At the time of his death Norman Philip Burgoyne was 34 years old. He was married with three children -- two girls aged 9 and 6 and a boy aged 7. He was described as a slightly-built man which accounts for his nickname "Sliver". A few months earlier Mr. Burgoyne had purchased the Rideout Taxi company which seems to have consisted of one car, a 1946 Ford. In December he bought a second car, a new 1949 Ford Custom Fordor sedan. He was driving this car on the night of his death. Mr. Burgoyne ran his taxi business from home. After his supper break on Friday, January 7, 1949 he returned to work at about 6:30 p.m. Around 8:15 his wife Irene answered a phone call requesting a cab at the Royal Canadian Legion. She relayed this information to her husband when he dropped in at home a few minutes later. That was the last time she saw him alive. When he left he was carrying over $200 and was wearing a $95 Rolex watch. When Mr. Burgoyne failed to return home his family were alarmed but hoped he was delayed by an out-of-town trip. Police were notified of his disappearance on Saturday. On Monday his abandoned taxi was found on a lonely road on the southern outskirts of the city. Mr. Burgoyne was wrapped in a blanket in the trunk, his skull fractured by three blows from a "sharp instrument". His cash and watch were missing. Two days later police arrested three young Black men for questioning. One was released but the other two, brothers aged 22 and 23, were charged with murder. The brothers were tried separately and in the older brother testified against the younger one. According to his testimony, which lasted six and a half hours and described the murder in considerable detail, the brothers took a bus into Fredericton intending to "get a man on the street and knock him out" for his cash. The older brother was armed with a hammer which he carried in the back pocket of his overalls. The older brother was supposed to hit Mr. Burgoyne over the head but he recognized the driver -- whom he knew as "Silver" -- and was unable to go through with the attack. While he vacillated he directed Mr. Burgoyne to two different places on the Wilsey Road and then to a house on the Richibucto Road on the pretext of purchasing some home brew. Earlier, Mrs. Burgoyne testified that the Legion caller had asked for her husband by name. More doubt was cast on the older brother's supposedly sudden recognition of Mr. Burgoyne by a former confederate who told how they had taken taxis several times in the past with the intention of robbing the driver but had always lost their nerve. The older brother claimed that while leaving the taxi to go to the house he dropped the hammer and the younger man picked it up. While the older brother was outside the house talking to the owner, Mr. Burgoyne turned the car around and then got out to share a bottle of beer with his other passenger. The autopsy later revealed that Mr. Burgoyne had a blood alcohol content of .13 percent which in 1949, according to the coroner, was not considered enough to result in intoxication. The sharing of the beer and the fact that Mr. Burgoyne and the older brother knew each other may have put the taxi driver off his guard. [Next column]

Norman P. Burgoyne. (Source: Fredericton Daily Gleaner, January 11, 1949, p. 12) Suddenly the older brother heard a shout calling him back to the car. When he got there he found Mr. Burgoyne unconscious and bleeding. The younger brother had hit him with the hammer, killing him almost instantly. Both men rifled Mr. Burgoyne's pockets and took his watch. Then they drove away with the body between them on the front seat. They stopped at a gravel pit where they went through the dead man's pockets again and concealed his body in some bushes beside the Richibucto Road. Afterward they drove the car to Minto and back to Fredericton, ensuring that their movements had plenty of witnesses by picking up a hitchhiker and waking people up to ask directions. The killers washed the car and retrieved Mr. Burgoyne's body, which they stuffed into the trunk. The older brother then drove the car to St. John, ostensibly to ditch it there. But after socializing with acquaintances he drove it all the way back to Fredericton and left the car on the Wilsey Road. Along the way he slid into a ditch and had to be pulled out by a truck driver. Thanks to the older brother's cooperation and the bungled attempts to cover up the crime the police had little difficulty gathering evidence against the killers. Mr. Burgoyne's watch was found in their stove where they had attempted to burn it. The brothers were both convicted of murder. They were sentenced to hang and the executions were carried out in July. Execution Poems, a book of poems based on the murder, was published by George Elliott Clarke, a cousin of the brothers, in 2001. In 2005 Clarke published George & Rue, a novel dealing with the same case. Both books examine the racial and other factors in the brothers' background that turned them into killers.