Fernie ("Frank Stewart") Bourne
Calgary, AB / Oct. 30, 1928
Fernie Bourne (AKA Frank Stewart) was last seen about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, October 30, 1928. Police were called when he did not return from his shift. His bloodstained taxi, with the windshield shot out, was discovered Wednesday.
Calgary police enlisted the aid of local boy scouts to conduct a search of the surrounding area, but Bourne's body was discovered by George Buist, a cab driver for another Calgary company on the following Friday.
An inquest into the murder concluded that four shots had been fired from the back seat with a .45 pistol. The first shot missed Bourne and smashed out the windshield. As Bourne turned to look behind him, the second shot hit him in the side of the nose. The third and fourth shots were fatal.
The case remained unsolved until the following January when a safe-cracker and burglar committed suicide in his jail cell hours before he was due to appear before a magistrate. The day after his suicide a man who shared his cell reported that the dead man had confessed to Bourne's murder. Police had not connected the man with Bourne but during interviews with him about several burglaries they came to suspect that he was concealing a more serious crime. After the suicide they searched a "nest" that he had used in a local livery stable and found a .45 calibre pistol in a well-worn holster.
Bourne, 34, had come to Calgary a few months before his murder. He used the name Frank Stewart and claimed to have been a Texas ranger. He drove for Ware's Taxi.
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