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Murder in Ontario – The Donnelly Family Massacre – Part 3: The aftermath

July 13, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Five people were dead in Biddulph Township, near the Ontario town of Lucan.

Four were brutally beaten to death, and one found his final reward at the wrong end of a gun. All were members of the same family.

The local coroner immediately gathered a jury to conduct an inquest into the ‘suspicious’ deaths of the Donnellys.

Local justice officials arrested 13 men in connection with the murder, including ringleader Constable James Carroll. Some reports say the number arrested was actually over 30. There was a preliminary hearing to determine whether the prosecution had sufficient merit for a formal trial before a judge and jury.

It would seem to be an open and shut case. Young Johnny O’Connor witnessed the murders of James, Johanna, Tom, and Bridget and knew several of the men involved.

William Donnelly could identify several of the men who shot his brother. He clearly saw their faces, while several others he couldn’t identify due to the darkness.

Young Johnny and his family were harassed and threatened in a bid to keep him from testifying.

A change of venue for the trial was requested as the Crown felt that a fair trial could not be held in Middlesex County. The request was denied.

The trial took place on October 4 to 9, 1880, with both Johnny and William testifying in great detail, naming those who they saw commit the murders.

Friends and family of the accused backed their alibis that they were somewhere else during the killings.

The jury deliberated, and the foreman of the jury announced there was no chance of an agreement on a final verdict – it was a hung jury.

It was a done deal before the trial even started. One juror declared that he would not have convicted James Carroll even if he had seen the killings himself.

James Carroll went on trial a second time in January of 1881. This time the trial was much smaller. The judge steered the trial to ensure an acquittal for Carroll.

Crown attorney, Charles Hutchinson, stated it was a ‘waste of time and money’ trying to secure a guilty verdict in Middlesex County because of the negative feelings towards the Donnellys.

The jury deliberated for only three hours before returning a verdict of not guilty.

It should be noted that newspaper reporters covering the trial believed the Donnelly brothers, William and Patrick’s testimony, reporting them as intelligent and well-spoken individuals, and they had a hard time believing the family were the ruffians as described by locals. At the same time, the press described James Carroll and his band as a ‘bunch of envious, dangerous, backwoodsmen’ with a sinister appearance.

In the end, no one was ever convicted or held accountable for the murders of five people.

Was this a community taking justice into their own hands when the justice system failed them, or was it mob rule terrorizing a small town?

The Donnelly family were all buried in the cemetery at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Lucan.

A few years later, the remaining family members erected a large monument with the names of the deceased and an inscription under each name that said, “Murdered February 4, 1880.’

The tombstone became quite a tourist attraction. Eventually, the parish priest had enough of tourists visiting the site to see the macabre memorial, and it was removed in 1964.

One of the Donnelly family descendants claimed the marker as property and later said it was buried in an undisclosed location. It was later replaced with a smaller marker stating only names and dates and omitting the word ‘murdered.’

As a final insult, one of the members of the mob who killed the family, named John J. Kennedy, and his family are buried in the plot next to the Donnellys.

For decades, the Donnelly murders were not spoken about much in Lucan and the surrounding area as many decedents of the murderous mob still lived in the area. Even today, some family names are still prevalent in the area, and many people related to members of the gang who killed the Donnellys, do not like to speak of the incident.

Over time, many residents of the town and township have come to regard the Donnelly massacre as part of the region’s heritage and a part of history that can’t be erased.

There is even a Donnelly museum dedicated to one of the most infamous murders in Canadian history. The surviving members of the Donnelly family went on to lead relatively normal lives, with a few notable exceptions.

James Donnelly, the oldest son, was charged with a variety of crimes and spent time in prison. He died in 1877 at age 35, possibly by gunshot, before the family massacre took place.

William Donnelly, who escaped his targeted death when his brother answered the door, worked tirelessly to bring the murders of his family to justice. He went on to become a Constable in Glencoe and died in 1897.

The third son Michael Donnelly, married and moved to St. Thomas, Ontario, to take a job with the Canada Southern Railroad. He never knew of the murders as he was killed in a barfight in 1879, one year before the massacre.

The fourth son, Patrick Donnelly, seemed to be the good son who never got into much trouble. He eventually moved to Thorold, Ontario, where he was a wagon maker, and died there in 1914.

Number six son, Robert Donnelly, ended up doing time in the penitentiary. He was admitted to the London Psychiatric Hospital in 1908 and died there three years later.

The Donnelly’s only daughter, Jennie, was not a troublemaker. She married as a young woman and moved to Glencoe, Ontario, had several children, and died in 1916.

There is no known reliable information on what became of Johnny O’Connor, the boy who witnessed the brutal murder of four people from his hiding place under a bed.

Most likely, he carried the trauma of what he had seen that night and the fact that he escaped death with him for the rest of his life.

The area around the murder site in Biddulph Township hasn’t changed much since that cold night of 1880. St. Patrick’s church, a focal point of the town, built in 1859, is still in use.

The Cedar Swamp School House, where the Vigilance Committee did much of their planning, still looks like a schoolhouse but is now privately owned and used as a storage shed.

There is a newer house on the Donnelly homestead, and until recently, the owner would give tours to curious tourists who wanted to see the spot where one of the most infamous crimes in Canada took place.

The Roman Line looks much like it did in 1880 when a torch-carrying mob loaded their guns, picked up their clubs and pitchforks, and started out on a mission to murder an entire family.

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