The Bastard of Fort Stikine: The Hudson’s Bay Company and the Murder of John McLoughlin, Jr. - Debra Komar

Written by Debra Komar
Read by Matthew Josdal
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

· Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
· Release date: 05-08-17
· Publisher: Audible Studios

Is it possible to reach back in time and solve an unsolved murder, more than 170 years after it was committed?

Just after midnight on April 21, 1842, John McLoughlin, Jr. — the chief trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Stikine, in the northwest corner of the territory that would later become British Columbia — was shot to death by his own men. They claimed it was an act of self-defense, their only means of stopping the violent rampage of their drunk and abusive leader. Sir George Simpson, the HBC’s Overseas Governor, took the men of Stikine at their word, and the Company closed the book on the matter.

The case never saw the inside of a courtroom, and no one was ever charged or punished for the crime. To this day, the killing remains the Honourable Company’s dirtiest unaired laundry and one of the darkest pages in the annals of our nation’s history. Now, exhaustive archival research and modern forensic science — including ballistics, virtual autopsy, and crime scene reconstruction — unlock the mystery of what really happened the night McLoughlin died.

Though the company closed the books on the matter without a trial, McLoughlin’s father never relented in his efforts to disprove Simpson’s version of the facts. Komar paints vivid pictures of life in rugged outposts and circles of power in the company, which once owned much of the territory that became modern Canada. Skillfully weaving together source material with her own insightful and very readable prose, Komar tells a story that will intrigue both historians and mystery lovers.