Champions of the Dead

Book excerpt: In 1875, John Wilson Murray—known as “Canada’s Sherlock Holmes”—was appointed Ontario’s first permanent Government Detective, commissioned to investigate crimes such as murder, rape, and arson. His first homicide assignment was to look into the suspicious death of farmer Ralph Findlay, found dead of a gunshot wound. More than a century after the inception of the OPP Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), retired OPP Inspector Andrew F. Maksymchuk explores the intervening years of Ontario’s law enforcement history. Through the first-hand perspective of a police officer, the reader is made privy to meticulous investigative procedures. Insight is given on cases as diverse as a prison inmate’s death by stabbing, a rash of suspicious fires, and the murder of a young girl. Dedicated to the officers who have risked and lost their lives, the past and present are united as we read and remember the Champions of the Dead.