This case is one of the rare instances in which a taxi driver homicide made headlines across both Canada and the United States. However, as is usual in these cases, the main focus of media attention was the perpetrators rather than the victim. Mr. Bouchard, the father of seven children, was an independent owner-driver in Lachine in the west end of Montréal. He drove a limousine with a glass partition between the front and back seats. On Sunday afternoon, July 17, 1927, Mr. Bouchard was hired to take a well-dressed young couple and a second man -- supposedly the woman's brother -- on an overnight wedding trip to the U.S. After their return to Montréal Mr. Bouchard was to take them for a week of touring. The agreed price for the trip was $200. Mr. Bouchard's assistant, named Brunet, advised him to get the money in advance. "I'll ask them for that when I see them to-night, before we get to Lachine," Mr. Bouchard replied. About 6 o'clock the arrangement was changed. Mr. Bouchard was to take the party to Huntington for the night. He would return home and then pick them up the next morning for the trip to the border. He was to be paid $150 for the Huntington leg of the journey. Mr. Bouchard and his passengers were last seen as they crossed the St. Lawrence on the Lachine ferry. Unknown to Mr. Bouchard the trio was on the run from the police. The couple were con artists who had met in New York where the woman, aged 22, was an aspiring but unsuccessful showgirl. The man, aged 26, came from Sidney, Nova Scotia. The couple started their criminal career by posing as a wealthy husband and wife on trains traveling between New York and Montréal. Their object was to separate other travelers from their money through confidence games, card sharping and the "badger game" (a form of blackmail in which a victim was enticed into a compromising situation only to be confronted by an apparently jealous husband). When they wore out their welcome on the trains they turned to other forms of crime including assault and robbery. The third member of the gang was a 30-year-old cross-eyed man. All in all, the gang made a lasting impression wherever they went. The three managed to pass a number of forged U.S. Navy payroll cheques in Portland, Maine before they were detected. The two men posed as U.S. Navy officers and claimed to be setting up a new base that would employ 5,000 workers. When Portland became too hot the gang moved on to Boston and then to Worcester where they passed worthless Canadian army pension cheques. They hit New York, Detroit, Yarmouth and Halifax before somebody saw through the masquerade. The woman's husband was arrested in December, 1926 and spent three months in Halifax city jail. The three set off with Mr. Bouchard for the border crossing at Trout River, N.Y. Ostensibly the gang's intent was simply to rob Mr. Bouchard of any money he had brought for the trip and to steal his car but their actions suggest that they planned to kill him from the start. The car drove three miles beyond Huntington, suggesting yet another change in plans. At that point one of the trio shot Mr. Bouchard in the right side of the neck. The bullet severed his jugular vein spraying the interior of the car with blood. A second bullet broke his arm. Mr. Bouchard was dumped face down in a narrow, water-filled ditch along the Malone-Caughnawaga highway near Huntingdon, Québec. During the autopsy over a gallon of water was drained from his stomach and lungs, indicating that he had drowned. At least four shots were fired. Police later found a bullet scar on the frame of the glass partition between the front and back seat and hole in the roof over the driver's seat. The driver's window was broken. There were signs that the criminals were in a state of panic after the shooting. The front and rear door handles on the right side of the car were partly wrenched off and the right front fender and running board were damaged. The murder weapon, a .38 revolver, was left beside the road as was the woman's bloodstained dress (leading police to believe, briefly, that she was a second murder victim). The crime was marked by a combination of callousness and stupidity. Following the murder the three drove on to Trout River NY where their appearance and actions aroused the suspicions of the U.S. border authorities. While filling out immigration forms the cross-eyed man, posing as Mr. Bouchard, spelled his name three different ways. Having discarded her bloodstained clothing the woman showed great reluctance to enter the border station. When she finally did so, wearing no stockings and covering herself with a traveling rug, her brazen manner provoked even more curiosity. She boasted about her father in Mount Vernon NY who "has an oil mine in Oklahoma and every time it spouts, I spend a little more money." She also "swore like a trooper". When in separate interviews the couple couldn't agree on where they had been married they were denied entry to the U.S. Meanwhile the cross-eyed man was exchanging Mr. Bouchard's money for American dollars. He explained a bloodstain on one of the bills by showing a cut on his finger and asking for some iodine to treat it. This plausible subterfuge simply added to the vivid impression that the trio made on witnesses at the border crossing. [Next column]

Adélard Bouchard. (Source: Toronto Daily Star, July 26, 1927, p. 7) With nowhere else to go the gang drove back to Montréal, abandoned the car and had a "champagne supper" at a hotel. Next morning the three skipped without paying the bill and took a train to the U.S. When in separate interviews the couple couldn't agree on where they had been married they were denied entry to the U.S. Meanwhile the cross-eyed man was exchanging Mr. Bouchard's money for American dollars. He explained a bloodstain on one of the bills by showing a cut on his finger and asking for some iodine to treat it. This plausible subterfuge simply added to the vivid impression that the trio made on witnesses at the border crossing. With nowhere else to go the gang drove back to Montréal, abandoned the car and had a "champagne supper" at a hotel. Next morning the three skipped without paying the bill and took a train to the U.S. Mr. Bouchard's body was found Monday afternoon and the discovery of his car was reported late Monday night. Police traced the fugitives to their hotel where they found more of the woman's bloodstained clothing and a .38 cartridge casing. The cross-eyed man parted company with the couple who wound up in Butte, Montana, where they were arrested in August for passing bad cheques. The male killer offered to make restitution for the cheques but police chief Jere Murphy did not take the bait. He circulated copies of the pair's fingerprints and soon police agencies from all over the country were applying for the couple's extradition. While awaiting trial for fraud in Colorado news arrived of their involvement in Mr. Bouchard's murder. After an all-night "grilling" by police the woman confessed to having shot Mr. Bouchard four times in the neck. The murder charge took precedence over all others and they were taken to Canada to be tried. The couple repudiated the woman's confession and tried to pin the murder on their absent accomplice, the cross-eyed man. But as the law stood in 1928 any homicide resulting from a criminal act automatically made all the participants equally guilty. The judge told the jury that it didn't matter who fired the shots -- all were guilty if any were guilty. The jury deliberated for only 25 minutes before convicting the couple although it recommended clemency for the woman. By now the beautiful young redhead was a media star, glorified in newspaper headlines as the "tiger girl", the "flapper bandit" and "queen of the Montréal underworld". The case had just the right combination of sex and sensationalism to titillate journalists and the newspaper-reading public in both Canada and the U.S. The woman's lawyer orchestrated a campaign to arouse public sympathy. It turned out that the woman had both a real mother and a stepmother as well as a husband and a two-year-old child. All were enlisted in the fight to save her from execution. "It is urged that I hear from you," she wrote somewhat awkwardly to her former husband. "You have read in the papers and see what I face -- in 26 days I go to the gallows and hang unless I get help from you and others." Petitions to the Canadian government on her behalf poured in from all over North America including one from her home town of Mount Vernon which was organized by her stepmother and a group of prominent local women. A few days before he was hanged in March, 1928, the woman's husband signed an affidavit absolving her of blame and taking sole responsibility for Mr. Bouchard's murder. Commutation was granted to the woman two days before her scheduled execution. After four years in prison she could still dominate the news. When it was learned that she might be released on parole in June, 1932, a paper as far afield as the Edmonton Bulletin ran a large portrait of her on the front page under the banner headline "Montréal Tiger Girl Freed."