Unlucky To The End: The Story Of Janise Marie Gamble
Richard W. Pound
McGill-Queen's University Press
$34.95
paper
240pp
978-0-7735-3300-4
Pound chooses to use a gentler metaphor. “A few small events or a couple of wrong choices – the sort of thing that could happen to anyone – may be enough to steer someone off the path of a normal, happy existence. In the same way, a butterfly stirring the air in Southeast Asia may affect whole storm systems a month later in North America.”
Janise Gamble was caught in a storm of her own making. A happy kid from a small town in Ontario, Janise was fatally attracted to a charmer, John Gamble, whose darker side included alcoholism, drug addiction, spousal abuse, and a life of petty crime. During their brief and tragic marriage, the mesmerized Janice continued to forgive her husband. Even after the most violent beatings she always took him back when he wept and cried that she was all he had to live for.
He didn’t live long. He and a buddy decided to rob a Credit Union in Calgary. The buddy shot a police officer, the pair took hostages, and the duo decided to commit suicide via a drug overdose rather than face arrest and prison. Gamble died, the friend didn’t, and he and Janise were tried and convicted for murder – a crime Janise didn’t commit. She was sentenced to 25 years in Kingston’s women’s prison where lifers were given no training for re-entry to the real world. Six years later, following a piece on CBC’s The Fifth Estate, a Montreal lawyer made Janise his cause, working towards her early release. The rest of the story is the final thundering roar of the avalanche.
This is neither an easy read nor a pleasant story. But Pound, who became interested in Janice’s story when he met the Montreal lawyer, has created a compelling tale with very real characters. It’s a bleak picture of an abusive relationship and a striking exposure of a Canadian miscarriage of justice that is as powerful as the stories of Steven Truscott, Donald Marshall, and David Milgaard.
Pound is a skilful craftsman who uses photos and phone and trial transcripts which add to the drama. But the main reason that Unlucky to the End rises far above cheap sensationalism or detective fiction-type action is that Pound, once he heard the story from Colin Irving, was a man on a mission “to see what had happened and, to some extent, how and why.”
For Canadians the “how and the why” of this tragic miscarriage of justice is undoubtedly as important as the “what,” the grim unfolding of events which began when an uncomplicated small town girl fell in love with a sociopath. mRb
I remember this day, clear as a bell, and not just because I drove for Bell Taxi. I was hanging out in NW Calgary hustling Safeway trips to avoid the downtown rush hour. A call came over my two-way that a taxi was needed at the Thunderbird restaurant in NE Calgary. I responded that I could take memorial drive and be there in 10 minutes. Getting the trip, I headed down memorial drive. It was supposed to be an Edmonton trip which meant a couple hundred bucks for me at the time.
Everything was strange from the moment I walked through that door. After a short exchange, they asked me to pull around the back, I didn’t notice the shot-up vehicle as I loaded them up and we headed to memorial drive.
Still thinking of an Edmonton trip, I asked where they were going. They all started yapping about the Bay and an uncle George. As we pulled out onto memorial drive, the lady beside me started a steady nudge to my ribs. When I glanced at her, I saw a terrified woman, and it came to me that something wasn’t right. That’s when they got to me pull over, and a girl (Janice) from the back got out and went around to the other door. I saw that this put the guy from the restaurant away from the door and between the other two passengers. The rest of the flags went up and I was on full blown alert. I actually thought all they had was a knife for some reason. Then I was told to shut off my 2 – way. Listening them double talk, it started getting pretty hairy by this time. I recall one guy (Gamble) asking the others if they thought I was “hip”. I was by then, but I kept playing the clueless cabbie and started thinking of what I should do.
They had started talking about going out of town and remembering my gas gauge had been stuck on an eighth of a tank forever, so I said, if we’re going out of town, we need gas. The guy (Billy) on the passenger side got pretty excited, whipped his head over and took a look. After seeing it was nearly empty, he took the bait and said okay.
Right on I thought as I pulled into the Texaco on 52nd and up to the tanks. I the put gas in, which only took 6.80 as I had filled up earlier in Bowness. I fidgeted for a bit longer and went in to pay. Still wondering if I was maybe overreacting, I hung for a second at the till and one of them (Billy) came in, reached in front of me and grabbed some penny matches. Let’s go he said, just hang on I replied, and started raising my left arm. Honest to goodness, I had thoughts of cracking him with a fast right, because I was still thinking he had a knife. But then he ups with a pistol and points right between my eyes. Calmed me right down.
Let’s go, he said again, I just shot a cop. Everything slowed to slow mo. From the corner of my eye, I saw the lady at the till hit the floor, a guy came in from the garage side and almost turned inside out going back out the door. I looked back at the gun pointed at my head, I stared down the barrel, looked at the guy, took a chance, and turned him down. Surprised him again so I held out the keys and, again he took the bait, grabbed them and away he went.
Made a big mistake when he floored my old taxi though. It flooded and died at the lights. That’s when they all jumped out waving guns around and took over that poor lady and her car. By then I was on the phone with the cops and they caught up to them shortly after and it was all over after a two day hostage incident.