Was Nova Scotia’s last hanging a wrongful conviction?

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In July 1933, two white Halifax boys were found dead by the train tracks. Daniel Perry Sampson, a Black World War I veteran, was hanged for their murder. 

Almost a century later, his great-great-grandson – a celebrated musical artist – is fighting to clear his name.

“I first started hearing about this from my grandmother when I was around 11 or 12,” says Lance Sampson, aka Aquakultre, a three-time Polaris prize-nominated artist who won the 2018 CBC Searchlight competition.

“It wasn’t really until I got a lot older, like closer to my 30s, where I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, getting to know who she was, where she retold me this story. That’s when I really started to feel the weight of it.” 

He tells the Verdicts & Voices podcast that she knew her grandfather wasn’t guilty, and believed that “until the day that she died.”

The two young boys who died, Bramwell and Edward Heffernan, were aged 10 and 12. 

“Initially, many people thought that they had died because of a horrible interaction with the train, but there was an inconclusive coroner’s inquest that didn't provide answers,” says David Steeves, a civil litigator in Toronto and Lance Sampson’s lawyer.

“That led to questions within the community, a failed police investigation that went on for months that didn't get an answer, and questions really as to whether it was a maniacal murderer, somebody who was just shy of criminally insane who killed the boys, or whether it was the train. And there weren't any good answers.”

Months later, the police arrested Sampson and said he confessed to murdering the two boys and signed a confession. 

“Years later, we know that just wasn't true,” Steeves says. 

It was about three years ago that Lance Sampson connected with Steeves and asked him to find information about his great-great-grandfather.

“I ended up doing a bit of research at the Nova Scotia archives. It was around midnight one night, and I pulled up Daniel’s marriage record. I looked at it, and my jaw hit the floor,” Steeves recalls.

“The reason why was because I saw Daniel’s full signature, witnessed and certified with his ability to read and write by the officiating Church of England minister. So, Daniel could read and write.”

That was significant because the RCMP officer who arrested Sampson said he signed his purported confession with an X because he didn’t have sufficient education and didn’t know how to read and write. Steeves says that was the first clue that something was wrong with the conviction.

He set out to find more information, submitting access-to-information requests to the RCMP and Library and Archives Canada to get the police force’s investigative file. Initially, he was told there were no files to share. 

“Given that this was the last execution in Halifax, they should have had documents,” Steeves says.

He filed a complaint with the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, which investigated and initially told him that Library and Archives had nothing. Steeves persisted, and nine months later, he heard that there was, in fact, an RCMP file that included at least a dozen pieces of fresh evidence clearly demonstrating prosecutorial and police misconduct. 

He sent the info to Lance Sampson, who couldn’t quite wrap his head around what he was looking at, particularly the document bearing his great-great-grandfather’s signature.

“I still think my reaction to it is still kind of fresh. I don't think I've experienced a feeling like this where I’m actually on the right side of justice…It was very meaningful … to hear what (my grandmother) knew to be true all this time. It was really great to be able to give her that.”

Steeves has since filed an application for a review of the criminal conviction. A year and a half later, he’s still waiting for a response. 

“The government has very clear evidence that a miscarriage of justice occurred. Frankly, I think this is one of those cases that shouldn't lead to an investigative stage. It should be referred directly to the Court of Appeal,” he says. 

The unfortunate reality is that justice will have to come posthumously. But Lance Sampson says making sure the case gets full consideration from the government will help illuminate just how common injustices like this have been for Black communities in Canada. 

“…What it does for our generation is it gives us a national situation that's happening in our community, that we can actually look back to understand what that injustice was and look forward to the future of understanding how important it is for us to fight for justice.”

He says it will feel great to finally see his grandmother’s wish of having Sampson’s name cleared come true, even if it is after her death. 

“It's going to feel great for her to finally not have the burden of holding on to this truth, and nobody understanding or listening to that truth.”

Tune into the full episode to learn more about the Sampson case and how a poem helped inspire Steeves to pursue it.