Ernest Lanthier, 50, was arrrested for stabbing his roommate Edward Cross, 72, to death in his room on the fourth floor of the rooming house at 67 Craig W., on April 13, 1956.
He later told a jury in October that he knew nothing about the stabbing.
Lanthier was an unemployed labourer and was drunk at the time. The jury found him guilty of a reduced charge of manslaughter.
The reason we note this specific event?
We like the pic of the detectives lighting his cigarette after arresting him.
This indicates that cops were pretty tender towards their suspects at the time, or at least they were when they knew photographers were present.
If that image isn't enough to convince you, here is another picture of a Montreal cop Gerard Ducharme with a 21-year-old bank robbery suspect from October 1956.
A long-established technique is for the police to placate a suspect being arrested and later in the interrogation room by offering them coffee, soda, and/or cigarettes, or--better still--when the suspect asks for it in order to put them at ease rather than be faced with an uncooperative or hostile individual. People tend to be more talkative under the influence of caffeine or nicotine or both.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you seen this on various cop TV series.
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