“Help! My boy friend has stabbed my husband!”

That frantic call to Winnipeg Police on the evening of July 15th, 1950, was made by Olga Kafka, and Detective James Sims, who took it, sighed the sigh of the long-suffering. He knew Olga Kafka, her boy friend Henry Malanik, and her husband. They were all Ukrainian immigrants, and the two men were constantly fighting over possession of Olga.

Sims and two other officers sped to the Kafka house. The men had disappeared, but after a couple of minutes Malanik suddenly appeared with a 12-bore shotgun and shot Sims dead at point-blank range. He then shot another officer, while the third officer shot and wounded Malanik.

At his trial Malanik pleaded that he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. He was sentenced to death but the appeal court ordered a re-trial because half the judges had wanted a manslaughter verdict. At the second trial he was again found guilty of murder, and hanged on Tuesday, June 17th, 1952, at Winnipeg Central Prison.