Le Devoir, April 26, 1920, p. 5

FINAL TESTIMONY

THE GAGNON TRIAL WILL CONCLUDE TOMORROW - MONSIEUR ARMAND LAVERGNE WILL DELIVER HIS CLOSING ADDRESS IN ENGLISH – WITNESSES REPEAT THEIR DEPOSITIONS - "PEOPLE WILL START TALKING SOON ENOUGH."

Quebec City, 6 (D. N. C.). – Attorneys for Télesphore Gagnon, accused of the murder of his young daughter Aurore, have brought in Maître Armand Lavergne as their English-language counsel, who will deliver the closing address in English for the mixed jury. One of the jurors neither understands nor speaks French; consequently, all proceedings are being conducted in French and English.

When the trial resumed on Saturday, the witnesses heard included Constable Laurent Couture, Madame Arcadius Lemay, Madame Octave Hamel and Monsieur Adjutor Gagnon. All of the witnesses, with the exception of Adjutor Gagnon, had been heard at the trial of the Gagnon woman and merely repeated their previous testimony as to the condition in which they found the victim.

The witnesses stated that the child’s injuries were quite visible to whomever took the trouble to look at them.

Madame Lemay stated that, when the accused noticed that the victim was unconscious, he asked if she had been in that state for a long time and if she had made a confession. The witness asked that the child’s grandmother be brought in but Gagnon answered: "People will start talking soon enough." To this Madame Lemay replied: "People will talk with good reason. I warned you and you did nothing."

The accused told her that he had stopped beating Aurore as it was useless, and that he had decided to place her in a Reform School. When Madame Lemay replied that it was no place for a child of her age and that he should send her to a convent, he answered that he did not have the means to do so.

To Madame Hamel, who drew his attention to the marks on the child’s body, Gagnon answered that he did not know what had caused them. She herself washed the child, who was very dirty. The child was limping. Gagnon was there. He appeared to be discouraged and he said he thought that this would all drive him crazy.

Adjutor Gagnon, the only new witness in the affair, spent 15 days at the home of the accused. He saw him beat the child with a small switch, but not in a brutal way.

It is believed that the trial will conclude tomorrow.