THE OUTLAW, MURRAY NOLAN

Author’s Note: More than 20 years ago there was a murder committed with a homemade knife in the TV common room at Wilkinson Road Gaol where a murder suspect was awaiting trial on another charge. Career Criminal Murray Nolan and a Drug Smuggler named Cuvero were in the TV room at the time of the murder. The victim lay dying in an ambulance en route to the hospital and made a deathbed statement to the Doctor and an ambulance attendant. He stated with his dying breath the Cuvero and Nolan were in the TV room and had witnessed the knifing. If they did not testify they would be charged with being hostile witnesses and have time added to their sentences.

The RCMP whisked the two witnesses out of Wilkie and hid them in our cells in the small town of Saanichton. We kept them there for several months until they went to court. I once did 27 night shifts straight and received good cheques for my efforts.

Cavero was doing 10 years for smuggling drugs into the country and Murray had been doing time since he was 14 years old. The longest he had ever been out was 18 months before he re-offended. Murray was one year into doing a five year stretch for Breaking and Entering some rich people’s homes in the British Properties of West Vancouver, at the time he witnessed the murder.

Murray stated he had been in every joint in the Country including a couple in the USA. He was on a first name basis with the leading criminals in both countries. At the time he was in our cells in Central Saanich he was 66 years old and in his 52nd year of doing in and out time. If alive today with his new ID name he would be nearly 90 years of age.

He told me that he was a dead man walking because there is nothing hated more than a prison rat and they would mark him once he testified against the knifer. He said he would be hit someday walking down the street. He said that he would have to try to keep his nose clean under his new name because if not, he would go back to the joint and they would be waiting for him. He also said he never committed a crime of violence, to which I told him that was not true. The trauma feelings of his elderly victims might have caused their early deaths or made them paranoid and not feel safe in their homes, and caused suffering for years. To which he answered they were insured. He felt no remorse for his victims.

Nolan loved my dog Max (a huge German shepherd) that I would bring to the cells with me sometimes on nightshifts. He would beg me to bring in the dog and he would pet and baby the big shepherd, saying he never had a dog, not even as a kid because his Dad would not have a dog in the house.

Every shift he asked me when I was going to bring in Max. During our many discussions he would call me a loser because I had to work 12-hour night shifts, whilst he had color TV and didn’t have to work, and when he was on the street he drove big cars and had hot blondes and lived lavishly. I told him that in 52 years the longest he was ever out was 18months so he was not very good at being a criminal. That morning as I was leaving work I said to him well this loser is going home to pet his dog, but I guess you will have to stay here in jail. His face fell. I thanked him for keeping me employed and for helping to put my children through College and University.

I have often wondered what ever happened to the Outlaw Murray Nolan. Is he still out there at 90 years of age under his new name? Or did a chance meeting with one of the hit men from his former life make him disappear completely from the Canadian Scene?