Albert Richer
Geraldton, ON / April 12, 1947
Richer, 22, had been driving a taxi for only two days. He was shot to death seven miles from Geraldton in the early hours of Sunday, April 20, 1947, after picking up a man from a hotel taxi stand in Geraldton. His body was dumped in a ditch behind a snowbank where it was discovered two days later by a grader operator. The taxi roof light was thrown into the bush near the murder scene and the taxi abandoned in Hearst, Ont. The roof light bore fingerprints and a palm print.
A fellow driver had been watching Richer's fare for half an hour before Richer picked him up and was able to provide police with a good description. A pair of bloodstained pants found near the murder scene were traced to a local man, but the blood type on the pants did not match either Richer or the man himself. Moreover, the man did not match the description of Richer's last fare so although they questioned him at the time police did not consider him a suspect.
Twenty-five years later, in October, 1972, the man called the Vancouver RCMP and told them about recurring nightmares that convinced him that he had been involved in the murder of a taxi driver near Geraldton in 1947. Later, under questioning, the man actually admitted to the crime. He was subsequently charged with murder and brought to trial in Thunder Bay in March, 1973.
Based on irregularities in the taking of the man's statements the judge ruled them inadmissible and in the absence of other evidence (the taxi roof light had disappeared) the jury was directed to bring in a verdict of not guilty. The contradictory and sketchy nature of the man's statements also raised doubts, especially after a court-appointed psychiatrist testified that the man's personality made him highly susceptible to confessing to crimes he hadn't committed.
Jane Bow covered the trial as a reporter. Her book Dead and Living (1993) assumes the man's innocence but sticks closely to the facts, apart from changing the names. She herself appears as a character whose doubts, speculations and assessment of personalities (not always flattering) form part of the book.
The death of Elmer Battler (1945) provides a strange parallel to this case. Here, too, a man confessed to the murder years after the fact and was acquitted on psychiatric evidence.
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