On Sept. 6, 1958, Aaron “Bud” Jenkins was stabbed to death as he slept in the barracks at Esquimalt’s naval base. Leo Mantha confessed to the crime. The tugboat operator had been romantically involved with Jenkins and the fatal stabbing came after the two had gotten into a violent argument. Jenkins’ death was a textbook definition of a “crime of passion,” says Neil Boyd, criminology professor at Simon Fraser University. “By today’s standards, it probably would’ve been a manslaughter conviction,” he said. Instead, the 30-year-old Mantha received the death penalty and was hanged in 1959, making him the last person to be executed in British Columbia. Mantha’s death came at a time when the federal cabinet commuted most death sentences, but Boyd said Mantha was an exception due to “anti-gay sentiments.” Originally from Quebec, Mantha had been in the navy before working on a tugboat. In the summer of 1958, a bartender at Victoria’s Empress Hotel introduced him to J...
Striving for a World without Capital Punishment