Frances Gertrude McGill

Developing a growing expertise in bacteriology,[5] McGill was named provincial bacteriologist for the Saskatchewan Department of Health in 1918.[9] She moved to Regina for the job, where her new office and lab were located in the Saskatchewan Legislative building. By October of that year, she was responsible for handling local outbreaks of the 1918 flu epidemic. McGill and her colleagues quickly produced flu vaccinations for more than 60,000 Saskatchewan residents.[11]^: 5–7 McGill also treated returning First World War soldiers for venereal disease.[7]

In 1920, McGill became provincial pathologist for Saskatchewan, and by 1922 she had become director of the provincial laboratory.[2][9] McGill now dealt with cases of suspicious death, working extensively with local police forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Her investigations required frequent travel – up to forty-three trips in a single year[8] – and McGill sometimes used a snowmobile, dog sled or float plane to reach crime scenes,[9] once travelling to the Arctic Circle.[8]

Earning the unofficial nickname "the Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan",[8][5] McGill gained a professional reputation as a skilled and meticulous criminologist,[9] and was fondly called "Doc" by members of the police force.[7][12]^: 200 Her personal motto was reportedly "Think like a man, act like a lady and work like a dog."[5] She was known for handling the sometimes gruesome nature of her work by maintaining a good sense of humour,[5] and was a formidable, no-nonsense witness in court cases.[8] During her court testimonies, McGill sometimes encountered young Saskatchewan defense lawyer John Diefenbaker – who would later become Prime Minister of Canada – and the strong-willed pair often sparred verbally. In one court hearing, McGill told the lawyer: "You ask me sensible questions, Mr. Diefenbaker, and I will give you sensible answers."[13]

McGill was acknowledged for her "untiring" efforts and "excellent" service in annual reports by RCMP Commissioners James Howden MacBrien[14] and Stuart Taylor Wood.[15] During the Great Depression of the 1930s, McGill made do with dramatically fewer resources and a much smaller staff. In 1933, she kept within a budget of $17,000 for testing work that would normally have cost more than $122,000.[11]^: 39

Volunteering hundreds of additional work hours on evenings and weekends, McGill assisted the RCMP in establishing their first official laboratory for forensic detection, which opened in 1937. Despite her experience, she was not offered the position of director for the lab.[11]^: 127 The laboratory took over a substantial portion of McGill's forensic pathology workload,[16] and over the next several years she concentrated on other projects such as developing a polio serum and becoming a specialist in allergy research. As her expertise in allergy testing gained wider notice, doctors across the province began sending their patients to McGill. She coped with the growing demands on her time by hiring an assistant and opening a private after-hours allergy clinic located at her apartment.[11]^{: 129–131}

McGill retired from her job as provincial pathologist on November 17, 1942,[17] having conducted more than 64,000 laboratory examinations over the course of her civil service career.[18] She continued working at her allergy clinic two days per week, and spent more time on outdoor activities and trips with friends. Several months afterwards, McGill decided to start a new project providing vaccinations for preschool children, and subsequently set up inoculation clinics at schools across Regina.[11]^: 136

In 1943, when the director of the RCMP's forensic laboratory died in an airplane accident, McGill was called in to serve as his replacement.[5][9] She accepted the position on a part-time basis, continuing to operate her allergy clinic during the afternoons.[19]^: 26

In her new role as director, McGill conducted investigations across Saskatchewan[5] and provided lectures and training in pathology and toxicology to new police officers and detectives, teaching skills related to identifying blood samples, studying crime scenes, and properly collecting and preserving evidence.[9] In her advice to students, McGill emphasized the importance of critical thinking: "Don't believe all the death certificates you see. There's no reason why a man with heart disease can't have died of strychnine poisoning."[20]^: 24

By 1946, McGill had formally retired from directing the RCMP forensic laboratory,[9] and in January of that year she was named Honorary Surgeon to the RCMP, appointed by the Canadian Minister of Justice.[2] McGill was the first woman to receive the title, and the first female doctor to be publicly acknowledged as a member of the RCMP. She continued to work for the RCMP on a special consulting basis, and occasionally gave lectures and exams for police officers and investigators. She was a thorough and articulate instructor, and her teaching notes were compiled for use in a student textbook in 1952.[11]^: 143

Her forensic work – and her status as one of the few female members of the RCMP – had attracted notice across Canada and overseas. In 1952, she travelled to England and visited Scotland Yard, where she was permitted to inspect their forensic laboratories.[6] In 1956, after an American detective magazine ran a story on her work, McGill received a request for assistance addressed to "Dr. Frances McGill, Canada's Famous Pathologist, Regina, Canada." The letter was from a woman in New York City whose brother had died under suspicious circumstances; no autopsy had been performed, and the woman had struggled to get the answers she wanted. Although McGill could not assist directly in the matter, she responded with advice on how to contact the FBI and arrange to have the body exhumed.[11]^{: 170–171}

In April 1932,[21] farmer Joseph Shewchuk was found dead from a gunshot wound at his home in Lintlaw, Saskatchewan. Police found bloodstains all across the room – presumed evidence of a violent struggle – and also located a rifle hidden in a nearby wheat bin. The local doctor deemed it suspicious and ruled out suicide, and police arrested a neighbour who had been unable to satisfactorily explain several bloodstains on his coat.[12]^: 204

When McGill arrived to conduct a second examination, however, she discovered that the local doctor had not completed a full autopsy on the body.[19]^: 29 She ordered the body exhumed and did a new examination herself. From clues such as the distinctly awkward angle of the wound, she concluded the victim had taken his own life.[12]^: 204 Although the previous doctor had decided that the victim must have died instantaneously, McGill found evidence in Shewchuck's digestion system that proved he had lived long enough to move around his house and hide the rifle, obscuring cause of death.[19]^: 29

Witnesses confirmed that Shewchuk had struggled with depression,[11]^: 26 and it was found that Shewchuk had borrowed the rifle and cartridges himself shortly before his death. The accused neighbour – whose suspicious bloodstains were actually from an injured farm animal – was released.[19]^: 28–29 The Lintlaw Case had a strong impact on McGill's reputation with police, and the RCMP subsequently made it their policy to call her in immediately whenever foul play was suspected.[11]^: 26

In November 1933, a trapper named Oskar Schwab was reported missing northeast of Nipawin. A police investigation uncovered traces of blood in his shack. Although the blood's origin was initially uncertain – since Schwab had made a living trapping and skinning animals – McGill established that blood stains at the head of Schwab's mattress were indeed human, and police located a bullet lodged in the log wall nearby.[20]^: 27

The following February, police arrested Schwab's former trapping partner, Thomas Kisling, who admitted to killing Schwab but subsequently tried to argue that it had been accidental or in self-defence.[22] Investigators uncovered Schwab's remains and found that the trapper's skull had been shattered into dozens of pieces by the gunshot. After completing an autopsy, McGill took the skull fragments back to her laboratory and painstakingly reconstructed it. Her work, revealing the bullet's clear trajectory and black lead markings,[19]^: 28 showed that Schwab had been shot in the back of the head while sleeping.[20]^: 30

When McGill testified in Kisling's trial, she produced the carefully reconstructed skull from her handbag. Biographer Myrna L. Petersen describes how "a gasp went through the crowd" as court watchers realized what the pathologist was holding.[11]^: 88 Court reporter Ken Liddell later recalled in one of his columns that he had seen McGill bring out similar evidence in other court cases with "all the drama of a magician."[23]

During a period of cold weather, a hitchhiker was found frozen to death in a southern Saskatchewan field near South Poplar, his skull apparently fractured by a blow to the head. A local doctor ruled it murder and sent the victim's remains to McGill's laboratory for further examination.[19]^: 27 When McGill examined the skull, however, she concluded that the man's bone structure had been weakened by rickets.[12]^: 205 A truck driver admitted to drinking some alcohol with the hitchhiker, which had increased blood flow to the man's brain – and after his death, the below-freezing temperatures and position of the body had caused those fluids to expand, resulting in the apparent skull fracture. McGill found no evidence of foul play.[19]^: 27 The cause of death for the hitchhiker was determined to be a simple heart attack.[12]^: 205