Massey Family: Charles Bert Massey

Charles Bert Massey: At a tense time in the citys growth with young men heading off to war; massive immigration, with many of those newcomers living in poverty; and an eroding class structure as the new wealth of entrepreneurs encroached on the snobbish establishment a member of Torontos famous Massey family was gunned down on his Walmer Rd. doorstep by a teenage maid laying in wait, according to The Star. In her painstakingly researched The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country , historian Charlotte Gray documents the drama of the murder and subsequent trial and paints a picture of a Toronto that was careening toward a future that no one could predict or control and It was a sensational murder that titillated the very Protestant and very conservative Toronto of 1915. Carrie Davies, an 18-year-old domestic from England, immediately confessed to firing the fatal bullet into Charles Bert Massey, but the scandalous details that unfolded in a Toronto courtroom was Massey a cad who indeed tried to sexually assault the petite and helpless virgin? fuelled a newspaper war and divided and distracted a city undergoing major change. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.