Executed Cordelia Viau double hanging 4 x 6 photograph 1899

You will get a copy of this original photograph that came from the prison where she hug with her lover for committing together the murder of her husband Isidore Poirier.

On November 22 1897, Isidore Poirier, Cordélia Viau’s husband was found killed stabbed and throat cut in his house in Saint-Canut. Cordélia and her handyman lover (Samuel Parslow) we’re accused of the murder. After two trials they were both accused and hanged of March 10 , 1899. 

On March 10, 1899, in the small town of Sainte-Scholastique, Cordélia Viau was executed alongside her accomplice, Samuel Parslow, for the homicide of her husband, Isidore Poirier, in their house in Saint-Canut. In the month preceding her execution, the Viau family – her parents, three of her sisters, and a brother-in-law – set out to campaign for mercy on behalf of Cordélia. Their efforts were a strategic appeal to the wife of the Governor General, Lady Minto, documented in the archival capital case file. This unusual strategy of appealing to the wife of the Queen’s representative rather than the Governor General demonstrates an understanding of the power of the emotions shared between the women, as mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. Unfortunately for Cordélia, the emotions they hoped to provoke, such as sympathy, pity, and piety, were not compelling enough to save her life. At the same time, the press covered the case with sensational details. Newspapers such as La Presse, La Patrie, The Montreal Daily Star, and The Gazette sought to provoke emotions in their readers by using stereotypes about women and violent crime, highlighting the shame of murder and hangings, and dissecting the actions of the crowd that gathered to witness the execution. Alongside the private and public emotions raised by the case, early abolition sentiment appeared in articles describing the execution.

This rare original picture is not even on the internet. It’s a rare photograph taken at the time when not even newspapers were allowed to put original crime scene or execution pictures but could only draw them.

You will receive an exact copy of the original that is in our collection. The first and second is the photograph in our collection and the original is 11 x 14.

You will receive a 4 x6 of this photograph . The third shows the sketch published at the time in the newspaper.

Public hangings in Canada had ceased in 1869, but witnesses were still permitted at the discretion/invitation of the sheriff.  Additional police and prison officers had been sent from Montreal by train on March 9 to maintain order.  Depending upon which report one accepts between 200 and 600 people were present in the yard of Ste. Scholastique jail to witness the executions.  A much larger crowd had gathered outside the prison, estimated at as many as 2,000.  There was even an attempt to break down the prison’s main gate, but fortunately the bolts held.  The police were forced to fire shots over the heads of the crowd to restore order.

In the centre of the prison yard stood a traditional American style gallows with steps up to the platform and two nooses tied to the beam.  A curtain was suspended from the centre of the beam, as it was normal at double hangings in Canada for the prisoners to stand back to back and not be able to see each other.  The space under the platform was enclosed by a black curtain. 

An extremely true crime collectible!