Scully mystery: brothers from a respectable Montreal family died violent, unexplained deaths

   A pair of English Montreal brothers died inexplicable and violent deaths over a six-month span starting just before Christmas 1976.
   The duo of deathly disaster triggered head scratching that leaves scalps torn and fingernails worn to this day.
(The following contains no photographs of the principal characters, brothers Richard/Stuart and Robert Scully. Prepare for the subtle disappointment of being deprived of visual stimulation.)
 The Scully clan launched William Scully Ltd, the family firm, in 1877. They moved it to Montreal from Toronto in the early 20th century. They  became noted Montreal entrepreneurs and world warriors, with the family making a name in the metal plating business.
  Richard Scully was born in 1944 and was routinely known as Stuart. By 1976 he was aged 32 and had a PhD from the Sorbonne.
   Richard/Stuart, had a son, Will (born around 1974, still alive) with wife Martha Baskett (1948-2020) who taught at Westmount High School. Richard/Stuart had a pair of brothers, John and Robert, as we shall see.
  Richard/Stuart appears to done well with the family business which specialized in creating military medals and memorabilia.
   Richard/Stuart spent significant money renovating his parents' country home and buying them new cars. He founded the Richard Scully Memorial Fund for Poor and Handicapped Children with the help of Jacques Lavoie, Conservative Party MP for Hochelaga, who later said that everybody loved Richard Scully, "on ne lui connaissait aucun ennemi."
   One assumes that Richard/Stuart came into this money in a legitimate manner, although the small family business did not appear to be a massively-profitable enterprise at that time, or now either.
  None of the love people had for Richard/Stuart Scully did him any good on Thursday 23 December 1976 as an unidentified gunman plunked a trio of heavy caliber bullets into Richard Scully as he rode an elevator at 500 Adelard on Nun's Island.
   Montreal police detectives Jacques Gamache and Guy Gelderbom told a reporter a few days later that they were narrowing down some suspects but nothing was ever heard of the case again. 

   Theories about Richard/Stuart's killing abounded. Some thought the killer might have had some gripe against the family business, or that the killer had simply killed the wrong person. 
   William/Stuart's brother Robert, meanwhile, was a little less successful. 

   Robert Scully had taught English with his girlfriend Laurel Hopwood-Jones in Japan but in the time after his brother's death he was described as being unemployed. He was also listed as a director of his family's business. 
   Robert was considered a gentle soul but one theory is that he killed Richard/Stuart out of fraternal rivalry. There's absolutely no evidence to support this notion. 

   Indeed Robert sought to figure out who killed his brother and he worried that the same killers might target him as well. 
  By mid-1977 Robert Scully was living in a basement apartment at 5575 St. James on Oxford Park in NDG.*.
   On the afternoon 29 June 1977 Robert, aged 35, talked to his younger brother John, 24, on the phone. It was a normal and aimiable conversation and they made plans to see each other the next day.
  They hung up after about 20 minutes. Minutes later Robert was dead, blown up by a pipe bomb he had been building for reasons unknown. Robert also kept a gun in the apartment but it was not linked to any crimes. A reporter noted that Robert had anti-separatist articles taped to his wall but whatever he was doing with his bomb remains a mystery.

  Robert's death was deemed an accident and was not subject to a murder investigation, although some imagined that foul play was involved. 
 The final remaining brother Robert spent the rest of his days trying to figure out what could have caused the deaths of both of his brothers in such a short span.
 The William Scully Company survives to this day and is located at 2090 Moreau in the East End.


*by some coincidence a pair of young adults suffered a similarly sad fate in the building right next door in January 2014, as they perished in a fire.