. Okay.
Lauryn: Well, I'll give you the description of how his body was found. It was actually reported in the Nugget, and this is a direct quote. It was in a standing, half crouched position, with the face turned slightly downwards, and less than half the head was showing above the water level. The corpse was found six or seven feet from the shore on the east side of the river, nearly half a mile downstream from his cabin.
Nima: Hmm. How? Okay.
Lauryn: So it sounds like his lower half of his body is still kind of heavy. I don't know if maybe he's got some heavy shoes or [00:35:00] something like that on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So his feet kind of stayed down. It's like his head that kind of came up. Right. And it's a river, right? So it's not super deep. So it makes sense that he'd kind of be like in a...
He would just pop up, He was found with two gunshot wounds, one to the head and one to the neck. Recovery of his body still didn't mean it was guaranteed to be a homicide investigation though. His body was taken immediately to Sudbury for a post mortem exam by a provincial pathologist to determine if the wounds were self inflicted.
Nima: How? How? How? Two? How? How?
Lauryn: Two. One in the head, one in the neck.
Nima: How? How?
Lauryn: Again, it's this old timey benefit of the doubt that investigators just don't want to give to these foul play scenarios.
Nima: That's just stupid. That's stupid. Two shots? How? And one in the head and one in the neck?
Lauryn: How do you shoot yourself in the head and the neck?
Nima: And then the neck? Come on. Okay, this is stupid. No, I'm sorry. Like, there comes a point where I'm like, this is dumb. This is dumb. This doesn't make any sense. Anyways, move on. [00:36:00]
Lauryn: Of course, the post mortem exam performed on June 14th confirmed what we already knew, and Dan's death was officially declared a homicide.
Nima: No fucking way.
Lauryn: The cause of death given on Dan's death certificate was GSW to head, semicolon, Destruction of all brain tissue.
Nima: Owie.
Lauryn: So he had his brains literally blown out.
Nima: Wow. That's, that's crazy.
Lauryn: If it's that, gruesome. Yeah. And I didn't get a great description of the shot through his neck, but I'm assuming it would have been cleaned through and through at some point.
Like, how do you survive getting shot through the neck? That I don't know. Yeah. But like, destruction of all brain tissue? How do you not find a body in such a state? I understand that he's... Decomposed for nine days at this point, so you're not going to see everything exactly as you would have when he was first [00:37:00] killed.
But if there's destruction of all brain tissue, how, how does that plus the neck wound equal maybe he did it himself?
Nima: That's what I mean. It's just so ridiculous. It is, a hundred percent.
Lauryn: It was also 14th that no inquest would be needed into Dan's death as there was sufficient evidence to prove the cause of death was murder.
Or sorry, not the cause of death, the manner of death was murder.
Nima: Yeah, good job guys. Give yourselves a pat on the back and go grab a donut. You earned it.
Lauryn: So, no inquest, we know it's murder, and consequently, one charge of murder would be given in relation to Dan's death. But at this point, there was no suspect in custody for Dan's murder, and no one had been named as a primary suspect.
Nima: I love that they're like, we're gonna charge someone with murder, but we don't know who that is. Like, thanks for the announcement, before the announcement, which I know is something that... Ontario likes to do.
Lauryn: [00:38:00] Ontario does like to do that. We saw a few different announcements for announcements in this case where they would say that information would be coming out and then you'd see in the paper delays come out and yeah, it was frustrating to put together all these timelines with these delays, but Nonetheless, this is the way The investigation is being conducted.
Nima: Here we are.
Lauryn: I feel like there's been quite a few downfalls in this investigation so far I mean the police investigation didn't really pick up until four days into Dan's disappearance like we talked about And it wasn't even officially considered a homicide case until the shells were recovered and we could confirm that The boat was shot with these suspicious shells and all of that.
Yep I understand that the police can't jump to conclusions without sufficient evidence, but I feel like from the condition of the boat, we had all of that.
Nima: I feel like we could have assumed those things.
Lauryn: I, yeah, I feel like when Alfred found the boat on I guess this would have been day two of Dan missing.
I feel like at that point the police should have said, Yeah, [00:39:00] this is murder. Let's really pick up this investigation and find this guy. But it wasn't until a few days later when he didn't show up in court. And because at that point, it's gone to a greater authority, right? Because now he's not showing up when he is supposed to testify in court.
Nima: Yeah, so there's a warrant out too.
Lauryn: Exactly. There were a few other significant things that happened on June 14th.
Emile and Aurelle appeared in court again for their existing charges and their cases were once again remanded until June 17th, the following Monday, and the Crown advised that they would ask for further remand until July 5th. Okay. So this wasn't stated, but I assume this is to allow more time to investigate Dan's murder and possibly lay charges against someone involved in the poaching cases.
Nima: Yeah, that makes sense.
Lauryn: And they're in custody. They're not able to pay their fines. Let's keep their butts exactly where they are. Yeah. I'm assuming that's what investigators are thinking. Another man, 32 year old Stanislaus Trombley of Dalton, also appeared in court on the charge of breaking and entering into Dan's cabin.
This was the first time his name appeared in any [00:40:00] newspaper articles, so I'm going to assume he was charged after the Bouchards. Emile and Aurelle now had a local lawyer, K. E. Mackey, hired by their father to defend them. When Emile's case was remanded, he asked the presiding judge, W. M. Cooper, "Is it only for this case?"
To which the judge replied, "This is the only charge against you now, son. Breaking and entering is all you are charged with now."
Nima: All you are charged with now. So they have him as a suspect, obviously, in the back of their minds. Probably.
Lauryn: Probably.
Nima: Yeah. Makes sense. I mean, if he broke and entered.
Lauryn: Definitely.
Nima: And then now he shows up dead. Hmm.
Lauryn: Hmm. There was also an army representative, Sergeant Frank Orum, who was present in court in relation to Emile's desertion. Magistrate Cooper asked Sergeant Franks if the army would be preferring any charges against Emile at this time, but Frank said that they would wait until civil authorities were done with him.
Nima: Oh, interesting.
Lauryn: So from these courtroom interactions, it seems like [00:41:00] there's a lot of suspicion from several people that Emile would be charged for Dan's murder, including Emile himself. I mean, why else would the army wait to charge someone with desertion unless they figure he's going to get hit with a murder charge and he's going to be in jail, and like, why would we waste our time and our resources in charging him if he's got a murder charge against him?
That takes precedent, right?
Nima: Yeah, that makes sense.
Lauryn: While these proceedings went on in Sudbury, Dan's body was transported to Chapleau for his funeral service. The reverend who performed the service was the same reverend who had married Dan and Florence just four years earlier. Florence's family and many friends from Dalton Mills and the surrounding communities attended Dan's funeral, but there was no mention of any of the Bouchards or any of Dan's other family members attending.
From my research, it seems like one of his sisters may have still lived in the area at the time of his death, but the other two had moved to Dalton previously had passed away by this time. Okay. So I'm not too sure exactly what the family situation was looking like. Right. So I'm not too sure [00:42:00] why those weren't mentioned in the newspaper article about his funeral.
Nima: Makes sense. Okay.
Lauryn: Dan's burial didn't put an end to the police investigation, and the Bouchard brothers, Tremblay, and the other poachers arrested at the train station had their cases remanded until June 24th, rather than July 5th, as originally anticipated. Court proceedings resumed on the 24th, and Arell was granted a 300 bail, which could begin on the 25th, provided there was no charge against him made in Dan's case before that time.
Emile was not granted bail. That evening, however, the Crown Attorney, E. D. Wilkins, asked that Aurelle's bail not be granted until June 26th, but no reason was given for this request. Tremblay was released on the 24th on a $300 bail as well, however, he was later picked up by police on the holding charge of vagrancy, so he was actually back in custody the following day and held until his trial.
On July 5th, 1946, the trials for the five men [00:43:00] implicated in the poaching ring scandal began. No one had yet been charged with Dan's murder. And don't forget, at this point, Maurice had paid the fines in his case, so there was no trial for him.
Oh, okay.
In the case of the smugglers caught at the train station, Raymond and Adelard Desbiens and Armand Madore, all three men pleaded not guilty to their charges.
They all claimed that the furs that they were caught with were actually taken onto the train by a fourth man who took off when the police arrived. So saying, we had no idea, he brought these on.
Nima: Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
Lauryn: And the porter that had been arrested, he had no idea either. He was... Honestly innocent, but apparently this fourth guy had given him the suitcases ahead of time.
Somebody obviously had given them the suitcases ahead of time, but he didn't know what the contents were. So he was completely innocent and not involved. One thing that I found interesting about this sub case, if you will, is that at one point a witness was testifying about who she saw carrying suitcases which contained the furs.
She pointed out Aurelle Bouchard, [00:44:00] saying she was certain he was the one carrying the largest suitcase. But the defense quickly poked holes in her testimony, since Aurelle was actually in police custody in Sudbury when the smugglers were caught. He was already in jail. The Crown tried to cover this by saying that a lot of men in Dalton look alike because they're interrelated.
Nima: I mean, that's probably fair.
Lauryn: It is. It honestly was quite a few, uh, French Canadian families from the Ottawa area that primarily worked there. So, wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of cousins and brothers and that sort of thing. Yes. The train smugglers cases were remanded further until July 17th, when the judge would give his decision.
They were ultimately found guilty and fined about $2, 500, or $41, 600 today. Or they could alternatively serve 1, 555 days in prison.
Nima: Oh wow.
Lauryn: Yeah, so $2, 500 bucks or over 1, 500 days in jail. Emile Bouchard and Stanislaus Tremblay both pleaded [00:45:00] guilty to the charge of illegally possessing 15 beaver pelts, which had been added to the B& E charges.
They were given $400 fines to pay or a 240 day jail term. Tremblay was able to pay his fines, but Emile couldn't, so he was taken to prison to serve his term.
Nima: Brutal.
Lauryn: Upon completion of his term, he would be handed over to the army to proceed with the desertion charges. The B& E charges against the Bouchards and Tremblay were actually dropped, with the judge stating that without Dan's testimony, the cases could not proceed.
Nima: Mmm.
Lauryn: So that just goes to show how central Dan was to these cases. When they say he was the crown witness, or when they say he was... The Crown's star witness. Yeah. He wasn't just the star witness. He was the star of the investigation. He was the case. Like his testimony, his information is what it was all hinged on.
Nima: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all, it used to all be about witness testimony back then too, right? So.
Lauryn: Yeah, because what else did you have if it wasn't my eyes that saw it? There's no [00:46:00] surveillance video. There's no GPS tracking, there's no cell phone records, none of that, right? So we've seen every indication in the press that it was believed one of these three men, mostly Emile, was involved in Dan's murder.
And I want to paint the picture here. The press heavily described Emile as An experienced bushman, someone who really knew backcountry survival, and at the same time, they would also make comments in their reporting that it was someone clearly experienced with the bush who killed Dan, heavily implying Emile was responsible.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yet at this point, those who've been arrested have only gotten slaps on the wrist or nothing at all for these poaching charges. What do you think of all that?
Nima: Yeah, I don't know. I guess this, they are slaps on the wrist. You're right for the poaching charges. I don't know what the charges were back then though, right?
To be fair, but I think they're probably not as worried about the poaching charges at this point now. [00:47:00] And they're probably trying to find ways to poke holes and find out who actually did this and obviously, I think we all know what the motive was, but who was the one who actually did it, right? So.
Lauryn: Yeah, and quite honestly, I'm a little bit surprised that there weren't certain investigative techniques that I feel like could have been used.
I don't know. at what point, you know, fingerprinting was at in 1946, but they've got these guys in custody. They have things like his boat and other belongings, which I mean could have been touched by the perpetrator. Yeah. I feel like there's certain things that they could have done to be able to maybe push the investigation on along a little bit more without needing either the body or the gun.
Nima: Yeah. I mean, it, it took them long enough to figure out that it was. So, I'm not surprised.
Lauryn: And then there was even that little bit of doubt when they did find his body with two bullet holes. Oh, well, maybe [00:48:00] he did this himself. Yeah, maybe. Even though the trajectory of the bullet holes that were in the boat and where it was found and everything like that seemed to match where they came from on the bank.
Nima: So I'm curious to see what direction they go from here.
Lauryn: Well at this point we've seen convictions and charges dropped in the poaching cases, but nothing in relation to Dan's case. I'll tell you what happens next after a quick break.
Nima: Sounds good.
And we're back.
Lauryn: We are back. After the convictions in July of 1946, after a month and a half of tension to bring the Bush killer to justice, Dan's case pretty much completely drops off the presses. The Desbiens brothers and Madore did try to appeal their convictions in September of 1946, but only Raymond's appeal was upheld and his $2, 500 fine was refunded to him.
Nima: Hmm.
Lauryn: Although it wasn't reported, it seemed like all three men had paid their [00:49:00] fines instead of going to prison. After this, though, nothing is reported in Dan's case, and I couldn't find anything else about the investigation, and no charges have ever been laid in the murder of Daniel Tessier.
Nima: Oh, brutal.
Lauryn: Like, completely drops off the face of the earth. Like, September 22nd, when they announced the conviction being, um, overturned for Raymond. That was literally the very last thing remotely related to this case reported. I couldn't find anything else.
Nima: Yikes.
Lauryn: Like I said, there was nothing further being reported about the poaching cases, so I'm going to consider the Desbiens brothers and Madore's involvement in Dan's story to be over.
So I guess this begs the question, who do you think killed Daniel Tessier?
Nima: Mmm,
I, I mean, everything from the beginning pointed towards, I think, Emile. That's who I thought it was from the start. Now, I think the thing that really [00:50:00] tipped me towards that was the fact that Florence said this had started at a certain time.
But you couldn't find anything as far as a case in that time, which made me think this was a family affair.
Lauryn: Yeah, or somebody very close in the community.
Nima: Yeah, or very, very close, right? So, it's definitely someone in the poaching case. Definitely.
Lauryn: But first have nothing to do with it. Those were her words, right?
Florence's words.
Nima: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean. I don't know. I don't know. I'm, I'm still, I, I'm team Emile on this one. I've
Lauryn: I completely agree. Yeah. I completely agree. From what I saw in interviews with Alfred and with Dan's father in law Tom, even with Florence, it really seemed like right away everybody knew, yep, he's been killed.
There were these people that were out to get him. Yeah. We're not gonna name names because, I mean, they were in the business of doing that, clearly. [00:51:00] Yeah. Dan was and that's what got him in trouble. So they probably didn't want to say too much and put themselves on the line.
Nima: Yeah, exactly.
Lauryn: But nonetheless, it's heavily implied all around by news reporters, by the judge, by Emile, by The army rep like all of these people.
Yeah, they Anticipate that something is coming, right? But we know there needs to be sufficient evidence in order to be able to justify that arrest and justify that charge against somebody especially for something like murder. Yeah, of course, and it's 1946. It's back in the day I mean, it still very much is like this today, but even more so back then of why would we put this young man's reputation on the line if he didn't do that, you know, maybe he's responsible for things like army desertion and illegally having these furs and breaking and entering, but that doesn't make him a killer per se.
Nima: Yeah, yeah.
Lauryn: I think that's total fucking bullshit.
Nima: Yeah, in this case
Lauryn: In this case. Yeah, yeah. Specifically in this case. I think there's [00:52:00] enough evidence to circumstantially say that Emile was the killer. Like I said, I don't know how they didn't go about like fingerprinting that sort of thing. Especially like the shells.
You know, the shells that were found, if he had loaded those into his rifle, his fingerprints would be on there. They have him in custody. I feel like they probably could have done all those things, you know?
Nima: It was pretty shitty police work, let's be honest here. So, from the sounds of it, but I, again, it's a small town.
They're very tight knit. Some people keep their mouths shut. Some don't. The ones that don't, End up like Dan, right? And so in those cases because they're so tight knit I feel like everyone's kind of in on it. Mm hmm in one way or another
Lauryn: Somebody knows something.
Nima: Somebody knows something.
Lauryn: Everyone knows a little tiny piece of the story.
Nima: So if we can sweep it under the rug, it's easier for everyone which it sounds like hey Look, we got them on some poaching charges and da da da da and [00:53:00] even though we think there's stuff coming Nothing comes out of it, which I think is so crazy Yeah. That nothing came out of it. Like, you know, that's some, I mean, if you just didn't have enough evidence, then that's fine.
But I feel like there was quite a bit of evidence there, so.
Lauryn: Yeah, and how exactly does one of Northern Ontario's most infamous murder cases just fade away with time? Yeah. You know, it was huge in the presses when it actually happened, but after those first couple of months, it just completely fell off the radar.
Nima: Yeah, crazy.
Lauryn: This is where some genealogical research and historical insight will help us to better understand how this could have happened. In 1949, just three years after Dan was murdered, another fire destroyed the lumber mill in Dalton Mills, but this time operations never resumed. Residents left to nearby towns in search of work, and by 1951, most services in town had shut down.
By 1960, Dalton Mills was basically a ghost town. [00:54:00] The Bouchard brothers all stayed in the area, but it didn't seem like they got themselves into much trouble after the poaching charges. You know, I wasn't really able to find anything of significance in newspapers about them. Mm hmm. I found a few voters lists that made it seem like Emile worked different labor jobs and moved around to a few different towns in the Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie areas, but I wasn't able to confirm with certainty that it was the Emile Bouchard that we know in this story. It's a pretty popular area for French Canadians to live in.
Nima: Bouchard is a very popular name.
Lauryn: It's a common last name, yeah.
Nima: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Lauryn: Emile didn't actually end up marrying his girlfriend, Annette, and never went on to get married or have children whatsoever.
He passed away in 1980 at the age of 59 in nearby Wawa, Ontario. Aurelle, though, did get married and went on to have eight children, living most of his life in Sault Ste. Marie. He passed away in 1976 at the age of 53. Maurice also lived in Wawa and never ended up marrying, just like his brother Emile, and he passed away in [00:55:00] 2018 at the age of 89.
Nima: Oh, wow.
Lauryn: He did really well. Yeah, it seemed like from the Bouchard siblings, they either didn't get very far or they were very old. It was like one extreme or the other. Overall, it seemed that the Bouchard brothers went on to live relatively normal lives, but we really don't get to understand the deeper stories from the records that are available.
Available records do paint an interesting and unfortunate picture for Dan's wife Florence and their two sons, Arthur and Edward. I will be a bit speculative with some of this information, so just fair warning going ahead. Yeah, that makes sense for sure. It's difficult to say exactly what happened to Florence and the boys in the years immediately after Dan's death.
Since Florence was Indigenous, she wasn't legally able to vote until 1960. And even then, many barriers did and still do exist for Indigenous people being able to vote. I didn't find her on any voters lists, nor could I find any newspaper articles that mentioned her. Florence didn't remarry, but did have a long term partner, Benoit Giroux, who [00:56:00] she had four children with.
I did find her obituary, but I'll come back to that in a little bit.
Nima: Okay.
Lauryn: Arthur's story is actually quite sad. He ended up going by his middle name Henry as he got older, so I'll start calling him Henry from here on out. In 1965, Henry married Viola Deschamps. One thing about his marriage entry in Catholic Church records is that his as June 15th, 1946, the day after Dan was buried.
And not only that, but it looks like this date was written in over top of another date, as if it was being corrected. And we know this birthday isn't his real birthday, because he was three at the time of Dan's murder. So he would have been born in either late 1942 or some point in 1943. Right. So definitely strange that he's putting his birthday on, it wasn't a marriage license, it was just like the entry in like the church register, basically.
Sure. And it was very clearly written in over top of something else, June [00:57:00] 15th, 1946, day after his dad's in the ground. Huh. That really stood out to me. Henry and Viola went on to have one son together, and they unfortunately didn't have the chance to continue their family since their relationship came to a tragic end very quickly.
On April 24th, 1966, in the early hours of the morning, Henry's body was found on the nearby CNR tracks, having been hit and killed by a train.
Nima: Oh no.
Lauryn: Apparently the evening before, there had been a party at Henry's home, and although he was not drunk, he'd been acting very strangely. His wife, Viola, testified at the inquest into his death that he had said to his infant son before leaving, and this is a direct quote from the newspaper article, "My father left me when I was young, and I'm going to leave you too."
Nima: Oh, that's sad. Oh, that's so painful. So he probably went and killed himself. Yeah, that's a tough one.
Lauryn: Yeah, there's a lot of pain behind that.
Nima: That's a lot of pain, yeah.
Lauryn: He left the house around 11pm, last [00:58:00] seen by his brother in law. He purchased a bottle of vodka and a case of beer, went to the train station, and asked if a freight train was heading to Chapleau, since he was allegedly going to pick up a car there.
The train's engineer told him no, he couldn't get on the train and Henry apparently left, not being seen by anyone after that. When his autopsy was performed, he was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0. 36, which is indicative of intoxication beyond the point of unconsciousness.
Nima: Yeah, that's insane.
Lauryn: So just for reference the legal blood alcohol limit to drive in most provinces and states ranges between 0. 05 and 0. 8, or sorry, 0. 08. Yeah, so 0. 05 to 0. 08 and he was at 0. 36. So Henry's blood alcohol was more than four times today's legal limit to drive. Yeah. And point two is typically when you're so drunk that you're throwing up and you're like basically in and out of blacking out. Right. The investigation into his death found that he most likely [00:59:00] tried to ride a freight train and fell off in his drunkenness or was walking along the tracks and was hit by the train.
Nima: Yeah, that makes sense. Either one.
Lauryn: Either one. Yeah. I wasn't able to find any other information about why he may have left other than to get that car, but I do want to raise some speculative points. So we saw that his birthday listed on the marriage record was the day after Dan's burial, and he clearly had some struggles surrounding his father's death if he left his own son with Such an ominous message.
Yeah. One census record listed Dan's birth month as April, so I don't know if maybe that particular date held any sort of significance, you know? In any case, it's obvious that Henry carried the trauma of his father's murder right up until his own death. For sure. Edward, Dan's youngest son, moved to Innisfil, Alberta in 1978 and later married and began his own family.
His obituary mentioned that he worked for Corrections Canada, stating Edward strongly promoted the philosophy that we all need to be a part of the solution rather than being a part of [01:00:00] the problem. That makes sense. And this was actually included in his obituary, that exact expression. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 63, having stayed in Alberta for the rest of his life.
It seems that one of Dan's sons was able to use the trauma he experienced to help others improve their lives, whereas the demons of such trauma claimed the life of the other. Florence passed away in 2010 at the age of 84. I found her obituary to be very interesting because it didn't make any reference to Dan, Henry, or Edward, all of whom pre deceased her.
Nima: Wow.
Lauryn: The only Tessier that was mentioned was one of her grandsons, Henry's son. Edward's children were not named in her obituary. The obituary was listed in her maiden name, giving no indication that she had been married to Dan. And she never remarried after that point either. Hmm. I don't want to speculate too much about the dynamics of the Tessier family since their children and grandchildren are still alive today and I do want to respect their privacy.
But it seems like from the little clues left behind in records like obituaries [01:01:00] that Dan's murder had lasting intergenerational effects on his family. Yeah. As you can see, lives went on after Dan's came to a senseless end. The investigation never uncovered sufficient evidence to charge somebody for his murder.
The case remains unsolved and, tragically, it became forgotten. Today, Dalton Mills is a ghost town of derelict structures and forgotten memories. The only part of the once vibrant community that is still maintained is the town's Catholic Cemetery, where Dan's mother and sister are buried. So many little reasons allowed Dan's case to slip away from public memory.
The police investigation stalled, so there was nothing to report on in the press to keep local communities engaged. The poaching ring convictions were dealt with, and those cases were closed. Dan was a poor French Canadian labourer with an Indigenous wife living in Protestant British Ontario. Even if Florence, Alfred, and Dan's other loved ones tried to keep his case alive to bring his killer to justice, I just can't see it being given priority.
When investigations plateaued like Dan's, it wasn't uncommon [01:02:00] for things to stop there when police resources were needed for other cases. Like I mentioned earlier, the only modern source I was able to find about Dan Tessier was a Toronto Sun article which listed a variety of Ontario criminal cases from 1946, which their staffer had found in news archives.
Otherwise, Dan's story just exists as newspaper clippings and Ontario bush lore, which is why it spoke so much to me. This isn't a story of bush feuds like it was reported in 1946. This is a story of complicated family relationships transcending several branches of a family tree. So with this episode, let's keep Daniel Tessier's story alive and appreciate the complexity that trauma brings for generations.
And that's it for this week's episode.
Nima: That's it. That's all.
Lauryn: That's all. You know, I'm having a lot of fun covering these Canadian cases in the 1910s to 1940s range. It's really one of my favorite eras in Canadian history. But that said, I know we have a lot of listeners in the U. S. and even other parts of the world, so I'd really love to [01:03:00] know from you if there are any places, whether it's in Canada, the U. S., Could be from anywhere. If there's anywhere that you'd really love for me to cover or any specific times in history that you're interested to hear more about and the types of crimes that happened back then.
Nima: Yeah, do it guys. Lauryn loves that kind of stuff.
Lauryn: I do. I really do. So if you're listening on Spotify, you can check out the Q&A section for this episode.
It's just below the show notes there, and you can leave a reply to let us know if there's anything you want us to check out. You can also send us a DM on Instagram @rootedincrime or an email at rootedincrime@gmail.com.
Nima: To stay up to date about the show and get notified when new episodes release, follow the show on your favorite listening app and on Instagram.
You can find case photos, the episode transcript, and resources at the link in the show notes. If you'd like to support the show, you can find us on Patreon at patreon.com/rootedincrime.
Lauryn: And a special shout out to Lindsay Macdonald for writing and producing our intro and transition music. And that's it.
Nima: That's it. Thank you [01:04:00] guys.
Lauryn: Thanks for listening everyone.
Sources
Genealogical
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Case Research
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/731844596/
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/731846441/
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