WILBERT COFFIN'S MOTHER TESTIFIES BEFORE THE BROSSARD COMMISSION (CONTINUED)

AVANT DE CONTINUER LE TÉMOIGNAGE DE LA MÈRE DE COFFIN DEVANT LA COMMISSION BROSSARD, JE VOUS RAPPELLE CE QUE WILBERT COFFIN A DÉCLARÉ À LA POLICE

Dans sa déclaration statutaire, assermentée devant un juge de paix, le 6 août 1953, Wilbert Coffin n’a pas mentionné avoir vu une STATION WAGON. Voici la description que Wilbert Coffin a donnée de la JEEP qu’il a vue :

BEFORE PURSUING THE TESTIMONY OF COFFIN’S MOTHER BEFORE THE BROSSARD COMMISSION, LET ME REMIND YOU WHAT WILBERT COFFIN DECLARED TO THE POLICE.

In his statutory declaration, sworn before a justice of the peace, on August 6th 1953, Wilbert Coffin did not mention having seen a STATION WAGON.
Here is Wilbert Coffin’s description of the JEEP he saw:

“THEN WE WERE RIGHT STRAIGHT BACK IN THE WOODS, WHERE WE ARRIVED AT AROUND 4.00 O’CLOCK P.M. AND THERE WAS A JEEP THERE WITH TWO MORE AMERICANS.
IT WAS LIKE A BOXED-IN JEEP, WITH A COVER IN THE BACK, DARK COLOUR.”

WILBERT COFFIN’S MOTHER TESTIFIES BEFORE THE BROSSARD COMMISSION (continued)

MR. JACQUES HÉBERT:
Q. When you say your daughter and her husband, whom do you mean?
A. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart.
Q. What happened there ? What did you do?
A. We went to Mr. Patterson, to the garage, and he said that, as far as he knew, he remembered such a station wagon. It was two men in it, two Americans and they had stayed all night at the hotel… I don’t know what hotel; I am not familiar with Madeleine.
Q. Did he give you a description of the station wagon?
A. Well he said it was practically the same as what I had mentioned, with a plywood box. There was nothing, no paint, or anything on it. It was just like natural colour.
Q. No, paint on it?
A. No, nothing. It was just a natural colour of plywood.
Q. Did he say anything else about this station wagon and these Americans?
A. Well, they had been at his garage and they had asked and inquired about bear hunting. They knew nothing about bears, out there.
Q. Did these people come back the next morning after?
A. Well, the next morning he seen them, they drove west, on… That would be towards Murdochville, I suppose.
Q. Now, how is it, that you remember those facts so precisely?
A. I have never done anything like that before, so it stuck in my memory.
Q. You had never done…
A. I had never done any investigation like that.
Q. That is why it stuck in your memory,
A. Yes.
Q. Now, what did you do with this information?
A. We gave it to Mr. Maher.
Q. Yes, and what happened?
A. He did not seem to be very much interested. Mr. Patterson was never subpoenaed to appear but at the time the trial was taking place, my son Leslie telephoned him and asked him “would he come and testify” and he came, but there was nobody called.
Q. Did you introduce him to Mr. Maher, or did someone else do it?
A. I don’t remember whether I introduced him or whether it was my son. I don’t remember that part.
Q. But they met?
A. They met, yes.
Q. Where was that?
A. In the courthouse.
Q. Outside of the courthouse?
A. Yes.
Q. And do you remember what Mr. Maher decided about this?
A. Well, as far as I remember, he just told him, if he needed him, he would call him.
Q. And did he not call him?
A. No, not at all.
THE COURT:
Q. You were not yourself called to testify, were you?
A. No.
Q. And you did not testify about the facts on which you have just spoken, this afternoon, at the trial?
A. No.
Q. Do you remember at what time, what day exactly his return from his trip to Montréal and up north, you son would have spoken to you about this?
A. He told me that evening he arrived at home, that evening about six o’clock (6:00).
Q. The very evening he arrived?
A. The evening he arrived and while he was eating his lunch we were talking about it, and he said that.
Q. That would have been before he actually reported to the police?
A. Yes, he did not report until the next day, to the police. It was about six o’clock (6:00) in the evening when he came home.
Q. And did you know afterwards that your son had not spoken to the police about the station wagon, but he had spoken about a jeep. Do you remember that?
A. He always called it a station wagon, in my hearing. I don’t know what he called it when he was speaking to somebody else.
Q. He really mentioned a station wagon?
A. Yes, he mentioned a station wagon.
Q. Do you know that, to the police, he spoke of a jeep and not of a station wagon?
A. I don’t know that for I was not present.
Q. You were not informed of that?
A. I was not present when he spoke to the police.
Q, When you told Mr. Maher about this conversation which you had had with your son what did Mr. Maker tell you?
A. Oh, he said, he just went like this… (raising her shoulders)
Q. Did he himself mention the fact that what your son had said was that he had seen a jeep, not a station wagon?
A. I don’t know… I don’t think he mentioned it at all to me.
Q. Mr. Maher did not mention that?
A. I don’t think he mentioned to me either a jeep or a station wagon.
Q. But he did not ask you to come and testify?
A. No.
THE COURT:
If I may, I think he was wise! That’s all, as far as I am concerned.
ME JULES DESCHÊNES, Q.C.
Legal Counsel to the Commission
I have just a small thing My Lord,
Q. Do you recall distinctly Mrs. Coffin what were the exact words, which your son used in that conversation when he came back from Montréal?
A. I told him that the police said that he had been the last one that had seen the men and he said: “When I left them, this station wagon was there with two Americans.”
Q, Are you sure, that he had used the expression “station wagon”?
A. Yes, he used the expression “station wagon” and then he described it.
Q. You are positive that he said “the station wagon”?
A. I am positive.
Q. Do you know if your son had any experience in automobile or truck, or things of the kind?
A. Well, yes he had driven one for several years and he had worked at his brother’s garage.
Q. He had worked in a garage?
A. Yes.
Q. In the weeks or the months, or the years before, would you remember your son having ever used in front of you, the word “jeep”?
A. Well, yes he used it because he was overseas in the war.
Q. So, he knew very well what a jeep was?
A. Yes.
Q. And you remember that, at times, he would have used that word “jeep” in front of you?
A. Yes, because, of course he knew a jeep. Anybody who had been in the war knew a jeep.
Q. And yet when he came back from Montréal, he did not speak of a jeep, but he spoke of a station wagon?
A. A station wagon, yes.

AND FURTHER DEPONENT SAITH NOT

I, the undersigned, Claire Delaney, Official Reporter, of the Superior Court, District of Montréal, hereby certify under my oath of office, that the foregoing is and contains a true and faithful transcript of my notes.
And I have signed,
Claire Delaney
Official Reporter