Sept. 22
CANADA:
T.W. Paterson column: McLean brothers’ murderous rampage ended quietly
“Shoot! you son of a ——-, shoot! I’m not afraid of an ounce of lead.”—condemned
murderer Allen McLean.
For those who are familiar with provincial criminal history, this summer’s
murderous but, happily, brief rampage by 2 Island teenagers was an eerie echo
of a similar outrage that dates back all of 140 years.
That’s when the three McLean brothers, Allen, Charlie and Archie, and their
friend Alex Hare, sought for stealing a prized stallion, cold bloodedly
murdered Provincial Police Constable John Tannatt Ussher and an inoffensive
shepherd then terrorized local ranchers before being captured after a dramatic
shootout with a posse.
It’s a story so oft-told I won’t go into further detail here; rather, I want to
explore their final days in the B.C. Penitentiary, the tragic conclusion of
their almost senseless crimes that could have had only one conclusion in that
age of capital punishment.
To do so I must introduce the anti-heroes of our tale: 25-year-old Allen
McLean, leader, younger brothers Charlie, 17, Archie, 15, and friend Alex Hare,
17. All were the products of mixed-race marriages, the McLeans’ father having
been a notorious firebrand who committed a murder of his own, and who, deadly
with rifle, revolver and hunting knife, were said to be “the true product of a
wild frontier existence”. They also have been described as being “of a wild,
reckless disposition, and being good horsemen and capital shots [who] preferred
enjoying a roving life to any settled employment.”
But their roving life of horse and cattle rustling came to an abrupt end with
their murders of Constable Ussher and shepherd Kelly, subsequent arrest, trial,
conviction and sentence of death. The fact that Archie was only 15 cut no ice
with the judicial system which, no doubt, was influenced by eyewitness
testimony that it was he who’d delivered the coup de grace to the wounded
Ussher.
An appeal, based not on evidence of their guilt but on a legalistic and
egotistical administrative joust between Attorney-General George Walkem and
Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew Begbie (who hadn’t presided at their trial)
caused a second trial and a year-long delay.
Again, the verdict was guilty and, while awaiting their fate in the
penitentiary beside the Fraser River, in New Westminster, they were anything
but model prisoners. Their behaviour, until a month before execution, was
described as “bad — characterized by one continued resistance to authority and
defiance of discipline interspersed with small plots to escape, and exhibitions
of a disposition to gratify a splenetic vein”.
When Warden Moresby detected a knife up Allan’s sleeve, he had to disarm him at
gunpoint. On another occasion when Moresby drew his revolver, Allan snarled,
“Shoot! you son of a ——-, shoot! I’m not afraid of an ounce of lead.” The gang
constantly upset prison quiet and routine with their whistling, cursing,
shouting and dancing, behaviour that was dismissed by one journalist as an
unseemly exhibition of bravado — “like that of little boys whistling in the
dark to scare away the rats”.
Further searches of their cells turned up knives, nails sharpened to fine
points and the handle of a tin cup which had been flattened and ground to a
sharp edge. These had been stowed away in rat holes. The possession of these
weapons and Archie’s threatening to strike a guard with a bucket led to Moresby
seeking special permission to chain them to the walls which finally succeeded
in “cooling them down”.
Why they didn’t just break out quietly is a mystery considering the pathetic
state of the prison where, the Colonist complained, “Safety forms no prominent
feature of [the] cells. The walls for seven inches from their bases are rotten
— in fact they are nothing more or less than ‘plank’ and can be pulled to
pieces with the fingers. Had the prisoners desired it they could have emerged
from their confinement within a few hours by simply using the heels of their
boots. One of the doors, it is said, fell off its hinges, the wood being too
much decayed to sustain the strain[!]”
Perhaps they were relying upon a plot they’d hatched to make their escape at
almost the last minute — while being led to the scaffold. John Henry Makai, a
“half breed” [sic] Kanaka serving two months for selling liquor to Indians, had
volunteered to serve as executioner, a duty often performed by
non-professionals. Makai’s “frequent importunities” for the unpleasant job made
Moresby suspicious. Through an inmate informant he learned that Makai had
arranged with the McLeans and Hare that, should he act as executioner, he’d “by
some means secure possession of a knife and while pinioning [them] prior to
their taking their position on the scaffold [he’d] cut the ropes almost
through, leaving a few threads sufficient to maintain the ropes in their place
