George gee3/10/2023 ![]() ![]() The jury concurred they took a mere forty-five minutes to return with a guilty verdict. Insanity, Pugsley concluded, cannot be inferred from conjecture. Rather, Pugsley stressed that the murder was premeditated, and that Gee knew precisely what he was doing when he brought a gun to Benny Gee’s house. According to Pugsley, the defence had failed to prove that Gee was insane when he murdered Millie Gee. Īttorney General William Pugsley, for the Crown, countered that the jury should not allow sympathy to influence their decision. Indeed, Hartley admonished the jury to remember that a mistake on their part, finding George Gee guilty of first-degree murder and thus condemning him to death, could never be undone. And in a subtle critique of the death penalty, and perhaps of the fallibility of the jury system, Hartley proclaimed that Millie Gee could not be brought back to life by the death of his client. But someone who was refined and educated, Hartley claimed, did not. Hartley argued that since Gee was uncouth and poorly educated and lacked the financial resources to mount a fulsome defence, he deserved the jury’s sympathy. Hartley also invoked Gee’s social class in his address to the jury to garner empathy for his client. Gee’s father testified that over the course of the last few years his son had acted “odd” and “queerly” and he was “restless.” Even Gee’s mother, who one newspaper described as “delicate and of refined appearance” on the witness stand, told the court that her son was “crazy.” Similarly, Hartley stated that four of Gee’s relatives had spent time in asylums. ![]() Hartley asserted that since Gee’s parents were cousins their progeny were insane. Moreover, Hartley informed the court that Gee had “insanity in his veins,” thereby rendering him incapable of understanding the gravity of his actions. ![]() Hartley, stressed that if Gee was to be convicted, he should only be found guilty of manslaughter, not murder, since on the night in question everyone had been drinking heavily and thus Millie’s death was an accident. When George Gee was taken into custody by Deputy-Sheriff Albion Foster, he expressed little remorse for his actions and announced that the only thing he regretted was not shooting Millie Gee through the heart. It was soon discovered that Millie Gee had been shot in the stomach and she later died after doctors had operated on her in a desperate attempt to save her life. In the early hours of 13 March 1904, in Homesville, Carleton County, shots were heard echoing throughout the Gee residence. Over the course of the evening, they drank and played cards. Gee obtained a rifle and two bottles of rum and paid a visit to Benny Gee’s home. But when Millie left George to live with her brother-in-law, Benny Gee, George Gee was “much aggrieved” by her desertion. Nineteen-year-old George Gee and eighteen-year-old Millie Gee had been “keeping company” and George had become “much attached” to Millie, so much so that he believed that they were husband and wife. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |