My Great-Aunt Chibalaya and Great-Uncle Chaim Brody were brutally murdered in June 1941 in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. The crime is loosely depicted in the movie "The Bay Boy." A Glace Bay policeman, Arthur Frost, who rented a home from the Brodys and who was evicted the morning of the crime for failure to pay rent, was accused of the murders. The son of fellow policeman George Thomas was witness to the sounds of gunshots and the murderer's flight from the scene according to newspaper accounts. This Photo of the Glace Bay police force from 1937 shows both Thomas and the accused murderer Frost.
I went to Glace Bay during the Spring of 2006 and researched the newspaper accounts of the murders and Frost's indictment in archives of the Sydney public library. Arthur Frost was acquitted due to insanity and he was committed. A Canadian cousin reports hearing from Petrie that Frost died in a Nova Scotia asylum in the 1950's. Family lore holds that Frost was acquitted due to anti-semitic politics of the time. However this theory is not supported by the extensive coverage of the murders and the positive portrayal of the elderly victims in the Glace Bay press as well as Frost's effective incarceration in the asylum. Local court records were destroyed in a fire in the 1950s.
Frost had served in WWI. This may be his enlistment attestation.
Interesting side note, the newspaper coverage reports that during their life the victims donated land to the town of Glace Bay for a new street. The street was originally named "Brody Lane." Today the street sign reads "Brodie Lane" Apparently "Brodie" is a Scottish clan name and at some point the street was renamed to match the Scottish.
Arthur Frost was acquitted of the murders on the grounds of insanity. Frost was committed to an asylum and it is believe that he died there.
From a note to Patricia Brody's (Chaim's grandaughter) poem Chibalaya:
Chibalaya Cohn married Chaim Brody, 1894, Henry Street, then journeyed to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, a dying coal-mine town. She bore six children, raised a seventh, Molly, who was not her own. Using money from homegrown dairy products, she opened a women's/children's drygoods store. All the children worked in the store and the business thrived. In June, 1941 Chibalaya, 67, and Chaim, 77, were torture-murdered by a policeman to whom they rented a room. Although the officer was brought to trial for the murder, charges against him were soon dropped. (Note: There was no evidence in the newspaper accounts of torture. Both victims were shot to death in their home and the charges were not dropped.)
Chaim's son, Selwyn Brody (Patricia's father) was a controversial and influential psychiatrist in New York City.
Dr. Brody, whose career as a psycho-neurologist /psychoanalyst spanned over 67 years, pioneered the study of psychosomatic medicine where unexpressed grief and rage and jealousy are seen as prime causes of organic diseases such as asthma, lupus, and cancer.
Dr. Brody, who died in 2004 at the age of 91, was also the victim of a violent crime in 1972, when he was stabbed in Harlem, NY on East 125th Street.
Please contact me if you have any additional information about the case.