Ep. 33 - The Canadian Axe Murderess

The Plains of Abraham have known death. This is a historic area inside Battlefields Park in Quebec City, Canada. Quebec City had been the capital of New France and was a strategic location in the colony. The French and English would fight for control here in a battle that took place on September 13, 1759. The Plains of Abraham were named for Abraham Martin who had owned the fields. The battle lasted 30 minutes and the French were defeated. This had been a very bloody battle. The British had 658 casualties and the French had 716. Stories of the ghosts of dead soldiers roaming the plain have traversed the years even up into our modern era with the Plains of Abraham now serving as an urban park. Before the park, this was a place few would wander as it had a reputation for being a hiding place for criminals. Then it became a spot for executions to be carried out. And that is why there is a female ghost that roams the Plains of Abraham. Everyone calls her La Corriveau.

The legend behind La Corriveau has elements of fiction mixed in with reality. She has one of the worst reputations of any woman in Canada and many refer to her as the Canadian Axe Murderess. La Corriveau (Cory vue) was Marie-Josephte (Joe zeph) Corriveau (Cory vue) who was born in 1733 in Quebec. Her father was a farmer named Joseph and her mother's name was Marie-Francoise (Fran suahz) Bolduc (Boleduke). She had ten siblings, all of whom died in childhood. In 1749, she met a farmer named Charles Bouchard (Boo shar) who was 23. The two married in November of that year when he was 23 and she was 16. The couple had three children: a daughter named Marie-Francoise, a daughter named Marie-Angelique and a son named Charles. Her husband Charles died in 1760 and no one thought anything about it until Marie was later arrested for the murder of her second husband. Now people wonder if she murdered her first husband as well. And the manner of murder is chilling as legend claims she poured molten lead into his ear while he slept. So basically she melted his brain.

Fifteen months later, Marie married farmer Louis Etienne (Etee en) Dodier (Doo dee ay) on July 20, 1761. This does not seem to have been a happy union. Before long, Louis was on bad terms with not only his wife, but his father-in-law. On January 27, 1763, he was found dead in the barn on his property with multiple head wounds. Local authorities said it must have been one of his horses kicking him in the head multiple times and Louis was quickly buried. It wasn't long before rumors started to make their way around locals that the death was fishy. The British Army had New France under their jurisidiction at that time and they heard the rumors floating around that people thought Louis had been murdered. An inquiry was called, which opened on March 29, 1763.

Joseph Corriveau and his daughter Marie-Josephte were both charged with murder and a military tribunal was held under 12 English officers and presided over by Lt. Colonel Roger Morris. There were many witnesses and one of the key witnesses was Joseph's niece and Marie-Josephte's cousin, Isabelle Sylvain. There were neighbors as well, one named Claude Dion whose testimony was described as imaginative. Several witnesses seemed to contradict each other and Jospeh's defense lawyer Jean-Antoine Saillant (sigh yown), tried arguing that point, but this fell on deaf ears. The tribunal of officers ruled that Jospeh was guilty of murder and he was given a death sentence. Marie was found guilty of being an accomplice and she was sentenced to be flogged with 60 lashes and then branded with the letter M on her hand. The tribunal also recognized that Isabelle had perjured herself because she changed her story several times and she was sentenced to be flogged with 30 lashes and branded on her hand with the letter P.

None of the sentences were carried out because Joseph Corriveau confessed to the Jesuit superior Augustin-Louis de Glapion (Glay peeon) that his daughter had killed her husband all on her own. He went on to say that the crown attorney, Hector-Théophilus (Thee off uhlus) Cramahé (Craw marie) had misinterpreted the facts because Isabelle had perjured herself and the other witnesses had embellished their testimonies. A second tribunal was launched several days later and this time, Marie-Josephte confessed. She admitted that her husband had been treated her poorly and so she took an axe and hit him in the head twice while he slept. A new sentence was pronounced and Marie was sentenced to die and it would be in a grotesque way that would spawn decades of lore. Marie was to be hanged and then her body would be exposed in chains, which ended up being a hanging iron cage, for an indefinite period. The execution took place on the Buttes-à-Nepveu (No view), near the Plains of Abraham on April 18, 1763 and Marie was placed in the iron cage and set up at Pointe-Lévy which is today known as Lauzon (Lowzon). She remained in sight for over a month at what is today the Temperance Monument. Governor James Murray authorized its removal. Joseph Corriveau was discharged with a certificate of innocence and Isabelle was also let off. 

And this is where things get weird and the lore gets started. The removal of the body was maybe not officially ordered to come down. The residents of Pointe Levy were tired of the gruesome sight and women and children were frightened. They claimed to hear strange noises near the cage. When their request for removal wasn't granted, some men of the city decided to take matters into their own hands and they pulled down the iron cage and dumped it in the cemetery. People who didn't know that this had happened all assumed some kind of sorcery and that Marie had somehow made herself disappear. Others who heard the noises of the cage being taken down and the rattling of bones, assumed that La Corriveau was now a walking spirit. The Pointe Levy church was burned in 1830. In 1850, the cemetery was enlarged and the gravedigger discovered the iron cage. A leg bone was still inside the cage. The cage was shown around Quebec as a curiosity and later sold to Barnum’s Museum.

Several fantastic tales were written by Canadian writers. One writer named William Kirby claimed that La Corriveau was a professional poisoner and that she was a direct descendant of La Voisin who was hanged in 1680. She was a fortune teller who conducted black masses and she ran a poisoning ring that may have killed 1,000 people. Other people claimed that La Corriveau was a witch. People claimed to see her apparition in her cage, begging someone walking on the road to Beaumont to take her to the sabbath of the will-o’-the-wisps and witches on the Île d’Orléans (Ilay doh leown). Stories claimed that Marie had not just killed her two husbands, but seven people. 

The place where La Corriveau is most seen though is the Plains of Abraham. Some say that if you visit the park at night, you can see a ghostly figure hanging in chains. Residents claimed that when they walked by Marie hanging in the iron cage, her eyes would open and her decaying hands would reach toward passing travelers. She would whisper their names as well. Now it is said that La Corriveau would arise from her grave and walk back and forth along the river road like La Llarona.

There was a well known man in the town known as Francoise Dubé. He was walking home from work to his new bride and he passed the place where the cage of La Corriveau once was hanging. He claimed to see a scene of wild, demonic figures dancing around a blue light that was across the river. He yelled out, "Madre de Dios!" Then he screamed as a pair of bony, withered hands clutched his throat from behind. La Corriveau whispered in his ear, "Take me across the river, Dubé. I cannot pass the blessed waters of the Saint Lawrence unless a Christian man carries me." She had slippery skin that disgusted him. Dube clawed at her hands trying to get free, but she had an unnatural strength. He felt her dry flesh tearing away from her bones. Dube shrieked, "In the name of the blessed Saint Anne, leave me." And then he fainted. He awoke the next morning when his wife found him on the roadside. Before long, the city knew the story and people were so scared that the authorities decided to call in a priest to exorcise the spirit of La Corriveau.

The whole scenario is quite unnerving. A wife murders her husband and then she is put on gruesome display. It's not surprising that her spirit would be at unrest. Did she terrorize the people in this section of Quebec City? Could she still be wandering the banks near the river or even the cemetery where she was unceremoniously thrown? We will never know. I'll leave that to you to decide.