Evelyn Dick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008) |
The murder trials of Evelyn Dick (born October 13, 1920) remain the most sensationalized events in Canadian crime history.
Dick was born in Beamsville, Ontario. She was arrested for murder after local children in Hamilton, Ontario[1] found the torso of her missing estranged husband. The head and limbs had been sawed from his body and evidence that they had been burned in the furnace of her home later surfaced.
A well known school yard song at the time went as follows:
- You cut off his legs...
- You cut off his arms...
- You cut off his head...
- How could you Mrs Dick?
- How could you Mrs Dick?
The Forgotten Rebels used these lyrics for the song Evelyn Dick on their (Untitled) album in 1998.
She was first convicted of the murder in 1946 and sentenced to hang. Lawyer J.J. Robinette, however, appealed her case and won an eventual acquittal.
In the meantime, however, a partly mummified body of a baby boy was found in her attic, encased in cement in an old suitcase. She was tried again for murder in 1947 and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Dick was released from prison in 1958 and quickly disappeared from public.
A movie was released in 2002 which suggests that Evelyn protected her parents, who were also viable suspects in the murder of her baby and husband, and that she was sexually abused by her father and exploited by both parents (especially by her mother) to provide them a higher standing and income.
The case was also the subject of the 2005 film noir musical, Black Widow
 |
This article about Canadian law is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ The Hamilton Spectator- Souvenir Edition page MP38 (Saturday June 10, 2006). "The Hamilton Memory Project;". Press release. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
- Alex Chapple (Director), Dennis Foon, Marjorie Freeman Campbell (book). (2002). Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story [Film]. Canada: Shaftesbury Films Inc..
