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The Trials of Albert Stroebel
The Trials of Albert Stroebel

The Trials of Albert Stroebel

Love, Murder and Justice at the End of the Frontier

TRUE CRIME

256 Pages, 6 x 9

Formats: Trade Paper

Trade Paper, $24.95 (US $24.95) (CA $34.00)

Publication Date: March 2020

ISBN 9781773860206

Rights: US

Caitlin Press Inc. (Mar 2020)

Price: $24.95
 
 

Overview

On a dreary morning in April, 1893, John Marshall, a Portuguese immigrant and successful farmer on Sumas Prairie in British Columbia, was found lying sprawled across the veranda of his farmhouse, his body cold and lifeless. The farmer’s face was a mess, his nose smashed in and cracked blood covering his forehead around a jagged black hole. The shocked and unfortunate neighbor who discovered the body rushed to Huntingdon railway station to summon the authorities. An autopsy, coroner’s inquest and murder investigation followed. Only two days later, a local handyman named Albert Stroebel was arrested for Marshall’s murder. The young man the community knew was not capable of murder, and they were shocked to imagine that he could have killed the man who had treated him like family. Unraveling the mystery would take nine months and two lengthy trials that seized the attention of local communities on both sides of the Canadian-American border, splitting them into pro- and anti-Stroebel factions. The first trial in New Westminster ended with the jury hopelessly deadlocked, the second in Victoria found him guilty and set an impending date for his execution. When the second trial ended with a guilty verdict and death sentence many in the public howled in protest, convinced that a young man had been condemned to die for a crime he did not commit. And the dramatic events would not stop there. With the condemned man sitting on death row, the case would take more twists and turns that would lead Albert Stroebel to the shadow of the gallows.

Author Biography

Chad Reimer has a BA Honours in History from the University British Columbia, along with an MA and PhD in History from York University. He is the author of Before We Lost the Lake. He lives in Abbotsford, BC.