Canadian murderer, one of last two criminals executed in Canada (1962)
On December 11, 1962, Ronald Turpin was one of the two last people to be executed in Canada.[1] Turpin had been convicted of the murder of Metropolitan Toronto police officer Frederick Nash, 31. On 12 February 1962, Nash pulled Turpin over for a broken taillight while the latter was fleeing from a robbery.[2] The two men got into a shootout, and Nash suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen. Turpin was hit twice, once in the arm and once in the face, giving him a scar on his left cheek.
The method of execution was hanging, and the sentence was carried out at the Don Jail. The other prisoner simultaneously executed was Arthur Lucas, who had been convicted of an unrelated murder. The CBC reports that when both men were informed that they would likely be the last people ever to hang in Canada, Turpin said, "Some consolation."[3] Alternatively, the Toronto Star reports Turpin to have said in his final hours "If our dying means capital punishment in this country will be abolished for good, we will not have died in vain".[4]
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