The dark and incredible mystery of Evelyn Dick
Sensational trial mesmerized country
IT’S LIKE FINDING the last page missing from a riveting book or having the electricity go out in the theatre just before the movie comes to a climax.
What happened to Hamilton’s infamous Evelyn Dick after she was released on parole in 1958?
Given the passage of time, she is probably dead. But when and where did she die? Is there a chance that Dick is still alive at the age of 95, perhaps living in a long-term care home without anyone knowing who she is?
Seventy years ago today, Hamilton was turned on its ear when the headless, armless and legless body of 39year-old John Dick was discovered on the side of the escarpment near Albion Falls by some children on a hike. And that was just the start of it. Dick’s beautiful 25-year-old estranged wife, Evelyn, became the chief suspect and after a sensational trial that astonished the country, she was
sentenced to hang. An 11th hour appeal by up-and-coming lawyer J.J. Robinette spared her life only for her to be acquitted in a second trial because of legal issues with statements she gave police.
But then there was the matter of the infanticide of her baby.
During the course of the investigation, the police found her deceased infant Peter David White in a suitcase encased in cement in the attic of her Carrick Street home. Evelyn couldn’t beat that rap and ended up with a life sentence for manslaughter at the Kingston Penitentiary for Women.
As if murder, dismemberment and infanticide were not enough, the proceedings were riddled with incredible tales of sexual misadventure.
Dick testified she had slept with more than 150 men which in the morals of the time was unimaginable.
People all over town whispered rumours about high-profiled men whose names were in her notorious black book. Who was the father of the murdered baby? Who was the f ather of her daughter, Heather?
It wasn’t John Dick. He only knew his bride for a short time before they got married, and they split up within months of taking their vows.
Add to that a love triangle between her, her husband and a tall handsome oarsman named Bill Bohozuk, who was charged but eventually acquitted.
Then there was the outrageous thievery of Evelyn’s father Donald MacLean who ripped off his HSR employer for hundreds of thousands of dollars by pilfering f are box money and tickets over several years.
“IT WAS DIFFERENT from any other murder. Most murders are cases of someone simply stabbing or shooting someone. But this had everything,” said former Hamilton detective Bob Rankin, who has had an interest in the case since he first heard about it at police college in the 1960s.
“Everybody talked about her. I was just drawn to the case by osmosis,” said Rankin who keeps a thick binder of documents, photos and press clippings related to the case.
Doug Rodger, the playwright who wrote “How Could You Mrs. Dick?” says he believes part of the public fascination with Dick is that her behaviour was so out of place for the times.
She had notoriety like a rock star. Her behaviour was unsettling but it fascinated people at the same time.
“People scorned her but they would say, ‘By God, she lived.’”
But the mystery still lingers about what happened to her. She would have been only 38 years old when she was released. She likely remarried. She could have had more children.
How could she have so successfully gone into hiding?
Numerous reporters over the years have gone to great lengths to find her, the most notable of recent times being by author Brian Vallée, who wrote a 2001 book “The Torso Murder: The Untold Story of Evelyn Dick.”
Vallée, who has since died, interviewed senior parole board official Mary Louise Lynch who said she kept up a correspondence for several years with Dick after her release. Lynch, who also has since died, was quoted in the book as saying Dick’s identity was such a secret that even daughter Heather didn’t know her mom’s assumed name or the city where she lived.
In 1985, Dick was granted a pardon and her record was permanently sealed.
There are not many infamous people who get out of this world with the word “unknown” or “presumed dead” written in the Date of Death column. The Hamilton gangster Rocco Perri is one. A couple of years before the torso discovery, he disappeared and no one knows for sure what happened to him. (Many believe his body is in Hamilton Harbour, others say he went into hiding in the United States.)
American labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa is another example. Seven years after his disappearance, he was declared dead in absentia in 1982 (although new evidence has emerged about his demise).
Brian Morton — who has directed or produced the play “How Could You Mrs. Dick?” three times in Hamilton — believes it will never be known for sure what happened to her.
“I think she has probably passed away and it is likely that the four or so people who knew what happened are all dead as well,” he said.