Ronald Turpin

Ronald Arthur Turpin (29 April 1933 – 11 December 1962) was one of the last two people to be executed in Canada.

Moving to Toronto circa 1960, Turpin worked for a time as a rental agent for furnished apartments. In 1961, he went to trial for assaulting his landlord, but was found not guilty. Also in 1961, he was identified as a person of interest in the unsolved murder of small-time local criminal Lorne Gibson (a murder which remains unsolved to this day) in October 1960, as well as a suspect in a non-fatal shooting incident that happened at the apartment of Della Burns (his sometime girlfriend) on Wellesley Street East in October 1961. Turpin spent some time in Buffalo, New York in late 1961 and early 1962 while the police visited Burns' apartment on a near-daily basis trying to find and capture Turpin. By January 1962, he had returned to Toronto. Fearful of capture by the police, he stayed with a series of friends, seldom remaining in the same place for more than a day or two.

Murder of Frederick Nash In the early morning hours of 12 February 1962, Turpin was driving a battered 1954 Pontiac sedan delivery truck, returning from an after-hours burglary of the Red Rooster restaurant on Kingston Road in Scarborough, Ontario. Toronto police officer Frederick "Jack" Nash, patrolling alone in a vehicle near the corner of Danforth Avenue and Dawes Road in Toronto's east end, pulled Turpin over for a broken taillight. After pulling him over, Nash recognized Turpin from an earlier police bulletin concerning an apartment shooting on Toronto's Wellesley Street East in October 1961. Nash then ordered Turpin out of his truck.

Turpin did not deny he had shot Nash; numerous witnesses also saw the shooting and testified to that effect. His defence lawyers argued that Turpin was in fear for his life at the time of the incident, as he believed the police were trying to frame him for the Wellesley Street apartment shooting, and that Turpin had received threats on his life from police officers who would "shoot him on sight". This defence was unsuccessful, and Turpin was found guilty and sentenced to death after a 15-day trial.

The method of execution was hanging, and the sentence was carried out at the Don Jail. The other prisoner simultaneously executed was Arthur Lucas, who had been convicted of an unrelated murder. The CBC reports that when both men were informed that they would likely be the last people ever to hang in Canada, Turpin said, "Some consolation." Alternatively, the Toronto Star reports Turpin to have said in his final hours "If our dying means capital punishment in this country will be abolished for good, we will not have died in vain."

Despite the death of Nash, Toronto police authorities continued to send out one-man cruisers on overnight shifts, even though two-man cruisers were the norm in many other North American cities, and the norm in Toronto during daylight hours. Costs were cited as the reason. Police unions and other interested parties took the matter to court, citing Nash's death (among other incidents) as one of the motivating factors. Ontario courts finally ordered two-man cruisers to be used on all shifts starting in 1974.

Capital punishment for murder was officially removed from Canada's Criminal Code in 1976, although it could still be used under the National Defence Act until 1999. Despite being on the books as a potential penalty for many years after the 1962 simultaneous executions of Turpin and Lucas, these remained the final instances of capital punishment in Canadian history.