Lambton County's Infamous Abduction: The John S. Labatt Kidnapping

Photo Gallery: John S Labatt Kidnapping will appear here on the public site.

Labatt had the unfortunate privilege of going down in history as Canada's first wealthy businessman to be held for ransom.

In the second week of August 1934, Labatt had been visiting his historic summer home "Faithorne," then owned by Sarnia realtor and broker H.F. Holland. The handsome property was nicknamed "The Lake Shore Gentry" and originally owned by Colonel Faithorne, commandant of the Essex, Kent and Lambton forces during the Fenian Raids. Labatt was heading from his Lambton County summer home to a meeting in London the morning of August 14th. He drove through Camlachie and decided to take a shortcut to Warwick, reportedly because he was running late for his meeting in London. He would never reach that destination.

After spotting a fast-traveling, suspicious vehicle, Labatt was snatched off Egremont Road by four men. They drove Labatt to a cottage hideout in the Muskoka district, where he was reportedly fastened to a bed with a dog chain. One of the kidnappers phoned Labatt’s brother Hugh and told him to go to London's Victoria Hospital, where Hugh found his brother's car with a ransom note pinned to the upholstery demanding $150,000.00 for the safe return of the beer tycoon.

On August 17th, newspapers reported that Labatt "was turned loose from the kidnapper's car in [the early morning] in Northwest Toronto... about three and a half miles from the hotel where he turned up to join his brother Hugh." The episode deeply shook Labatt, who became reclusive and withdrawn after the incident.

Labatt’s case culminated in Canada's first incident of mistaken identity. Three men were arrested and charged for the kidnapping (a fourth, the getaway car driver, was never found). One of the arrested men was David Meisner, a small-time gambler from Kentucky who was identified by Labatt from a series of mug shots. At Meisner's trial, Labatt looked him in the eye and asserted, "That's the man, there in the box. He left a picture in my mind I shall never forget." The stirring testimony landed Meisner in jail despite his excellent lawyer and alibi. In 1936 "Piccolo Pete" Murray was pinned as Labatt's kidnapper and Meisner was re-tried with a verdict of not guilty. Meisner later sued and settled for $5,500.00 (around $95,000.00 today).

There is a series of newspaper clippings from the mid-1930s following the tense days of Labatt’s captivity and the subsequent criminal trials. John S. Labatt's sworn testimony from the trials can be found in its entirety. Notes from lawyers on both sides of the cases, as well as telegrams and letters from the RCMP and OPP relating to the case, are also available. We have photocopies of warrants from the investigation. A copy of the ransom note can be read, both the note written by kidnapper "Three-Fingered Abe" and the plea from John S. Labatt himself (the original is part of the University of Western Ontario collection). These primary sources provide vivid and up-close snippets of the kidnapping and subsequent trials. Susan Goldenberg's 2004 publication, "Snatched! The Peculiar Kidnapping of Beer Tycoon John Labatt" is available at the Lambton County Archives and online through the Lambton County Library Overdrive.