[stamp of the MINISTER OF JUSTICE-CANADA-JUL. 22, 1920]

La Pointe, Rivière du Loup, July 20, 20

Honourable C. J. Doherty,
Minister of Justice,
OTTAWA.

Dear Minister,
Re: Marie-Anne Houde, wife of Télesphore Gagnon, sentenced by the undersigned to face the death penalty next October first.

After the verdict of murder and the sentence, I made a brief report to the Secretary of State. This woman was pregnant during her trial and the verdict. This is why I set the distant period of October first when pronouncing the sentence of death. I waited to give you a subsequent report after she gave birth.

The time has now come for that, as the delivery took place on the eighth of July instant.

As you will note in reading the evidence and in my charge (against which

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no objections were made), the crime committed by this woman is so horrible that it exceeds all limits of wickedness and criminality.

Her second husband was a widower who had three children from his first marriage and she herself had children from her first marriage. The second husband was a farmer who owned three plots of land and a large number of animals. She lived with him for two years -- the first wife was insane and committed as such. The latter having died, the marriage took place, and she found a way to be granted a marriage contract under which the children from the first marriage were disinherited in her favour.

But her cupidity didn't stop there. The first wife and her husband were married in community of property and, as a result of the death of the first wife, the children of the first marriage inherited from their mother. If one of these children died, the father was one of the beneficiaries, and Marie-Anne Houde's inheritance became -- given the marriage contract -- all the better.

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After the second marriage, one of Télesphore Gagnon's very young children died. The evidence does not reveal how and I don't take any account of the rumours that have gone around on this subject.

Two children remained from the first marriage, Marie-Jeanne and Aurore. The latter was the one on whom Marie-Anne Houde inflicted a long martyrdom, the goal of which -- which was achieved -- was to make her die. And this was the reason why she was found guilty of murder.

I won't describe for you the refinements of cruelty and wickedness she used. The evidence reveals this to you and has made all those who are acquainted with it tremble with horror and indignation.

She hoped, however, to elude justice, and she believed she had organised enough false oaths for that, but Providence intervened and the children, on whose perjury she was counting, came to tell the truth: two of her own children proved revolting acts against her.

Crushed beneath this avalanche of evidence, her lawyer rose in the presence of the jury and declared

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that she didn't intend to try to contradict it. Her own lawyer even added that if all that were true -- and the considerable evidence that establishes it has not been contradicted -- his client was a monster with a human face.

And so the accused announced that she would plead insanity -- which is so often the last refuge of criminals whose retreat is cut off.

As for the evidence of insanity, I don't enter into the details. My charge tells you what I think of it and what the jury thought of it. It perhaps even constituted -- so trivial it was -- an actual attempt to mislead justice.

There are, however, two other facts to which I wish to draw your attention.

Twice during my charge I reminded the jurors that they had the right -- if they deemed it appropriate -- to recommend this woman for mercy. The jury -- faithful echo of the rest of the indignant public conscience -- did not do so.

Yet, at the time the jury did not know the other important fact

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I wish to bring to your attention.

After the wife's trial came that of the husband -- Télesphore Gagnon -- for the same crime. The latter was only found guilty of manslaughter because the jury believed that he had only been the unconscious victim of his wife.

The same lawyer who had defended the wife also defended the husband and his defence consisted of saying that the abominable torture that the father had himself inflicted on his child was the result of the horrible lies his wife would tell him.

She had (owing to these lies) had the child beaten on her bare skin by her father until blood splashed onto the floor and onto the partition. She made her eat excrement taken from her chamber pot and she made sure she still had some in her mouth and on her face when her father would arrive home.

These are a few of the facts that had not been proven during the wife's trial and which were proven during the husband's trial.

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I think it is useless to say any more and I leave it to you to conclude whether royal mercy must be exercised -- unless the death penalty is, as is requested here and there in isolation, in actual practice declared non-applicable to women.

On my part, I have no hesitation to share the opinion of the jury and to say that I am of the opinion that the law must follow its course.

I have the honour to be, Minister,

Your very devoted,

[signature]Louis P. Pelletier

J.C.K.B.