At about 11:15 p.m. on the night of Sunday, December 11, 1949, 24-year-old Huntington taxi driver Lucien Brunette received a telephone call at home asking for a cab at a nearby cafe. There he picked up two young men, both aged 18. The two had targeted Mr. Brunette for robbery because he had the reputation of carrying a lot of money. According to his wife Mr. Brunette had about $100 dollars on him when he left home. One of the 18-year-olds lived with his parents on a farm near Huntington. The other, the ward of a Montréal orphanage, had been adopted by a Huntington family and worked as a hired hand at the same farm. The son of the farm family had dreams of becoming a bank robber and he gradually persuaded his accomplice to join him. Ten days earlier they stole two .45 and .38 calibre revolvers from a neighbour who had recently purchased them in a Montréal tavern. Mr. Brunette was to be the first victim in their planned crime spree. The two directed Mr. Brunette to drive to Franklin, about 15 miles from Huntington, where they tried to rob him. Police later theorized that Mr. Brunette recognized his passengers and refused to give up his money. The killers then attacked Mr. Brunette with a hammer, dragging him from the car and beating him to death. The autopsy revealed five skull fractures from savage blows that tore off the victim's scalp. The killers then placed the dead man in the back seat of the taxi and drove several miles until they came to a bridge over a small stream. There they threw Mr. Brunette's body over the railing. Police later estimated that the time of death was between midnight and 1:30 a.m. The killers hid the cab in an abandoned barn and returned to their own farm where they spent the night. After breakfast early Monday morning the father drove them into Huntington. The killers hired a taxi to Montréal where they spent the rest of the morning. By noon they were back near Huntington at Ormiston. Here they interrupted taxi driver Bill Hooker at lunch and asked to be driven to Montréal again. Mr. Hooker said he'd be ready to go in ten minutes. While Mr. Hooker finished eating the pair walked a few yards to the Ormiston branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce and forced the three employees to hand over $1,300 at gunpoint. Hooker was waiting for them in his taxi when the killers jumped in brandishing their revolvers and ordered him to speed away. Mr. Hooker was told to drive to Montréal but when he got to the city outskirts the pair changed their minds and ordered him to drive back to Huntington. Just outside of town at Anderson's Corners they left the taxi and disappeared into the bush. They paid Hooker $100 for a 60-mile trip that normally cost $12 and told him to keep his mouth shut. Hooker immediately notified the police. Meanwhile, when Mr. Brunette failed to return home by 6 a.m. his wife called police who began an immediate search. Mr. Brunette's friends and family continued looking for him but the police search was temporarily abandoned when all available officers were assigned to hunt for the bank robbers. The two investigations came together when Mr. Brunette's brother Léo discovered his bloodstained taxi in the barn where the killers had left it. [Next column]

Lucien Brunette. (Source: Toronto Globe & Mail, December 14, 1949, p. 12) Police quickly focused their attention on the two missing farmhands and when they searched the farmhouse they found a bloodstained shirt. Over 100 officers and civilian volunteers scoured the roads and bush around Huntington. Nobody anticipated that the fugitives would actually return to the farm, but the pair showed up there about 6 p.m. The son got into a violent argument with his mother and ordered her to leave the house with her other children. He soon thought better of this idea and he and his accomplice fled the farm to take refuge in a neighbour's barn. By Tuesday afternoon the fugitives were desperately hungry. One of them approached the neighbour's hired man and offered him $10 for something to eat. The man called the police and the barn was quickly surrounded. Police and volunteers probed the hayloft with pitchforks and the fugitives were discovered when one of them was stabbed in the arm. The killers confessed to murdering Mr. Brunette and led police to the bridge where the body still lay on the bank of the stream. Mr. Brunette's father was brought to the scene to identify him. Both killers were convicted of murder and were sentenced to hang but their sentences were commuted to life in prison. The 18-year-old orphan who had been adopted by the Huntington family was released on parole in 1987 at the age of 56. While at liberty he molested two teenage boys and was returned to prison. In November, 1993 he was again released but his parole was revoked six months later on the grounds that he posed an unacceptable risk of reoffending.