Francis William Desmond - Polygraph test exonerated Montreal black who spent 13 months in prison

William Francis Desmond

   
Police arrested William Francis Desmond, 23,  on 27 October 1962 and charged him breaking into a  fourth floor home on Dorchester Boulevard W. 

   Desmond had a job and lived with his wife on Souvenir Street in Little Burgundy. He told police they got the wrong guy.   

   The 53-year-old Mrs.Victor Leblanc had told police that an intruder entered her home on 17 October at 8:45 a.m. Someone came in through a rear window from a fire escape. 

   The thief held a knife on her and she handed him $25 from a dresser drawer. The thief also raped her, she said. She identified Desmond as her assailant.  

  Desmond provided an alibi which demonstrated that he was somewhere else at the time. Authorities were not moved by his explanation and he was charged. A judge refused him bail while awaiting trial.

  After his 11 months, his theft trial was finally before a judge. 

  Desmond's lawyer Maurice Hebert had some special evidence for Judge Marcel Gaboury to consider.  He had organized a pair of polygraph tests by conducted by a Montreal police detective to prove that Desmond was innocent. 

   Desmond passed the lie detector tests and Judge Gaboury acquitted him of the charge on 27 September 1963. He acknowledged the lie detector results in his report but played it down, pointing out that the victim's identification of Desmond was doubtful and that Desmond had "an almost perfect alibi." 

  Desmond, however, was forced to remain behind bars while awaiting another charge of rape. He was acquitted of that charge on 23 January 1964. He returned home to his wife after spending 13 months in prison for crimes he didn't commit. 

   Desmond voiced his feelings to a reporter from La Patrie after finally being returned to freedom. "When someone is sentenced to prison for commuting a crime he's guilty of, it's hard, but he eventually accepts the punishment. He knows he had to pay the price for what he did. But when they make someone rot behind bars waiting for a trial, he might start losing your mind. I think he might eventually just confess to any crime. I think I'd rather have done this time for a crime I actually committed." 

   We don't know what become of Desmond, although we suspect he's related to George Desmond, a much-loved local figure who was shot dead in a bar on St. Antoine in 1987. 

   Polygraph test results are not considered eligible evidence in courts of law.