Cop killer Peter Pennett will live to fight another day.
In early October, Pennett, now 60, had his day parole extended.
Sixty years ago, he would have been taking the long drop to oblivion courtesy of a hangman’s rope. Fifty years ago, he would have been dispatched to Canada’s dwindling death row.
Pennett and pal Clinton Suzack (the more violent of the two) murdered Sudbury cop Joe MacDonald on Oct. 7, 1993, during a routine traffic stop. The young officer left a widow and two small children.
The last two men hanged in Canada were Detroit pimp Arthur Lucas and cop killer Ronald Turpin. They caught the night train to Nowheresville in December 1962 at Toronto’s Don Jail.
After 1967, only cop and jail guard killers were eligible for the death penalty before the practice breathed its last in 1976. These murderers were on death row when capital punishment was abolished. Cop killers all.
REAL CHARTRAND
411: On Oct. 12, 1971, Chartrand — a violent frequent flier in the criminal world — was on a day pass issued by a prison psychiatrist who wanted to marry him in a homosexual union. Jumped up on pills, Chartrand decided he would knock off a credit union in Ste. Therese, Que. Wearing a wig and trench coat, he escaped with $1,268 in cash. He would later cut down Const. Gabriel Labelle in cold blood with a Commando Mark III submachine gun.
FACT: Chartrand was the first beneficiary of the Liberal government’s faint hope clause. He was paroled in 1989.
RENE VAILLANCOURT
411: Vaillancourt has the distinction of being the last man sentenced to hang in Toronto. On Feb. 1, 1973, Vaillancourt robbed a CIBC branch at Danforth and Coxwell. Const. Leslie Maitland, 35, got the heads-up and spotted the getaway car, which crashed into a garage. When Maitland approached Vaillancourt’s vehicle, the killer shot him four times. He left a pregnant widow and two young children.
FACT: Somehow, Vaillancourt — described as anti-social — got early parole. But things went off the rails, and he was returned to the slammer to finish his 25 years.
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JOHN CONNEARNEY
411: Fringe player in Montreal’s famed West End Gang, Connearney escaped a Rhode Island prison where he was doing life for murdering a fellow inmate. He slipped into Canada in 1972. On June 14, 1973, he murdered Montreal cop Richard Larente during a routine traffic stop.
FACT: Escaped noose but was killed in a Laval prison riot in 1980.
RICHARD AMBROSE AND JAMES HUTCHINSON
411: On Dec. 13, 1974, these low-rent Maritime criminals kidnapped a 14-year-old Moncton boy whose father was a wealthy restaurateur. Dad coughed up a $15,000 ransom and the kid was released. Cops Aurele Bourgeois and Michael O’Leary weren’t as lucky. Forced to dig their graves, they were shot and executed. Six kids were left fatherless. Hutchinson, still believing he was the reincarnation of James Cagney, died in prison in 2011.
FACT: Ambrose — now Bergeron — remains caged and boasted on a jailhouse romance site that “I survived the death penalty in Canada.”
ELERY LONG
411: On Nov. 2, 1974, Delta, B.C., police Staff-Sgt. Ron McKay knocked on Long’s door to discuss an earlier confrontation at a local gas station. Long blasted McKay, 47, with a shotgun, leaving him to die on his front stoop. Long was first sprung in 2000 but his breaches sent him back to the slammer. Long got day parole in 2007 and it was back to prison again. He was granted full parole in 2015.
QUOTE: “I think we have to stop that and say these people are just not going to contribute, they are a risk to the public and they need to be kept institutionalized.” — Delta Chief-Const. Jim Cessford.
VINCENT COCKRIELL AND JOHN MILLER
411: On March 29, 1974, these two knuckleheads were looking for a cop to shoot. Cockriell blamed cops for the death of his brother in a police chase. They threw a beer bottle through a police station window, luring young RCMP Const. Roger Pierlet to his death. When he pulled them over, Cockriell fired a bullet into the cop’s chest, killing him almost instantly.
FACT: Cockriell was sprung in 1998. As for Miller, he was hammered with five more years in 2009 for a slew of historical sex attacks against his sisters.
GILLES HEBERT
411: Hebert had a reputation in prison as a whiner, complaining often about stomach pains. On June 27, 1975, guards Paul Gosselin and Fernand Gravel took him to get checked out at the Queen Mary Veteran’s Hospital in Montréal. He was shackled but asked to use the washroom. Hebert emerged from the John shooting, hitting Gosselin three times. An accomplice planted the gun and handcuff key and whisked him away. He was nabbed 53 days later.
FACT: After the 1970s, there appears to be no further record of Hebert.
MARIO GAUTHIER
411: Gauthier, 19, at the time was the last man sentenced to death in Canada. On April 8, 1975, Gauthier bashed in the head of Cowansville prison Instructor Georges Nadeau using a hammer. Nadeau was married with three children. Gauthier was sentenced to die on May 14, 1976. Two months later, the death penalty was kaput.
FACT: Gauthier may have cheated the executioner, but he wasn’t so lucky with the Grim Reaper. He was beaten to death by another inmate at Kingston Penitentiary in 1982.
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