Stoddard Online

Stoddard Online

S P E C I A L N O T I C E

As you are aware, it becomes necessary occasionally to halt the story for a day or so in order to announce pertinent facts and announcements, with reference to the Wilbert Coffin Case. This is another of those times. As I have told you in the past, The Association In Defense Of The Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) have agreed to provide the legal assistance necessary to present arguments in favor of a review of the Wilbert Coffin case.

Please take note that Elisabeth Widner will be in the Gaspe' region on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 12th and the 13th on a fact finding mission, and talking with folks who may have information pertinent to the case. If you would like to speak with Elisabeth, she would be most pleased to hear from you. If you wish to speak and remain anonymous, rest assured, you will be accommodated.

You can arrange to speak with Elisabeth through this site, or alternately, you may reach Cynthia Patterson. The e-mail addresses are provided below for your convenience.
lewisstoddard@telus.net
ruraldignity@globetrotter.net

Thank you so much for your consideration, and as I have said many times in the past, if we all work together as a team, this case will get sorted out.

Lew Stoddard
posted to site September 11, 2006

Stoddard Online

Stoddard Online Continued from part nine. . .

Upon his arrival with Sgt. Jean-Charles VanHoote from his camp in the woods, Wilbert Coffin voluntarily made himself available to the investigators. His theory was simple, in his mind he had nothing to hide, so there was no reason to be uncooperative. Over the next three days, this theory, on the part of Wilbert Coffin, was a real bone of contention. Captain Alphonse Matte wanted results and he wanted them now. Wilbert Coffin maintained his stance with an unwavering explanation of details. Captain Matte called him a liar, and vowed to get him.

Without doubt Captain Matte was calling the shots. There was simply no way that some back woods prospector from the Gaspe' Peninsula was going to win over Captain Alphonse Matte. He would dwell for hours on Wilbert Coffin's explanation of events. He twisted, he manipulated, and resorted to every form of interrogation that he knew, all to no avail. Wilbert Coffin was not budging. It was indeed a slap in the face for the stalwart Captain. He was after all, touted as being the province's toughest cop. That was precisely why he was in Gaspe'. He could not fail, because to fail, would be admitting that he could not stand up to the pedestal that Duplessis had placed him on.

August 10, 1953 would prove to be a turning point for Captain Matte and his investigation. He placed a telephone call to the solicitor general for Quebec, Antoine Rivard. He informed Mr. Rivard that he was arresting Wilbert Coffin, and holding him as a material witness. Rivard's response was swift and sure, do whatever you have to do, but bring this affair to conclusion without further delay, as the premier is getting restless, and the American administration is getting into the act again. John Foster Dulles, representating the American interests in the case, through the Consul General is putting heat on Ottawa according to Rivard, and it is reverberating down the back of Premier Duplessis. True to his word, on August 11, 1953, Captain Alphonse Matte arrested Wilbert Coffin and placed him in a cell. Wilbert Coffin would never walk a free man in his native home town again.

It was obvious to the police that Wilbert Coffin was not going to break easy. Captain Matte issued the order and sent a team of officers to retrace Wilbert's journey to Montreal. It would not be an easy task. It was some weeks after the fact, so in many cases deceit and manipulation would be the order of the day. Words would have to be planted in the mouths of witnesses along the way. This will become evident later in the story when Wilbert Coffin's murder trial commences in Perce.

Let us take stock for a moment here and reflect upon the case thus far. Three sets of human remains have been found in the woods of Gaspe'. They have been identified. They have been declared murdered. Exact cause of death cannot be established due to the condition of the remains. There is no murder weapon. There are no known witnesses. It is not known for sure if they were all killed in the same place and transported, or if they were killed singularly and independently of each other. It would require thousands of hours of old fashioned police work and a team of investigators who knew what they were doing. Simply and clearly, it was more prudent in Captain Matte's mind to take the path of least resistance. That path of least resistance would be Wilbert Coffin, or so he thought. After all, Wilbert Coffin, according to the authorities, was the last person known to have seen these people prior to their deaths.

It is a generally accepted practise within law enforcement agencies to pick a piece of key evidence in an investigation, and then branch out and gather all supporting evidence in order to reinforce the case. It is evident in the Coffin affair, there was no piece of key evidence to be had. True, there was a case, but the case lacked the key element, known as evidence. Anything that Captain Matte had that would resemble evidence, would be nothing more than minor details that would never support a charge of murder.

After a couple of days of grilling in Gaspe', Captain Matte decided that his best approach would be to move Wilbert Coffin to Quebec City, where Wilbert could be exposed to a more "professional" atmosphere. There in Gaspe', Wilbert Coffin had too many close ties to everyone, and sentiments were running very high in his favor. This was no good. Wilbert Coffin must be viewed as someone evil in Matte's mind, because in his home town, Wilbert was still the happy go lucky guy that everyone knew and trusted as a friend. Captain Alphonse Matte was determined to change all that.

Under a veil of secrecy, Captain Matte and crew moved Wilbert Coffin to the small Haldimand airstrip a short distance from the town of Gaspe'. It was pre-arranged that the aircraft would pick them up at the end of the runway, away from any who might recognize what was happening, and at the same time, avoid a throng of reporters who had descended on the Gaspe' area.

A few hours later Captain Matte and Wilbert Coffin arrived in Quebec City. Wilbert was immediately housed in the Quebec city jail, whereby a cell would be his home for the next two weeks. Captain Matte would now be thinking, finally I have you where I want you. No longer would he have to be concerned with the thin walls of an interrogation room at the Baker Hotel back in Gaspe'. No longer would he have to worry about the friendship between Wilbert Coffin and Sgt. Henri Doyon of The Quebec Provincial Police. Wilbert Coffin was now his, and his alone, or so he thought.

Those of us familiar with military interrogation methods know there is a strict set of guidelines pertaining to the extraction of information from a prisoner. In many cases, ordinary folk would view some of these methods as extreme and severe, however, we are talking about war zones and battle, and all the other bad things associated with war and prisoners. It is prudent to point out, prisoners of war, their conduct, and the methods of interrogation are governed by a strict set of guidelines, as laid out by the Geneva Convention. You will soon see and understand the quandary that Wilbert Coffin was now in. The brutality of his treatment, would soon surpass that experienced by many prisoners of war who have the Geneva Convention as their shield. Wilbert coffin had no such shield, it was strictly him amongst the enemy.

For days on end, Wilbert was subjected to relentless verbal pounding and abuse. He was asked the same questions over and over. He was routinely placed under a 500 watt light for hours on end, to the point of causing temporary blindness. As bait, the interrogaters would place a glass of water in front of him on a table, or they may place a cigarette there. When he would reach for whatever was placed there, it would be yanked back. From behind his back, he would be grabbed by his hair and his head pulled back. This would go on for hours on end, sometimes as much as eighteen hours per day. He would be returned to his cell to sleep, and in very short order, there they were again to resume where they had left off. This would go on for sixteen days. On one occasion, one of those involved in the interrogation grabbed Wilbert by the arm from behind his chair. That was a mistake for the investigator, even in Wilbert's weakened condition. Wilbert reached up, grabbed the investigator by the arm, who by now had taken an aeronautical approach to the situation as Wilbert flipped him up over his back and into the air. These things that I tell you are not the result of an overactive imagination. This is taken from documented information from the jailer and guards of the jail at Quebec who witnessed the abuse and torturous treatment of Wilbert Coffin. Without doubt, they were unanimous in their belief that Wilbert Coffin was an innocent man.

Captain Matte had more than met his match. Though his methods were cruel and barbaric, Wilbert Coffin stood tall and steadfast. The troubling aspect of it for the Captain was that throughout the intense abusive treatment thrust upon him, Wilbert Coffin always kept one of his greatest attributes intact. That was his boyish smile.

Lew Stoddard

Posted to site September o6, 2006

The next posting will cover the return to Gaspe' and the ill fated public inquest of August 27, 1953, which will showcase the weak Dr. Lionel Rioux as coroner, and lead to the preliminary hearing and the trial of Wilbert Coffin in Perce, Quebec.