On May 31, 1909 Aurore Gagnon was the second of five children farmer Télesphore Gagnon and his first wife Marie-Anne Caron. They were Roman Catholics living in Fortierville, Quebec, Canada. Marie-Anne was hospitalized in 1916 for tuberculosis. This would cause Télesphore's widowed cousin Marie-Anne Houde and her two sons to move into the home for help. On November 6, 1917, 2-year-old Joseph (the youngest) was found dead in his bed. This death was found to have been natural.
The children's mother soon followed suit on Jan. 23, 1918 and died of tuberculosis at the Beauport Asylum. In the following week, Marie-Anne Houde and Télesphore married. There was evidence of abuse against the children. At 10-years-old in September of 1919, Aurore had been hospitalized for more than a month with a severe leg infection caused by abuse.
The poor girl seemed to have been tortured by her stepmother. Her stepmother would then lie to her father and her father would also reprimand her. Her stepmother would torture the girl in various ways including being flogged, and at one point forced to eat toast with lye on it. She would also gag the girl, strip her down, tie her to a table and brand her with a hot iron poker. This would lead to the girl's death.
On Feb. 12, 1920, Andronique Lafond, a physician living in Saint-Jacques-de-Parisville (Parisville), who was called to the Gagnon home. Aurore was laying on the couch with a pillow on her head and a spread up over her neck. She was found to be in a coma state when he arrived. He noticed she was covered in wounds and she would then succumb to sepsis (blood poisoning) and exhaustion. Bloodstains were also said to have covered the room the child slept in. She had an autopsy and it was found that she had 54 wounds on her body and 50 of them from blunt instruments.
The Couple was then put on trial. At the time Marie-Anne was also pregnant with twins There were numerous witnesses for the fatal abuse and this included Aurore's stepbrother and sister.
Marie-Anne went to trial first on April 13 to 21. At trial, the fact that she was pregnant was used as a defense. They changed her plea to not guilty due to insanity. Claiming because her pregnancy caused her to act like this to the girl, Out of 8 physicians, only 2 agreed with the defense. Regardless she was found guilty and was sentenced to hang on October 1st. Her sentence was later changed to life in prison. In July of 1935, she was released, but on May 12 of the next year, she died from cancer in Montreal.
Télesphore Gagnon’s trial was also held at Quebec, April 23-28. He was found him guilty of involuntary homicide, or manslaughter, He was then sentenced life in prison, but after five years he was released and went back to his home village. In 1938 he would marry his third wife and die in 1961.
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