BC’s last execution

Nathaniel Christopher 17 Comments

April 28, 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of British Columbia’s last execution.

Leo Mantha's death certificate (click for high-res PDF)
Death certificate for last man executed in BC (click for high-res PDF)

Leo Anthony Mantha was a tugboat operator and former sailor. He was gay and wanted to have a long-term  relationship with his boyfriend Aaron “Bud” Jenkins.  Jenkins tried to break up with him and Mantha lost his shit and stabbed Jenkins to death. He was subsequently tried, convicted and executed.

Bud Jenkins and Leo Mantha
Bud Jenkins and Leo Mantha

Capital punishment was on the books in Canada until 1976 when Parliament narrowly voted to abolish it.  The only method ever used in this country was hanging.

In British Columbia most executions were carried out at Oakalla prison in Burnaby. Initially the gallows were located in the prison courtyard but later moved inside to an abandoned elevator shaft.

The prison was torn down in the early ‘90s and the site is now occupied by a subdivision.  The site of the gallows is now a non-descript park where middle class people walk their dogs and go for morning power walks.

Jean Howarth (1917-2004) was a reporter at the Vancouver Province at the time of the Mantha execution. An opponent of capital punishment, she wanted to shed the light of day on legislated killing. She witnessed Mantha’s execution.

I believe that her article, which appeared the day after the execution, is the most harrowing, sobering and sincere thing ever written about Leo Mantha.

Howarth, Jean. “Mantha dies on the gallows.” The Province [Vancouver] 29 Apr. 1959

Jean Howarth

Leo Anthony Mantha dropped to his death down the old elevator shaft at Oakalla at 12:07 Tuesday morning.

He came into the bleak little concrete room looking frozen and expressionless and he didn’t say anything.

Mantha had been convicted of murdering Seaman Aaron Jenkins in his bunk at HMCS Naden naval base at Esquimalt last September.

The murmur of the priest’s prayers came with him. After half a minute the priest stopped praying, because there wasn’t anything to pray over any more.

ALWAYS QUIET

My invitation to the hanging had sad that I must be there at 11:45 p.m. So I was there.

A young guard took me down to the prison.

“It’s very quiet,” I said.

“It’s always quiet nights like these,” he said.

“The others… seem to mourn.”

We came up to the prison door and a guard unlocked it and let us in. A guard at the door took my invitation.

“Is it your intention to witness this?” he said.

“Yes.” I said.

“It’s a pretty grisly business for a woman.” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I think it’s time women in Canada knew how grisly it is.

People kept coming in. The six members of the coroner’s jury came and sat solidly along a wall. Mantha’s lawyer George Gregory came, with another lawyer.

The condemned man had asked for them.

He had asked for the prison doctor, Dr. R.G.E. Richmond, to come too and certify him dead. The doctor said he (Mantha) wanted some friends around him at the end.

ENJOYED DINNER

The doctor said that Mantha had eaten a good dinner… a T-bone steak… and enjoyed it.
Mantha was very calm, he said, calmer than most condemned men that the doctor had seen. He needed only a mild sedative, a tranquilizer.

The priest had been with him since 8 o’clock. They had prayed the last hour and a half with a stop once for a cigaret. He had given the priest a sealed letter for his sister down east.

LINE KEPT OPEN

Warden Hugh Christie came in then. He said Mantha had wanted the lawyers because he had no family and he wanted to be sure it was all done right.

There was a link open to Ottawa, but they didn’t expect the phone to ring.

The hangman came.

He is a very short man, very fat with little round eyes like black buttons behind horned rimmed spectacles. He carried a strap in his hand to fasten Mantha’s leg as he stood on the trapdoor; and he wore a black beret.

VERY LONG TIME

We seemed to have been there a very long time and I looked at the clock wishing it was over, and then feeling a terrible guilt at rushing the time.

And then suddenly Warden Christie looked at the door and nodded his head.

We were all walking very rapidly then out through a locked barred door and another, and up some stairs and into a little rectangular cement room.

FENCED WITH STEEL

Gallows at Oakalla Prison
Gallows at Oakalla Prison

The room had a trap door in the floor, fenced around with steel. Standing around it and facing away from it was a row of prison guards.

We went down to the end of the room behind another steel fence. There was silence for a minute. And then we heard the shuffle of feet and Leo Mantha came in with his hands strapped behind him. The priest’s voice murmuring prayers.

The hangman put his strap around his legs and pulled a black cloth over his head and the noose.

And stepped back and reached down to a little lever on the floor.

THEN WAS SICK

Only I put my hands over my face then because I was sick.

I didn’t go down to view the body. I couldn’t.

Mantha was 31 and unmarried. Last Sept. 5 he had stabbed a sailor friend as he lay in bed. They were homosexuals and they had a fight because the young sailor planned to get married.

I went to see Leo Mantha hanged because I do not believe in capital punishment. It was my idea that I go.

A man had been assigned to the job and the  managing editor did not want to let a woman go. None of my superiors did. It made them uncomfortable.

SAW SHERIFF

I went to New Westminster myself to ask permission of Sheriff Frank Cotton. When I told him what I wanted he said at once, “No, I couldn’t.” then he added, “I’m not trying to deny you, just to protect you.”

But he agreed to listen to me.

I told him why I wanted to go. That a hanging was the responsibility of all Canadians and that I did not think we should do in the dark corners what we could not face in the light. That I would not be writing it hysterically or dramatically, but with as much sober truth as I could muster.

After a while he said, “will you sit out in the other office and let me think for a while?”

I sat in the other office for 21 minutes. Then he opened the door and beckoned me in. He was looking grey and unhappy.

“I have decided to let you go,” he said.

I am a resident of Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada who has blogged here for 20 years. I like to share my thoughts and feelings on my own online space. From 1998 until 2017 I worked as a journalist and I hope to use this website as an archive for all of my stories.

17 Comments

  1. Need to reinstate capital punishment. Many BC citizens would agree that child molester and murderer Clifford Olson and serial rapist killer Robert Pickton immediately come to mind. Make it public – televised live to spread the news that there is serious punishment for crime in this currently stupid retarded ineffective liberal justice system.

  2. Good to know that capital punishment has been abolished by law in Canada, wish we could say the same here in the States. What surprised me was the speed in which the sentence was carried out- here capital sentences drag on for years, and may end with a reduced sentence or even a finding of “Not Guilty” and a full pardon after lengthy appeals.. Some prisoners on Death Row die of illness or old age before sentence is carried out.
    Some may indeed deserve to die- my argument concerns the barbarity of state-sponsored killing in cold blood and the possibility of discovering that the wrong person has been executed. The state can always take life- but can never restore it.
    Lest some claim that I am a soft-hearted liberal, I retired from a career in the criminal justice system a few years ago. Carried a badge and a gun… just sayin.

  3. I never learned about executions in BC, this is a good article, thanks for all the history.

  4. A lot of memories in my old age about four sailors who served together.
    A very close friend of mine, whom I served with in the Canadian Navy, had shared the gospel about the saving grace through Jesus Christ with Jenkins a short time prior to his murder. Jenkins replied that he didn’t want any of that, he died a short time later.
    I myself served as a Chaplain to truckers, (Transport for Christ) children’s worker and missionary on the Alaska Highway, B.C. in a hamlet named Wonowon, B.C. Mile 101. The reason for remembering this story is: In 1959 I was busy working on a new parsonage roof on Good Friday after leaving the RCN. I was thirsty, but wanted to get the stove pipes through the roof, it could get to -40F. I reluctantly went to the café, upon entering I could hear a voice swearing and cursing. I knew the voice, here was a friend from my navy days whom I used to drink and serve with. I hollered to him, he offered me a drink of rum, I replied, “No, I don’t drink anymore.” He countered, “Ya, I heard you had gone religious!” ‘Not even for old times sake,” he asked. I nodded my head in the no symbol. We sat and talked about our navy time. I then asked him about salvation he stated, “No Way!” He then told me of how he had grown up in a Christian, God fearing home. I pleaded with him and he intimated if that was all I had to talk about then he was leaving, he got up, I paid for our coffee and followed him to a truck he had flagged down for a ride. I climbed up on the running board and pled for him to come to my -40F home. He said, “Look, I’ve told my Mom and Dad that I’m living for Christ and plan to go to Bible School. This always makes them very happy, that’s all that matters to me, now get off the truck and leave me alone.” So, with a heavy burdened heart I went back to my chores. A while later an RCMP cruiser pulled into the yard, asked questions then had me go Mile 115, Alcan Highway to identify my friends body. The new tie rod ends on the just repaired truck broke, the truck had hit an embankment after it flew through the ditch, my friends body, no seat belt, flew threw the open windshield which had popped and he was flung out through the opening with the truck running over him as he hit the ground.
    What would the life story of these two sailors have been like had they asked Christ to forgive them of their sins and then gone on living for Him?

  5. Leo Mantha taught my Dad how to play crib …in return my dad taught Leo to play chess…………..they became friends through the bars at Oakalla prison where my dad was a guard in the 50’S/60’s

    Derek,my dad …would of worked with George…he would of been about 86/87 if still alive…..
    He talked of Leo often.

  6. Thank you for the article.I met an 85 year old gentleman named George who told me part of this story. George was a guard at Okalla and knew Leo. George said that he came to like Leo and shook his that last night.

  7. My Gran’pa was with Leo Mantha the hours leading up to his execution, he had 2 copper pictures made by Leo as a gift for my granma! He spoke of him fondly and often.

  8. I am a historian in Vancouver, interested in Francophone history in BC.

    Is Léo Mantha related to the Mantha family of Maillardville / Coquitlam, BC?

    Where was he buried?

    Thanks for any help.

  9. interesting about bc’s last execution
    it mentions frank cotton who was the sheriff of new Westminster at the time I used to play golf with him he presided at many hangings.

  10. Thank you.
    Leo was my cousin, and I appreciate the insight I have received from this report.
    My time with him the previous summer was that he was not like anything that transpired later on.

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