Killing of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
McGee was returning to his boarding house on Sparks Street in the early morning hours of April 7, 1868. Smoking a cigar and fumbling with his key in the lock, he was greeted as the owner Mary Ann Trotter opened the door for him. At that moment, a muzzle flash erupted, and as a .32 calibre bullet tore through McGee's neck and through his jaw, knocking his dentures out, the politician fell back into the street.
By the next nightfall, more than 40 Canadians, predominantly Irish immigrants suspected of Fenian allegiance, had been arrested; most prominent of these was Patrick Buckley, who served as the stable hand to Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, and who gave police the name of Whelan.
Whelan, who had just left the house of Richard Quinn where he had mentioned that his boss Mr. Eagleson had been arrested for the murder, was found in a tavern belonging to Michael Starr at 9:30pm. He was searched. A Sgt. Davis produced from Whelan's front right pocket a .32 Smith and Wesson pistol, serial #50847, with all six rounds still loaded. The other officers present took from his pocket a box of cartridges, some papers, the Irish American newspaper from a month earlier, a green silk badge of the Toronto Hibernian Benevolent Society, a membership card for the St. Patrick's Benevolence Society, a photograph of a lady, a ticket from the St. Patrick's Literary Society, two tickets the shamrock Quadrille Club inviting Whelan and a lady friend. By April 9, the 28-year old Whelan was considered the prime suspect and charged with the murder. He was never actually proven to be the murderer but because of the evidence that they found on him they sentence him to be hanged as a death punishment.
Read more about this topic: Patrick J. Whelan
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