EXPERT PÉCLET'S TESTIMONIES IN THE COFFIN AFFAIR

The American hunters'

pick-up truck

Richard Lindsey's knife found

by police at the appartment

of Coffin's mistress in

Montreal

EXPERT PÉCLET'S TESTIMONIES IN THE COFFIN AFFAIR

COMING SOON:
A) L’INCIDENT THOMPSON

I Francis Gabriel Thompson’s personality;

II The Miami events;

III Notary J. Conrad Moreau’s trip;

IV Thompson’s alibi;

V Thompson’s credibility;

VI Conclusions.

N.B. DONT MISS THIS CHAPTER FROM THE BROSSARD REPORT ON NOTARY MOREAU’S TRIP TO MIAMI. ITS FANTASTIC, INCREDIBLE AND STAGGERING! JACQUES HÉBERT AT HIS BEST!

B) EXAMINATION OF WILBERT COFFIN, MARION PETRIE AND LEWIS SINNETT;D) THE CASE OF VINCENT PATTERSON;

C) THE TWO PRISONERS WHO WERE PROMPTED TO TESTIFY AGAINST COFFIN.

EXCERPT FROM THE BROSSARD REPORT, VOLUME 2, PART VI, CHAPTER 9

EXPERT PÉCLET’S TESTIMONIES
(A literal translation by Clément Fortin)
In his first book, Mr. Jacques Hébert accused Mr. Bernard Péclet, expert in ballistics with the Provincial Medico-Legal Department, of having misled the jury as to the absence of traces of nitrate of potassium around the perforations seen on one of the victims’ clothes. He retracted in his second book. (Pages 128 and 129)
At page 127 of his book, Mr. Hébert had, however, in a note, stated that « the expert of the Crown had only used half of the perforations for his analyses; he had handed over the other half to Dr. Lucien Gravel, an expert for the defence, who had confirmed Péclet’s testimony ». Examined in the course of the present inquiry, Mr. Péclet stated that he never heard officially of Dr. Lucien Gravel’s results. However, the Commission obtained, with difficulties from Mtre Gravel, the information that, he had been advised verbally by Dr. Gravel that he could not contradict Mr. Péclet’s findings.
On the other hand, we have obtained from Mr. Péclet the following information:
a) In the course of spectrographic analyses, he believed having detected traces of vanadium on many objects having belonged to Coffin, and on pieces of clothes of one of the victims; he did not mention it at the trial because he did not believe that the presence of vanadium on these effects might have been conclusive enough to allow him to give a positive opinion; a few years later, discoveries made in Germany confirmed him that he was right to not affirm before the jury that the vanadium that he had detected, a trace of it, might have allowed him to state that Coffin might have something to do with the clothes he had examined;
b) At the trial, he has always said all that it was scientifically possible for him to say, without answers being dictated to him by the police or by one or the other Crown attorneys.
c) At the trial, after having been examined in chief, when he realized that the defence attorneys did not wish to ask him question or had nothing to ask him, he went, at an adjournment, to see Mtre Maher, who was at that moment with his colleagues Mtre Gravel and Mtre Doiron, and asked them to call him back to the witness stand to ask him questions that he suggested to them; these were the questions that were subsequently asked by Mtre Maher. He states that in the course of his analysis and research, he has not found anything interesting, either for or against the accused that he would subsequently have hidden. He states that on the 18th of December 1960, he handed over to Mr. Hébert a copy of the testimony he had given at the trial.

If Mr. Hébert had taken the time to read Mr. Péclet’s testimony, he would not have treated so casually certain passages of certain justices of the highest court of the land.
(TO BE FOLLOWED)