Cordelia Viau was born on June 22, 1865, in Ville de Ste-Scholastique, a village in Canada’s Quebec Province.
She married Isidore Poirier, 10 years her senior, who was a carpenter and cabinetmaker, at Saint-Canut on November 4, 1889 (Saint-Canut was renamed Mirabel in 1973).
The marriage was childless.
Cordelia could read and write and was a good musician, playing the church organ.
The couple lived in a house that Isidore had built, and Cordelia worked as a seamstress to help with the family income.
Isidore was a devout Catholic, and both were active in the local church.
It was at the church that Cordelia met Samuel Parslow, who was 36 at the time of his execution and was unmarried.
He worked for the Poiriers as a handyman, helping Isidore with his carpentry business and also helping out around the house.
Isidore often had to work away from home when he could not secure business locally.
In September 1895, he was working in Fresno, California, when he received a letter from his parish priest, Father Pinault, advising him to return home because there were serious problems in his marriage.
Although Father Pinault did not explicitly accuse Cordelia of infidelity as such, the inference was clear.
As is so often the case, it seems that everyone in the village knew that Cordelia was having an affair with Parslow, except, of course, Isidore.
The Murder of Isidore Poirier
On Sunday, November 21, 1897, Isidore was at home in Saint-Canut and was sleeping.
Cordelia went to church, and Parslow joined her there.
They returned to the marital home around 3:00 p.m., and an hour later Cordelia left to visit her parents while Parslow went to attend to his elderly mother.
On the following day, Cordelia returned to the village but went straight to church to play the organ at a wedding.
When she went home, she found that she could not gain entry to the house.
She requested assistance from her neighbour, Noah Bouvrette, who managed to enter the dwelling through an unlocked window.
Inside, Isidore’s body was discovered lying on the bed.
He had been stabbed repeatedly, and his throat had been slashed from ear to ear.
There was a great deal of blood, and the bedroom was in complete disarray, evidencing a violent and desperate struggle.
Investigators also identified what appeared to be a woman’s shoe print stamped in the pooled blood on the floor.
Cordelia asserted to neighbours and authorities that her husband had committed suicide.
However, the post-mortem examination proved that suicide was physically impossible given the nature and angle of the wounds.
A formal police investigation, headed by Detective McCaskill, quickly uncovered the illicit domestic relationship, leading to the arrests of both Cordelia and Parslow on November 25, 1897.
Isidore Poirier was buried in the village cemetery on November 27, 1897.
Interrogation and Confessions
Cordelia and Parslow steadfastly maintained their innocence while being held in custody awaiting trial at Ste-Scholastique Gaol.
Detective McCaskill attempted to extract a confession from each prisoner by informing them that the only way to escape the gallows was to place the blame upon the other.
Cordelia claimed not to have been present at the scene when the homicide occurred.
Parslow, however, broke down and insisted that she was in the room and had been actively planning the murder for an extended period.
He claimed that he was completely infatuated with her and described himself as her “love slave”.
Parslow admitted to repeatedly stabbing Isidore, but told Detective McCaskill that it was Cordelia who had cut her husband’s throat.
The Trials at Ste-Scholastique (1898)
The first joint trial opened at the Ste-Scholastique Courthouse on January 17, 1898, before Judge Henri-Thomas Taschereau.
Cordelia was convicted of murder on February 2, 1898.
Formal sentencing was deferred after the defence filed a legal motion challenging the unorthodox and coercive methods used by the police to obtain the confessions.
This resulted in a successful appeal on June 7, 1898, which set aside the initial convictions and ordered separate retrials for each defendant.
Cordelia’s second trial commenced at Ste-Scholastique on December 5, 1898, before the same judge, and lasted eleven days.
Among the key evidence introduced by the Crown was the existence of a $2,000 life insurance policy taken out on Isidore’s life.
Witnesses testified that Cordelia had asked unusual questions of the insurance agent prior to the crime regarding how the policy would pay out depending on the specific manner of Isidore’s death.
Parslow’s second trial began on December 19 and concluded on December 29, 1898.
Both retrials resulted in guilty verdicts and sentences of death by hanging.
However, the jury in Parslow’s trial added a recommendation to executive mercy.
Judge Taschereau scheduled Friday, March 10, 1899, for the executions.
A formal application for executive commutation of the capital sentences was submitted by their defence attorneys to the Governor General in Council, but this plea was formally rejected on March 5, 1899.
This uncompromising stance reflected capital sentencing across the Empire, as documented in our study of capital punishment in the British Commonwealth.
Preparations and the Scaffold at Ste-Scholastique
Public hangings in Canada had ceased following legislative reform in 1869, but official and invited witnesses were still permitted at the discretion of the county sheriff.
Additional police and prison officers had been dispatched from Montreal by train on March 9 to maintain civil order.
Depending on which contemporary newspaper account is accepted, between 200 and 600 invited spectators were admitted into the yard of Ste-Scholastique Gaol to witness the executions.
A far larger crowd gathered outside the prison walls, estimated at as many as 2,000 people.
An attempt was made by members of the mob to break down the prison’s main gate, but the heavy iron bolts held firm.
Police officers were forced to discharge firearms over the heads of the crowd to disperse the rioters and restore order.
In the centre of the prison yard stood a traditional gallows platform with wooden steps leading up to the scaffold and two nooses suspended from the overhead crossbeam.
A canvas curtain hung down from the centre of the beam, in accordance with the standard Canadian custom for double executions, ensuring that prisoners stood back-to-back and could not see one another during the final preparations.
The space beneath the elevated drop platform was fully enclosed by a black fabric skirt.
The executioner was John Robert Radclive (also recorded as Ratcliffe).
Radclive was British-born, had served in the Royal Navy, and had studied the hanging techniques of British executioner William Marwood.
He utilized the scientific long drop method, designed to produce instantaneous death via cervical fracture and dislocation of the upper vertebrae ($C2$/$C3$), adhering to the mechanical principles described in the evolution of the long drop in the 20th century.
The Double Execution (10/03/1899)
Both Cordelia and Parslow were reported to have slept well on Thursday night.
They rose at 5:00 a.m. on the morning of Friday, March 10, 1899, to attend two private Catholic masses conducted by Father Méloche and Father Collin, attended by several close family members and friends, after which they took a light breakfast.
The executions were scheduled for 8:00 a.m.
Sheriff Lapointe led the formal procession to the gallows, followed by Cordelia, who wore a long black dress and was supported by Father Méloche.
Contemporary reports noted:
“She showed not the slightest sign of breaking down, and slightly lifting her skirt so as not to trip, she bravely ascended the steps of the gallows.”
They were followed up the scaffold steps by Parslow, who was:
“in a very shaky condition,”
assisted by Fathers Collin and Constant alongside the executioner.
Once on the platform, Radclive positioned the condemned prisoners back-to-back on either side of the partition.
He completed pinioning their legs, placed white cotton hoods over their heads, and adjusted the nooses snugly around their necks.
The preparations were concluded, and Radclive pulled the lever at 8:04 a.m., releasing the trapdoors.
In both cases, the calculated drop lengths were sufficient to break their necks instantly.
At the moment the trapdoors fell, members of the crowd in the yard surged forward and tore away the black curtain enclosing the scaffold base to view the suspended corpses.
Father Méloche indignantly scolded the spectators from the platform, shouting:
“Shame! Shame! For decency’s sake! Have you no decency?”
The prison physician certified Cordelia dead in six and a half minutes and Parslow in twelve minutes, based on the total cessation of cardiac sounds auscultated with a stethoscope.
Aftermath and Historical Significance
Both bodies were interred in the parish cemetery at Saint-Canut.
Parslow was buried on Friday afternoon following the execution.
Cordelia was not interred until Saturday, in accordance with her dying request, as she had expressed a lifelong terror of being buried alive in a comatose state—a fear familiar in historical hanging lore, as examined in the “Half Hanged” – surviving execution.
The case, the sensational trial disclosures, and the double execution attracted immense public fascination, receiving widespread coverage across Canadian and American newspapers.
Because newspapers in 1899 could not yet reproduce photographic halftones on high-speed presses, extensive artists’ impressions and engravings illustrated the crime, the participants, and the scaffold scene.
Cordelia Poirier’s hanging was only the third execution of a female prisoner in Canada following Confederation in 1867, standing alongside historical female capital cases such as Minnie Dean in New Zealand and Mary Ann Higgins in England.
Capital punishment in Canada was permanently abolished for civilian offences in 1976 and for all military offences in 1998, as noted in our records of the abolition of capital punishment in Britain and the end of capital punishment in Europe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Cordelia Poirier?
Marie-Cordelia Poirier (née Viau) was a 33-year-old French-Canadian seamstress and church organist from Saint-Canut, Quebec, who was convicted alongside her lover, Samuel Parslow, of the 1897 murder of her husband, Isidore Poirier.
What was the motive for the murder of Isidore Poirier?
The prosecution proved a dual motive: an ongoing extramarital affair between Cordelia Poirier and Samuel Parslow, and a $2,000 life insurance policy on Isidore Poirier, about which Cordelia had made suspicious inquiries to the insurance broker.
Why were Cordelia Poirier and Samuel Parslow granted second trials?
Their initial convictions in February 1898 were overturned on appeal in June 1898 because Detective McCaskill had obtained their confessions through improper coercion by telling each suspect that the only way to avoid hanging was to implicate the other. Both were retried separately and convicted again.
Who carried out the double execution in 1899?
The executioner was John Robert Radclive (Ratcliffe), Canada’s official hangman. Radclive, who had studied William Marwood’s long drop system, carried out the double hanging at Ste-Scholastique Gaol on March 10, 1899.
How many women were executed in Canada after Confederation?
Following Canadian Confederation in 1867, only a small number of women were executed. Cordelia Poirier was the third woman hanged in post-Confederation Canada, preceding the eventual total abolition of the death penalty in Canada in 1998.
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