Family’s decades-long fight to clear Montreal man’s name finds new hope

Nearly 70 years after his execution, Wilbert Coffin’s family still fights to clear his name.

Nearly 70 years after he was executed, Wilbert Coffin’s sister Marie says it’s still painful to talk about him.

He was a veteran, a jack of all trades and a convicted murderer.

On Feb. 10, 1956, Coffin was hanged at Montreal’s Bordeaux prison. Marie maintains he is innocent.

“No one can imagine what my brother and family went through, when this terrible thing took place,” Marie says, now 95 years old. “And why was something like that allowed to happen?”

His son Jim is also fighting to clear his name.

He remembers his dad as the man who came home from work with chocolate bars and walked up to the gallows without fear on his face.

“How would you feel yourself, with a rope around your neck? Not kicking or screaming or cursing at people,” Jim says. “This is how strong this person was. I hope I have his strength.”

Coffin was executed for murdering one of three men from Pennsylvania. They were bear hunting in the Gaspé woods.

His case went all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court, enduring several unsuccessful appeals and pleas for pardon.

In 1964, Quebec’s Brossard Commission investigated and validated the conviction.

Then, nearly 50 years after his death, Canada’s House of Commons called for yet another investigation, but there was no exoneration.

It seems at every step, Coffin’s guilt has been affirmed.

But several lawyers who have studied his case say he’s innocent.

“It’s clear that his case has all the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction,” says Kathryn Campbell, a Montreal lawyer who launched the Wilbert Coffin Affair Podcast. “He was, quickly targeted by the police, as he was the last person to see the three American hunters alive ... he had a horrible lawyer who presented no defense.”

She says then premier Maurice Duplessis could have used his political influence to quickly close the case and limit financial losses for the tourist trade.

“Anyone who knew him and knew the kind of person he was could see that he was a scapegoat for a political party that needed to really clean up this case quickly,” adds Campbell, who is also a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Department of Criminology.

But today, his family still has faith.

“Someday justice will be served. I firmly believe that,” says Marie.

And they’re turning to the federal Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission being formed now. It can’t overturn guilty convictions but can review cases and potentially offer remedies.

“It’s a matter of priority now,” says Jim. “70 some years, doesn’t he get some sort of priority with the commission and everything?”

The Federal Justice Department couldn’t say when the commission will be up and running or which cases it will start with.

In the meantime, Coffin’s loved ones are holding on to hope that his reputation will be restored within their lifetimes.