Fred Montgomery: The last man hanged in Sault Ste. Marie

From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:

On the morning of Oct. 9, 1957, two men pulled up to the Blind River Royal Bank location in a stolen car. They walked inside with weapons drawn and marched one employee, a teenage junior clerk, in front of them at gunpoint.

Bank manager J.J. Walter Bridges had considered taking a sick day and was only in the building covering for other staff members’ vacations. According to witnesses, when he saw the clerk walk past his office with his hands in the air, he jumped into action. While witness accounts varied, he may have physically tried to disarm the gunman.  

What started as a hold-up escalated into something worse. The robbers shot the bank manager in the chest, puncturing his aorta and windpipe, killing him.

Employees opened the vault, and the men were poised to make off with thousands of dollars. But an employee of a nearby bank unknowingly scared them off. She had arrived at the bank ready to exchange cheques and knocked at the window to catch the attention of the Royal Bank employees. Her presence startled the would-be robbers and they fled the scene without taking any money.

Once outside, they found a nearby driver and stole his car at gunpoint. The vehicle belonged to the owner of a local theatre, who had his four-year-old son in the front seat. The boy found himself stuck between the two bandits as they climbed in. The father stood outside and pled for them to let his son go, and then grabbed for one of their guns. The gunman tried to shoot him, but the father struggled with him enough to throw off his aim, the bullet narrowly missed.

The boy was removed from the car – half-pushed out by the robbers and half-pulled out by the father and a bystander. The robbers then fled the area in the stolen vehicle.

The vehicle was later spotted going through town at a high rate of speed. Police followed in pursuit but could not catch the drivers so a manhunt was begun.

A hefty reward was posted for the capture of the two criminals. Two hundred people joined in the hunt, as well as several helicopters and planes and a bloodhound that the police had flown in from Manitoba. They found an abandoned car and a cabin that the men had presumably broken into, as well as a trail of stolen cars that seemed to lead from Blind River to Sudbury. This led the police to believe that they had left the area.

On Nov. 12, police issued warrants naming and providing pictures of the suspects in the robbery-turned-shooting. Fred Montgomery, the man who witnesses claimed had shot the bank manager, was 41 years of age. He worked as a truck driver and labourer and had been visiting the bank regularly at one point. The other suspect was his son, Rodney Montgomery, a 17-year old who worked as a printer’s apprentice. It was later released that Fred had been estranged from his wife for years and had three other children.

The two were ultimately arrested when they were discovered working on a farm near Saskatoon. The person who turned them in received a $22,000 reward. Both were charged with the murder of J.J. Walter Bridges.

The trial was held in Sault Ste. Marie and involved several witnesses, including bank employees and the theatre-owner whose car had been stolen. Fred Montgomery took the stand, attempting to defend himself and his son. He claimed that he had planned the robbery with two other men . . . but that it had been scheduled for a later date. He named two accomplices who he claimed had committed the robbery. He said that he and his son weren’t even in Blind River when it happened.

However, it wasn’t enough to overcome eyewitness testimony that named the Montgomery pair as the robbers, nor evidence linking the pair to the weapons used. In April of 1958, the jury sentenced both father and son to death by hanging.

Ultimately, Rodney had his death sentence commuted; instead, he would serve a life sentence. He served his time initially in the Penitentiary located in Kingston Ontario, and then in Manitoba’s Stony Mountain. In 1964, prison guards found a decoy in his bed and Montgomery was gone. Police linked him to a string of crimes nearby, including a holdup, a stabbing, and a break-in. He was found by police approximately one week later during a vehicle check.

Fred was not so lucky. He was hanged on July 15, 1958, shortly after midnight at the Sault Ste. Marie Jail. According to the Sault Star, his final words were, “Let justice be done to my son Rodney when this is found out.” His body was unclaimed, and he was buried in an unmarked grave on the jail grounds. His execution was the final to occur in the Soo.

Earlier this year, city council addressed the possibility of unmarked graves at the old city jail on McNabb Street.  The exact whereabouts of Fred Montgomery’s remains are unaccounted-for; he is possibly still buried on the property.

Each week, the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and its Archives provides SooToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.

Find out more of what the Public Library has to offer at www.ssmpl.ca and look for more Remember This? columns here