====== Desjardins, Wesley Edward ====== 
 (//fl//. 20th century) criminal and escapee. (Wesley Desjardins) Native of Greenfield, GC. Wesley Desjardins appears in the pages of the Cornwall press in the 1930s as the perpetrator of a variety of (principally) fairly minor crimes. In 1937, when he already had “a long list of convictions” and his age was given as 23, he was sentenced to five years in penitentiary for uttering a forged cheque for $11.60 (//Standard Freeholder// 19 Feb. 1937). In late winter 1945, when he was said to be of Windsor, Ont., and his age was given as 29, he was sentenced to six years in Kingston Penitentiary on cheque and fraud charges. His record at this time was said to date back to 1933. (//SFH// 9 March 1945) In Dec. l947, when he was serving a six-year sentence for forgery (presumably the 1945 sentence) he was given a ticket of leave from Kingston Penitentiary to attend a TB sanitorium near Haileybury. About half a year later he escaped from the sanitorium. He was still being sought by the prison service in 1974 when he was described by prison officials as holding the Canadian record for being for the longest period a prisoner at large. It was later discovered that he had died in Montreal where he had worked for many years for a family as their gardener and handyman.


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<fs small>“Wesley, Where Are You?,” //Ottawa Citizen// 24 April 1974 (portrait) * press notices, //Standard Freeholder// 19 April 1933, 20 Dec. 1935, 6 Nov. & 23 Dec. 1936, 20 Oct. 1937
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