Item
St. Croix Courier
March 24/1960
Algonquin Opens June 22 with Rotary Convention. 175 delegates from Maine and Maritimes. 3 weeks later than 1959. Expected to close Sept. 10 with Maritime Professional Engineers. Maritime Hospital Association; Canadian Ladies Golf Union July 4-5; Barristers' Society of New Brunswick July 7-9; New Brunswick Medical Society Aug.31-Sept 1. CPR's Digby Pines gearing up with similar slate. Lakeside in Yarmouth not to open this year. Conventions at Digby Pines listed.
St. Croix Courier
April 7/1960
Archie Skinner leaving to reside in Fredericton.
St. Croix Courier
April 28/1960
Quoddy Tidal Project Hits Rough Waters at Hearings
Winnipeg Free Press
June 4, 1960 Page 20
Woman, 28, Accused of Murder
St. Jerome, Quebec. (CP)
Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary, 28, the great grand-daughter of Sir William Van Horne, Friday was charged with murder in the rifle-slaying of a man at a drinking party in her Laurentian home May 16. Judge Omer Cote set preliminary hearing for Monday.
The victim, Clifford Bruce Bridger, 33, was shot with a .22 caliber rifle after he and another man accepted Mrs. Weary's invitation for a round of drinks in her home at Ste. Adele, 45 miles north of Montreal.
The twice-married Mrs. Weary's great-grandfather was the first general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway. She was divorced from her first husband and is estranged from her second, Martin T. Weary.
Husband in Court
The 30-year-old estranged husband is also before the court, charged with assaulting photographer Marvin L. Aitken, 26, who was with Bridger at the time of the shooting. He faced trial July 19.
As Mrs. Weary was being led from the courtroom to a cell pending Monday's hearing, she said: "Isn't it awful, Martin and I having to appear in the same court. And we aren't speaking either."
At a coroner's inquest earlier this week, when a jury found Mrs. Weary criminally responsible for Bridger's death, she testified she fired the shot accidentally.
Says She Slipped
She said she slipped when she went out to the balcony of her home to investigate a noise and the rifle discharged. Mrs. Weary said she had borrowed the rifle for protection against prowlers who had been lurking near the house for some weeks.
As a 17-year-old before her first marriage, Mrs. Weary was the object of a month-long search after her grandparents in Montreal reported her missing. She had stayed with them after the death of her parents.
Montreal Star
May 17, 1960
Man Killed in Gunplay in Ste. Adele
A young woman is in Montreal General Hospital following a shooting at her Ste. Adele home last night in which a man was killed.
Detective Inspector Maurice Valiquette of the Provincial Police said Mrs. Beverley Weary, 27, of 52 Montreux Avenue, Ste. Adele, was receiving treatment for shock.
The dead man has been identified as Clifford Bruce Bridger, 32, of St. Adele, formerly of the Lake St. Denis RCAF base at St. Adolphe de Howard, Que. Detective Sgt. Arthur Gagnon and Michael Deltorquio, who investigated the shooting said it apparently occurred following a social evening with friends at the young woman's home. They took possession of the weapon, a .22 caliber rifle.
Insp. Valiquette said three men, including the victim, had been sitting on the verandah, of Mrs. Weary's home. ˇThe single shot was fired about 11 pm. Coroner Dr. J. Taillon, of St. Jerome, who performed an autopsy at Ste. Adele today, said the bullet had pierced Bridger's left arm, entered his side, and lodged in his heart.
St. Croix Courier
May 26, 1960
In Toronto Hospital
A. A. Shirley Dies at 74
St. Andrews
A wide circle of friends learned with regret of the death of Archibald Andrew Shirley, which occurred at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto May 18.
Born in St. Andrews Aug.15, 1885, he was a son of the late James A. Shirley and Mary (Weatherby) Shirley, of Little Ridge.
He was a graduate of the Charlotte County Grammar School and the University of New Brunswick, and Queen's University, Kingston, Ont. For many years he held a position with the General Electric Company of Peterborough, Ont.
Laer he returned to St. Andrews, where he was associated with his father in the hardware business. He also successfully conducted a photography studio in St. Andrews.
He was a member of Greenock Presbyterian Church and Seaside Lodge No. 9, Knights of Pythias. He moved to Ontario some years ago, where he had been residing. He was an adherent of Knox Church, Toronto, and a member of the Knights of Pythias in Toronto.
A service of prayer was held in Peterborough, and the remains were brought to St. Stephen, where a largely attended service was held at MacDonalds Funeral Home Saturday morning, conducted by the Rev. J. A. Jardine, minister of Kirk-McColl United Church. Bearers were St. Andrews friends, D. G. Hanson, James Boone, Fred Treadwell, W. John Stickney, Lionel McCullouch and Edward Williamson.
Service at the graveside was conducted by George Brown, chancellor commander of Seaside Lodge, Knights of Pythias.
Burial was in the St. Stephen Rural Cemetery. There were many beautiful floral tributes. Friends from St. Andrews, St. Stephen and outlying districts attended the funeral.
Montreal Star
June 3, 1960
Murder Charge Laid in Rifle Shooting
William Wardwell
Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary was charged in St. Jerome today with the rifle-murder of Clifford Bruce Bridger, at her Ste. Adele home during a drinking party May 16. The charge appeared to stun the 28-year-old divorcee, who is now estranged from her second husband.
Defense counsel Fred Kaufman told Judge Omer Cote that "we are distressed by the charge of murder in view of the evidence made at the inquest." He asked for an early preliminary inquiry Judge Cote set it for Monday and Crown Prosecutor Lucien Thinel, QC, said he saw no reason why it shouldn't proceed on that date.
Mrs. Weary and husband Martin Clarence Weary, 30, sat 20 feet apart in the courtroom and both as accused. Weary, however, is free pending trial on a charge of assaulting Marvin L. Aitken, 26-year-old Ste. Adele photographer, at the Weary rented home on Ste. Adele's Montreux Avenue April 29.
As she was escorted from the courtroom to a jail cell pending Monday's hearing Mrs. Weary emitted a semi-hysterical laugh and said: "Isn't it awful, Martin and I having to appear in the same court. And we aren't speaking either."
Weary's trial was postponed to July 19 at the suggestion of Mr. Thinel, who told the court Mrs. Weary was a star witness in that case but that it shouldn't proceed today in view of her plight.
According to police, Aitken alleges that Weary hit him and threw him out of the house. Aitken was one of the witnesses at the inquest into Bridger's death. Bridger, who lived in Ste. Adele after serving with the air force at St. Adolphe de Howard, Quebec, was killed by a .22 bullet that struck him in the left arm and heart.
Mrs. Weary became hysterical after the shooting and spent a week in hospital, most of the time under sedation. Wearing a dark grey suit, white blouse tied at the throat and a feathery little hat, she stood quietly before the judge today except for a startled look when the word "murder" came from the charge read by the court clerk. Prothonotary Jean Charles Marchand. "You are accused of having on or about May 16th, 1960," he intoned, "illegally caused the death of a human being, namely Clifford Bridger, thereby committing murder."
At the preliminary inquiry Monday the Crown's task will be to make a prima facie case, upon which the court will decide whether to commit in trial and on what count. Bail is rarely granted in murder cases but generally set in manslaughter.
Mrs. Weary sat impassively for a half hour in the well filled courtroom before her name was called. Her husband's case was called before hers. He stayed on until she was arraigned, looking at her several times. She gave him two long looks, both as detached as those with which she examined the other spectators and the courtroom furniture.
Montreal Star
June 4, 1960
Woman Remanded in Rifle Shooting
By William Wardwell
Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary was remanded at St. Jerome today to June 13 for judgement on whether she is to be committed for murder or a lesser charge in the rifle slaying of Clifford Bruce Bridger at her Ste. Adele home May 16. Judge Camille de Martigny set the date after a preliminary inquiry into the murder charge, at which one witness was heard. The rest of the evidence—on consent of the prosecution and defense—consists of the depositions of eight witnesses at inquest into the death of Bridger, 33.
Mrs. Weary, 28, sat quietly through today's proceeding. The only witness was Marvin L. Aitken, 26, a Ste. Adele photographer, who testified that on May 15 Mrs. Weary asked him to lend her a rifle "to give her a feeling of security in the house." He testified he met her at the St. Germain Hotel at about 9 pm that day. "We stayed there for a few hours until around 12 or 12:30. We had a few drinks." He said that afterwards he went to Mrs. Weary's home with her and that she asked for the rifle while they were chatting. "She was in the mood to talk," Aitken testified. "I'd been working late the previous few nights. I fell asleep on the chesterfield and woke up at 10 o'clock in the morning. At first I didn't want to give her the rifle but she insisted. I went home about 11:30 and sent the rifle back by taxi. I wrapped it in heavy brown paper."
Aitken testified that he sent along with the unloaded .22 caliber rifle eight or nine cartridges. He said he got a call from her around 3 o'clock that afternoon inviting him over. He stayed on and during the evening a man named Fred Lane turned up with Bridger. "Everybody had some drinks. we had a few beers. We sat around and talked. The conversation was general. The man who came (Bridger) was a stranger. I'd only met him by his first name Bruce."
Aitken said there were five or six people in the house and that finally he and Bridger went outside on the balcony for some air because the house was getting pretty smoky." He said it was around 10 pm when Bridger went inside, to emerge within a few minutes and tell him (Aitken): "Come in and have a drink."
Said Aitken, "Just about that time there was a shot. Bridger put his hand on his chest. He staggered and fell against the balcony rail. "I thought he was maybe sick from too much drinking, but when I turned him over I saw the blood. I ran into the kitchen and almost ran into Mrs. Weary." Aitken was asked by crown prosecutor Lucien Thinel, QC, where the rifle was at that time. He replied that he believed Mrs. Weary had it. He said he asked her "What happened? What did he do?"
Witness said Mrs. Weary didn't seem to understand. He said he told her Bridger had been shot and that she said "Don't be crazy. What are you talking about?" Aitken said he also told Lane what had happened and that he wouldn't believe it either. "I had to pull him outside by the arm."
After Mrs. Weary saw the victim, Aitken said, she became in a state of shock and started to get "a bit hysterical." He testified he next saw the rifle on the bed in Mrs. Weary's room. He opened it and removed a spent shell which he put in an ash tray. "I put the rifle out of her sight in a cupboard. Seeing the rifle seemed to affect her."
There was no cross-examination of Aitken by defense counsel Joseph Cohen. Fred Kaufman or Emmet Kietars.
Mr. Cohen contended that Judge de Martigny would be unable to commit on the murder charge. "Your Lordship would have to find an intent to kill or an intent to would with recklessness as to whether death ensued. I believe you will not find a title of evidence of intent."
Mr. Cohen contended that from the evidence the incident was more mishap. No motive had come from any of the evidence Bridger was a stranger in the home. The testimony at the inquest was not before the court of preliminary inquiry but we may file it late and we will find it bears out what I say."
Prosecutor Thinel said that in law people bear the responsibility for acts they commit. "Events of that day certainly justifies the charge of murder as laid," he said of Mrs. Weary. "A rifle and shells were delivered. Subsequently a shot was fired and someone was killed. There is a continuity in the events of those two days. Mrs. Weary is estranged from her second husband. She has two children by a first marriage which ended in divorce. Her rented home is on Ste. Adele's Montreux Street, where she had been living with her children and a housekeeper. She is being held at the St. Jerome jail. Her husband awaits trial next month on a charge of assaulting Aitken at her home in April.
Winnipeg Free Press
June 14, 1960
Reduced Charge for Heiress
St. Jerome, Quebec (CP)
Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary, 28-year-old heiress to a railroad fortune, today was committed for October trial on a reduced charge of manslaughter arising from the May 16 rifle slaying of Clifford Bruce Bridger, 33.
Judge Camille de Martigny set fail at $5,000 cash and two bonds.
At an earlier hearing Mrs. Weary had been charged with murder.
Judge de Martigny said today his review of the evidence disclosed "neither a suspicion nor an iota" of proof or murder.
Manslaughter carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The next Terrebonne County assizes are scheduled to open October 4.
Bridger was fatally struck by a .22 caliber rifle bullet after he and two other men had accepted Mrs. Weary's invitation to drop in for a drink at her home in Ste. Adele, 45 miles north of Montreal.
Mrs. Weary is the great grand-daughter of the late Sir William Van Horne, first general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
St. Croix Courier
June 9/1960
CNR Predicting another record breaking tourist season. More crossings than ever between New Brunswick and PEI. CNR ships handled 390,000 passengers and over 140,000 vehicles in 1959, an increase in vehicles of 133,000 over 1946. No passenger rail cars to be handled during this period, leaving space for additional 48 cars and trucks daily.
St. Croix Courier
June 16/1960
Hollywood Air at Campobello. Players recreate FDR's story. Greer Garson staying at Welshpool.
St. Croix Courier
June 30/1960
Robichaud wins premiership of New Brunswick
St. Croix Courier
June 30/1960
Busy start for resort. Algonquin Season Opens. Until it opened, the Algonquin had been a house divided. The spacious wings of the hotel, housing public rooms and 230 guests rooms, were divided into working sections where busy housekeeper and other staff members supervised preparations for the formal season opening.
A staff of more than 200, including many undergraduates from universities in the Maritimes and Central Canada, has been assembled for summer duties. An advance guard has been hard at work for some time to prepare the way for the hordes of summer tourists and convention visitors.
Andre Pittet, chief, has descended from the rarefied atmosphere surrounding CP's Banff Springs in the Rockies to supervise the Algonquin's interior world of flaming ovens and gleaming pots and pans. He's been at work arranging for a season's supply of provisions and doing advance calculations on breakfast, luncheon and dinner menus.
Well-known Maitre d'Hotel Ernest Mueller has returned to the Algonquin to oversee those hotel resources which cater to the gastronomic expectancies of his guests.
Head housekeeper Alice Purton doesn't use electronic equipment but she can effectively spot tattle-tale grey a mile away. Years of experience in the hotel business guided her in the scrutiny, sorting and distribution of snowy banks of bedroom and other linens. . . .
The Algonquin's mechanical staff finished routine checking of office equipment before beginning the countdown for the launching of the 1960 hotel season. Hotel manager Frank Howard and assistant Peter Monaghan officiated at the control panel.
St. Croix Courier
July 7/1960
Hazen McGee dies at 59. Born at Back Bay, moved to St. Andrews 1920. Electrical business until joined Algonquin as electrician. Chief engineer when retired last year. At on town council; held other offices. Wife Gladys Horsnell, St. Andrews. Sons Herbert and Blair McGee, Roxboro, Quebec; Douglass, Montreal; Robert , Toronto; Peter and Paul, St. Andrews. Daughters and siblings listed.
Louis J. Robichaud 1960-70
Premier of New Brunswick
Liberal Jul 12, 1960
St. Croix Courier
July 14/1960
Charlotte County Charms Praised by Ad Executives. Restaurant facilities lacking.
St. Croix Courier
July 28/1960
CNR on shopping spree to outfit newly extended Hotel Nova Scotian. (Over the last ten years CN has been aggressively advertising its train and hotel facilities; competition with CP)
St. Croix Courier
Aug 4/1960
Tourist travel over St. Stephen bridge surges—9,000 car increase over 1959. Total of 32,175 from April 1.
Courier
Aug 11, 1960
County Landmark Flattened by Flames in Chamcook area. Rossmount Inn charred as Hundreds see Fire. Details
St. Croix Courier
Aug 18/1960
Milltown-Tourist Parking Area to Overlook Falls.
St. Croix Courier
Aug 25/1960
Conventions at Algonquin—125 Maritime Lumber Dealers Association; 275 New Brunswick Medical; 300 Maritime Professional Engineers.
St. Croix Courier
Aug 25/1960
Railway Service Dropped.
Maine Central Railways is going out of the passenger business. Sept. 5. End of existing connecting passenger trains from Saint John to Boston via Vanceboro and Portland. Daily connections to Boston maintained by number 41 and 42 trains CPR—Atlantic Limited—between Saint John and Montreal; connections at Montreal and Sherbrooke. Recent loss of 1,511,000 reported by Maine Central to Maine Supreme Court.
St. Croix Courier
Sept 15/1960
Algonquin Shuts Doors on Busy 1960 Season.
The last full-dress affair held under the Algonquin roof was a banquet for Dept. heads Saturday. Presentation to Peter Monaghan, promoted to accountant Palliser. Manager F. L. Howard termed the summer "successful." (faint praise) 8 conventions with regular guests from Florida to Pacific coast. (convention business low and late)
St. Croix Courier
Sept 15/1960
Poem titled "High Flight" by Pilot Officer John G. Magee, Jr., "Oh, I have slipped the surly bands of earth . . . . Put out my hand and touched the face of God." Cf. Peggy Noon's famous speech for Ronald Reagan, in which she quotes this poem. RAF, 1941.
St. Croix Courier
Sept. 15/1960
Grey Inn, Milltown, to Run as Hotel. St. Stephen local businesses report good summer.
St. Croix Courier
Sept 29/1960
D. A. Williams to return to Algonquin 1961. Howard to move to Digby Pines and Cornwallis Inn, CPR hotels. (Haven't sold Pines yet)
Montreal Star
Nov 16, 1960
Mrs. Weary Trial
Physician Testifies Woman Hysterical Following Shooting
By Brian Upton
St. Jerome—Nov 16—Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary became extremely hysterical when told Clifford Bruce Bridger was dead, her doctor testified today. Dr. Louis Normand Vermette recalled for a court of Queen's Bench jury events of last May 16 when Bridger was shot with a .22 caliber rifle on a side balcony of Mrs. Weary's seven-room St. Adele home. He said that Mrs. Weary, who pleaded not guilty in a charge of manslaughter, called him at 10:45 at his office in Ste. Adele and said, "Hurry up, a man is dying."
Dr. Vermette said he arrived a few minutes later and established that Bridger, 33, and ex-member of the RCAF, was dead. "I noticed then the normal reaction of a woman in a case of death," he added. "She became extremely hysterical." "She kept repeating that this couldn't happen in her home and kept crying and running about."
The doctor said he then gave her a sedative and she fell asleep in a few moments. He added that he returned to Mrs. Weary's home at 3 am hen called there by provincial homicide detectives.
Yesterday, the Crown declared it would attempt to prove that Bridger, who is survived by his wife and a child, died as a result of an act of criminal negligence.
Dr. Jean Marie Roussel, Provincial medical legal expert, testified yesterday that Bridger was killed by a single .22 caliber bullet that punctuated the lungs and aorta—main heart muscle. He said Bridger died "very rapidly" after the shot was fired. The bullet, he added, travelled on a "horizontal plane" through the victim's left arm and the chest, or "parallel to his shoulders while in a standing position."
Dr. Roussel said the rifle, one of the main exhibits before Mr. Justice Georges Reid, in Court of Queen's Bench, from which the bullet was fired, could not have gone off without exerting "normal pressure" on the trigger. Test, he added, indicated that the weapon could not go off by a sudden jar such as falling on the floor. Crown Prosecutor Raymond Raymond, QC, outlined what he termed a "sad case of culpable homicide." "The Crown intends to try to prove the accused did not have full control over her faculties," the night the victim was killed and the in fact quite of lot of liquor was consumed."
Mr. Justice Reid rejected two objections from defense lawyers Joseph Cohen, QC, and Fred Kaufman, based on what they called an irregularity in the indictment and in the prior procedures of preliminary hearings and voluntary statement of Mrs. Weary.
Montreal Star
Nov 17, 1960
Thriller-style Statement Describes St. Adele Shooting
By Brian Upton
St. Jerome, Nov. 17
A 2,000 word statement written by Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary, which declares that the shooting of Clifford Bruce Bridger, 33, at her St. Adele home was an accident, was the main evidence before a Court of Queen's Bench jury here today.
A 10-page hand written document, in prose not unlike parts of a paperback detective "thriller, read aloud, climaxed yesterday's proceedings in the manslaughter trial of the 28-year-old railroad heiress. Mrs. Weary wrote the piece on the bench of her cell at Provincial Police headquarters in Montreal on May 20, two days after Bridger, a member of the RCAF, died on the balcony of her St. Adele home from a .22 cal. bullet during the course of a drinking party.
The statement, produced by Crown Prosecutor Raymond Raymond, QC, and Fernand Legault, was allowed for the jury's consideration by Mr. Justice Georges Reid after defense lawyer Joseph Cohen, QC, and Fred Kaufman made no objection.
Cross examination of Crown witnesses, detectives and police matrons, indicated that Mrs. Weary wrote it voluntarily and in the spirit of one—according to one witness—wanting to "write the story of her life."
Mrs. Weary's story starts with the departure of her husband Martin C. Weary on Jan.1, 1960, and the fact that she then lived along with her two children of her first marriage. She then rented her husband's room to Marvin R. Aitken, a photographer of St. Adele. She says that Martin Weary forced his way into her house on April 21, knocked her out, and threatened nursemaid, Mrs. Marguerite Paquette, and Aitken. The rest of the statement covers a number of weeks and includes hiring by Mrs. Weary of a private detective as guard, telephone threats received, arrest of her husband on a charge of assault on a warrant sworn out by Aitken and other incidents.
Among the latter, the loosening of the left front wheel of the car of her lawyer, Paul Gelinas, of St. Agathe, while on his way to her husband's assault hearing; flat tires on her own car and a broken steering mechanism; flat tires on Mrs. Paquette's car, and the fact that "I heard prowlers around the house."
On a Sunday shortly before the fatal shooting on May 16, Mrs. Weary's statement reads that she met Aitken (who had by now ceased to be a lodger) "Quite by accident" and that she asked him to come home with her, which he did. When he left the next day, she asked him to send her one of his rifles by taxi. She received the rifle the same morning, loaded it, and put it in her bedroom cupboard and then "drank beer till noon." Others who came to the house that day, May 16, included Marvin Aitken, Ted (Shady) Lane, her lawyer, Mr. Gelinas, and Mr. Bridger. Mrs. Joyce Elfstrom had been her guest for some time.
It was "Shady," she says, who brought Bridger, whom she had never met before and "didn't know his last name" but who was "intelligent, amicable and had a good sense of humor." "We made a date to get together again."
Her lawyer, who "doesn't drink," left the party. She said that while Bridger drank "very stiff" rum and cokes and she and Aitken drank beer, an argument developed between Aitken and Bridger. They left her bedroom for the veranda. She claims that she heard a car drive up and hoped it "wasn't Joyce's boyfriend" and took the gun and "went to see." While going out onto the veranda, wet from rain, in her stocking feet, she slipped and she heard the rifle go off. The next thing she knew, her statement says, is that Aitken told her Bridger had been shot.
Aitken, 27, photographer now living at 4552 Courtral street, Montreal, a friend of Mrs. Weary's, testified today that he was sitting five feet from Bridger on the balcony of Mrs. Weary's home when the victim collapsed. Aitken said he had heard a sound that he realized later must have been a shot although it was "not very loud." The witness said he couldn't believe at first that anything serious had happened and he shook Bridger and said "come on, quite fooling." He said that Bridger had been in a standing position when shot. Aitken said then he rushed in through the kitchen door where he came face to face with Mrs. Weary who had the rifle, which he had loaned her earlier that day because she was afraid of prowlers, in her right hand.
Aitken said he told Mrs. Weary that "something has happened to Bruce. I think he is shot." He said Mrs. Weary's reaction was one of disbelief. She said, "What are you talking about?"
Montreal Star
Nov 18, 1960
Manslaughter Case
Mrs. Weary Trial Witness Recalls Night of Shooting
By Brian Upton
St. Jerome, Nov. 18—The only person who appeared to have had a lot to drink on May 16, the night that Clifford Bruce Bridger was killed by a .22 caliber bullet at the home of Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary in St. Adele, was the victim, Mrs. Weary's housekeeper testified today.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Marguerite Paquette, 48, and Bridger, 33, an RCAF radar man at nearby Lac St. Denis, who died of a single bullet through the chest "has many drinks."
Testimony of Mrs. Paquette, a servant of Mrs. Weary for three years, backed up previous testimony that Bridger drank "stiff rums" while most of the other guests including Mrs. Weary, restrained their activities during the party, to beer or ale.
Mrs. Paquette said that shortly before she heard a shot she saw Mrs. Weary carry the rifle by her right hand at the barrel and through the living room. At the time she was watching a television program entitled "History of Amour" and paid little attention. Nor was she surprised she said when she heard the shot. Mrs. Paquette said that Mrs. Weary previously had one or two rifles and sometimes shot out of the rear window into the ground "as there were no houses on that side." The housekeeper declared she paid little attention to the carrying of the rifle by the accused or the subsequent shot because "my mistress is an intelligent woman" and not apt to do anything unusual.
Joseph Cohen, QC, acting for the defense, made his first cross examination of a witness today since the trial started on Tuesday when he asked Mrs. Paquette whether Mrs. Weary was left or right-handed. It turned out Mrs. Weary was left-handed. All witnesses have said that Mrs. Weary had the rifle in her right hand a few moments after the shooting. One of yesterday's witnesses, Mrs. Joyce Elfstrom, 39, said in Court of Queen's Bench here that Mrs. Weary borrowed the rifle to scare off prowlers. Mrs. Elfstrom, who said she had been spending the weekend at the cottage declared they both had consumed a "few beers" during the day and evening but that the accused "never appeared to be intoxicated."
She said she had been on the telephone at the time, around 9 pm, when she heard a noise that she later declared must have been the shot which dropped Bridger, a member of the RCAF who had been posted at a radar station at Lac St. Denis.
Earlier testimony showed that Bridger was standing in a corner of the verandah, eight feet from the kitchen door, talking to Marvin R. Aitken, 27, former Ste. Adele photographer now living at 4552 Courtral street, Montreal, when the bullet sliced through his heart and lungs in a line parallel to his shoulders. Aitken, who rented a room in the cottage after Mrs. Weary's husband left her on Jan.1, also testified that he heard a shot but did not connect it at first to the sudden collapse of Bridger. Aitken said it was he who sent the rifle to Mrs. Weary that morning, by taxi on "her insistence." He also sent along eight or 10 cartridges.
After Bridger fell on the floor and he tried to raise him, Aitken said he ran in the kitchen door where he met Mrs. Weary with the rifle in her right hand. The accused showed disbelief when he told her that "Bruce had been shot," he said. Aitken then said he went to Edward Thomas (Shady) Lane, 36, of Shawbridge, who had brought Bridger to the house, who was chatting in the living room but "he didn't believe me" He finally pulled Lane by the arm and brought him out to the verandah.
He said he then called a doctor but later found this already had been done apparently by Mrs. Weary and took an empty shell out of the rifle and put it in a clothes cupboard "since it seemed to upset Mrs. Weary who was hysterical." Lane, who according to Mrs. Weary's 3,000 word written declaration "flaked out" twice during the evening, testified that he noticed the accused carrying the rifle around the living room at one point before the shooting but "didn't pay much attention."
Under cross examination by Crown Prosecutors, Fernand Legault, QC, and Raymond Raymond, Lane, who worked in a Ste. Adele store which sells boats and engines, remembered that it was he who sold the rifle to Aitken "about a month before."
"Did you notice whether or not the rifle was loaded?" asked Mr. Legault. "I wouldn't even know if it was loaded by looking at it," said Lane, "though perhaps I should." Lane said Bridger was in his store during the afternoon when Mrs. Weary phoned and invited him to the party. While he was talking to other customers on the phone, Bridger "whom Mrs. Weary had never met" got on the phone and the upshot was that he was invited to the house also."
Both Lane and Bridger travelled to the Weary cottage in Bridger's car. It was only a few moments after the shooting that Lane said he took his coat and left. He walked almost a mile to the store to pick up his truck, he said. In the early hours of May 17, after arrival of police. He was asked to return, he said.
Mrs. Elfstrom also left somewhat abruptly after the shooting, but this was because her taxi, from Montreal, was waiting, and the housekeeper told her that "I might as well leave since there was nothing more to be done."
She testified that she saw Mrs. Weary tear strips of clothing and attempt to try to put a tourniquet on Bridger's arm. "We all seemed to think it was only a slight wound," she said. Mrs. Elfstrom said she stopped at a hotel for a drink and decided to return to the house to see if everything was all right."
At the house, she was told to stay there by police. Mrs. Weary's police statement, written three days later in a call at Provincial Place headquarters, declared that she had been plagued with phone calls and that her car and the cars of her lawyers and friends had been tampered with prior to the shooting.
Montreal Star
November 19, 1960
Mrs. Weary's Manslaughter Trial
Sabotaging of Autos was Shooting Prelude
By Brian Upton
St. Jerome, Quebec Nov. 19.
Attempt to sabotage the autos of Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary and two of her guests, nine days before the shooting of Clifford Bruce Bridger in Ste. Adele last May 16, climaxed testimony at the manslaughter trial yesterday of the 28-year-old railway heiress. Leopold Piccard, former Ste. Adele chief of police, testified that "somebody had cut the brake oil line" of Mrs. Weary's car around May 7. Other complaints he had investigated involved loosening of a front wheel of her auto, tampering with steering mechanism and the fact air was let out of tires of two cars, parked opposite her house.
Mrs. Weary, 28, mother of two young girls of her first husband, and whose second husband Martin C. Weary, left her last Jan.1, is charged with culpable negligence in the death of Bridger, an RCAF radar man, stationed at nearby Lac St. Denis. Evidence before the Court of Queen's bench jury and Mrs. Justice George Raid is to the effect that Mrs. Weary borrowed a single shot .22 caliber rifle the morning of May 16 because she feared prowlers. Mr. Piccard said hi police records showed that investigations were made concerning a number of "strange cars" driving in the vicinity of Mrs. Weary's home and that on two occasion she went to a local garage to examine her car. In one case, the brake line had been cut and in another marks on the left front wheel indicated the wheel had been loosened, he said. In other case, the car of her lawyer, Paul Gelinas, of Ste. Agathe had two flat tires. The air had been let out of the tires, he said, on one side,—the side of the car where somebody would be concealed from Mrs. Weary's house. Another investigation, he said, was identical except that it involved the car of the son of Mrs. Weary's 58-year-old housekeeper, Mrs. Marguerite Paquette. Despite investigations no one was arrested, said former chief. The defense, yesterday, by Joseph Cohen, QC, and Fred Kaufman, after three days . . . "no questions" and . . . somnolence, suddenly came . . . life and established that . . . Weary was a left hander.
Previously, all eye-witnesses declared that Mrs. Weary held the rifle in her right hand . . inside the kitchen door of . . . Lakeside duplex, moments after Bridger was shot. This development . . . Crown Prosecutor Raymond Raymond and Fernand Legault, QC, into a huddle, but nothing . . . before came in cross examination of . . . to throw light on whatever significance it had. Mrs. Weary's 3,000 word statement to police said she tripped on the sill of the kitchen door and slipped on the wet verandah while carrying the loaded rifle. She grabbed at the swing door on her left for support when the rifle is alleged to have gone off. All previous evidence placed Bridger eight feet to the left of the kitchen door, (left of the kitchen going from inside out into the veranda.
Montreal Star
Nov 21, 1960
Judge Turns Down bid for Directed Verdict
By Brian Upton
St. Jerome, Nov. 21
A defense motion that the Court of Queen's Bench here give a directed verdict to the jury hearing the manslaughter trial of Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary was turned down today. The motion came from Joseph Cohen, QC, aided by Fred Kaufman after the Crown declared the case closed before Mr. Justice Georges Reid.
The Court adjourned until 10:15 am tomorrow when the Crown will address the Jury, followed by the defence. Mr. Justice Reid will then make his remarks.
While Mr. Cohen argued in law in support of his motion, the jury retired from the Courtroom, which is customary. The court freed the 12 talesmen until tomorrow on their usual oath that they will not discuss the case with anyone save their fellow jurors. Mrs. Weary is charged with criminal negligence in the rifle slaying of Clifford Bridger, 34, RCAF radar man at Lac St. Denis. The incident occurred during a drinking party at Mrs. Weary's lakeside home in Ste. Adele last May 16. The Crown has contended that Mrs. Weary did not have full control of her faculties as a result of drinking when Bridger was shot while standing on her balcony. The defense claims the shooting was an accident, plain and simple. Mr. Cohen said his motion, one rarely invoked, arises from the Common Law and is "not a motion of non-suit." IN effect it would have meant that the Court direct the jury to find the accused not guilty.
All Crown witnesses have testified since the trial started last Tuesday that Mrs. Weary was normal and perhaps "gay and pepped up" the night of the shooting. Mrs. Weary's own statement given to police says she felt "somewhat mellow" and sleepy from a "few beers." At the close of today's session the defense declared that it would call no witnesses. Crown prosecutors Fernand Legault, QC, and Raymond Raymond noted they would address the jury first tomorrow.
Montreal Star
November 22, 1960
Mrs. Weary Trial Nears Completion
By Brian Upton
St., Jerome, Nov. 22
The jury is expected to start weighing evidence later today after six full days of testimony in the manslaughter trial of Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary in connection with the rifle slaying of an RCAF radar man in her Ste. Adele house May 16. Mrs. Justice Georges Reid will charge the jury this afternoon. Both the Crown, led by Raymond Raymond and Fernand Legault QC, and the defense represented by Joseph Cohen QC and Fred Kaufman ended lengthy addresses shortly before 1 pm. Mr. Raymond asked the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty because the charge that of "wanton misconduct" was provided. There was criminal negligence, he said, by the fact Mrs. Weary carried a loaded cocked rifle around in a house full of people. "This showed reckless disregard for the safety of the lives of others, he said, and resulted in the death of Clifford Bruce Bridger, and RCAF member station at Lac St. Denis near Morin Heights.
Mrs. Raymond said it was immaterial whether the accused was drunk or sober or as to exactly how the gun went off. He said what was important was that she had a gun in her house in the first place despite the fact that Ste. Adele has a police force of three men equipped with a radio car and there were three male guests in the house. Mr. Raymond's reference was to the claim Mrs. Weary had made in a statement to the police that she feared prowlers and that shortly before Bridger was shot she thought she heard a noise and went out to look with the gun in her hands. what was strange, he said, was that none of the other guests in the house appeared to have been disturbed by whatever noise Mrs. Weary said she had heard.
Montreal Star
Nov 23, 1960
Jury find Mrs. Weary Not Guilty
By Brian Upton
St. Jerome, Nov. 23
A verdict of not guilty of manslaughter was brought in at 11:07 am today by a 12-man jury in Court of Queen's Bench in the case of Mrs. Beverley Ann Weary, 28. The verdict was handed down by foreman Guy Kirby after he and the other jurymen deliberated for seven hours yesterday. They came to a unanimous decision at 10:30 am today after spending the night in a local hotel. Mrs. Weary, wearing a black beaver hat and trim charcoal grey suit and white scarf did not change her expression when she heard the decision. She maintained the same look of composure she has had throughout the seven-day trial. After thanking the jury for their work, Mr. Justice Reid declared: "I now liberate the accused."
The jurymen from the Terrebonne district appeared to be hopelessly deadlocked here at 11:30 o'clock last night after deliberating almost steadily from 4:35. Mrs. Weary was charged with criminal negligence in the rifle slaying of Clifford Bruce Bridger last May 16 during the course of a drinking party in her Ste. Adele home. the Crown contended she was guilty because she walked through her house moments before the fatality with a loaded and cocked .22 caliber rifle. The defence claimed Ms. Weary, because of previous unnerving events, has sufficient reason for having the gun and was acting normally until the "unfortunate accident."
Evidence during the trial which started last Thursday showed that Bridger . . . RCAF radarman, originally of Alberta, was as stranger to the accused and a casual guest brought by a friend of Mrs. Weary's the night he was killed. Mrs. Justice George Reid told the jury in an hour and 40 minutes address that he did not believe parts of the statement by Mrs. Weary nor parts of the testimony of witnesses. Reading at length from Mrs. Weary's 3,000 word statement to police, the judge recalled her earlier trouble with prowlers and alleged threats from her estranged husband and tampering with her car and the cars of her lawyer and another guest. On the Saturday evening previous to the accident he said Mrs. Weary and Mrs. Joyce Elfstrom, 39, slept in the Livingroom because they were nervous. Yet the same night she goes out alone and by chance meets Marvin R. Aitken, Ste. Adele photographer, who came home with her and spent the night on the sofa. The next day she borrowed the rifle from Aitken and that evening Bridger was killed. Mr. Justice Reid said he did not believe the testimony a Ste. Agathe doctor who had pronounced Bridger dead, that he did not smell beer on Mrs. Weary's breath. Nor could he accept, he said, testimony of other witnesses that "everything was normal" when Mrs. Joyce Elfstrom wandered about dressed in only a towel.
The judge noted discrepancies in Aitken's testimony and the statement of Mrs. Weary. Aitken said he had no argument with Bridger, but Mrs. Weary said they argued and then went outside. The judge said he also found implausible the explanations of Mr. Weary that she slipped going out the kitchen door onto a balcony where the rifle was fired. Recalling evidence that the bullet went through Bridger on a line parallel with his shoulder while in a standing position, the court suggested the bullet "must have started from the rifle at a parallel angle," which would not be the case in a fall where the bullet would go up at an angle. He questioned why Mrs. Weary should have removed the rifle from the closet when she heard noises, possibly of prowlers, outside. There was a man in the house and two men on the balcony, he noted. "So why go outside if you're afraid?"
The judge also noted that none of the other guests had heard any unusual noises. The Crown, led by Raymond Raymond and Fernand Legault, QC, urged a guilty verdict on grounds the accused showed "wanton misconduct" or criminal negligence in handling the rifle. This was because she carried a "loaded, cocked rifle around a house full of people," said Mr. Raymond, "showing reckless disregard for the lives of others." He said it was immaterial whether she was drunk or sober. The question was, he said, was it necessary to have the rifle in the first place, especially when Ste. Adele had a police force and Mrs. Weary had no reason to be afraid whence there were men in the house.
Mr. Cohen said the Crown failed to prove the charge—"complete abandonment of common sense in committing the act." Mrs. Weary's immediate action was to call a doctor and try to apply two tourniquets which was hardly the attitude of one being irresponsible. The accumulation of unnerving events prior to the shooting including threats from Mrs. Weary's estranged husband, tampering with the brakes and steering of her car and other cars was reason enough for her to borrow the rifle, he said. "She had also heard prowlers and called police," he added. "Her husband threatened he would break her bones and make sure she was crippled and ruined for life," Mr. Cohen said. The cumulative effect was to build a frame of mind of a state of persecution and sabotage, he added. Mrs. Cohen said the Crown "skated over" its original intention to prove Mrs. Weary was drunk after evidence of Crown witnesses amounted to a complete denial of this. Her sobriety was proven by her actions immediately after the accident, he added. "These actions speak louder than even the testimony of the witnesses." Mr. Cohen said it was pure and simple accident that Mrs. Weary tripped on the weather stripping of the kitchen door and the rifle went off. The maid and her children had often tripped on the same doorstep, he recalled.
St. Croix Courier
Dec 15/1960
Photo of fire truck presented to St. Andrews by Sir James Dunn Foundation.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
35th President of the United States (January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963)
Nickname: "JFK"
Born: May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts Died: November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas