To many Hamiltonians, the mere mention of "Evelyn Dick" brings back powerful memories.

A diminishing few knew her, a family member, or someone close to the case. Others remember hearing stories from their own elder relatives or friends. Through it all is an incredible desire by people to share their connection to an incredible chapter in the city's history.

Here is a selection of reminiscences from readers received over the past couple of weeks. The submissions – edited here for clarity and brevity with author names left out—were prompted by a Spectator story on March 16 about the 70th anniversary of the discovery of John Dick's torso on the side of the escarpment. In some cases, they stretch the bounds of provable or even fathomable truth, but the comments do reflect the sort of things that people talk about when the subject comes up.

Share your Evelyn Dick story by emailing mmcneil@thespec.com.

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Back in the mid-80s my husband and I owned a small grocery store in Binbrook. An older gentleman came in one day and asked if I would cash a small pension cheque for him so he could buy some groceries. The pension cheque was issued by a mining company in Quebec to a Leo Bortellotti. He showed me identification.

The second time he came in another senior from town came in and stopped short just staring at this man, rather rudely I thought, until Leo left. The senior asked if I knew who the man was and I answered that he was Leo Bortellotti. He said it was actually Bill Bohozuk, Evelyn Dick's boyfriend...The next month the exact same thing happened when Leo was in the store but it was a different person telling me the same thing. I was still doubtful until the time Leo was paying for his groceries another man came in and was waiting his turn but he kept staring at Leo until he turned a bit and the second man yells out, " Bill Bohozuk you old fool I thought that was you!"

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I believe my grandfather on my mother's side was the jury foreman in the murder trial. He died when I was a teenager. My mother who passed away recently, had said in the past, my grandfather never did talk about the trial, even to her.

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I lived on Pottruff Rd North 30 years ago and a woman used to walk along Queenston Rd all the time, and she bore an uncanny resemblance to Evelyn Dick. She had a distinctive mole on her cheek that she obviously was covering over with face powder. She always appeared skittish and kept to herself.

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A jail guard at the Barton Street Jail back then was named Paddy O'Neil. He used to say that he got Christmas cards from Evelyn Dick for years after she went to Kingston Penitentiary.

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I read your recent article on Evelyn Dick and wanted to touch base to share a website – www.evelyndick.com—that I put together a couple of years ago about the story and geography of the crime. This was a research project that stemmed from my own interest in the story and how the city of Hamilton itself played a role in the crime – from the escarpment, to waterfalls to major urban locations. It's such a Hamilton specific story and has become part of local pop-culture through the performances, music etc. In my research, I found bits and pieces scattered around the Internet, so I decided to put a summary in one location.

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I think Evelyn Dick's daughter may have attended Hill Park Secondary School when I did, in the late 1950's. That was the rumour at the time. She was a beautiful, almond-eyed girl.

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I am writing in regards to Evelyn Dick trial. As you are aware her trial attracted large crowds of Spectators. At the time my uncle was a deputy sheriff. My mother went to the trial and was outside with a lot of other people. My uncle saw my mother and ushered her in and got her a seat right behind Evelyn. I remember my mother talking about the trial many times and she pointed out how pretty Evelyn was.

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I just read the online story of Evelyn Dick. Funny but, just yesterday my husband and I were discussing that very story.

We both follow anything about Evelyn since my dad worked at the HSR with John Dick and knew Evelyn very well.

I was very young (born Oct 1944) but over the years growing up I heard many stories about this case.

My dad used to tell us she was a prostitute and flirted with him as well as many other men in Hamilton. My dad would just laugh and tell her he was a married man.

The interesting part of this is that my husband's birth mother was in the same room with Evelyn Dick when she gave birth to her baby. The baby we presume was the one found in the attic. in the suitcase, encased in cement...my dad used to talk about the hustle and bustle in downtown Hamilton while the trial was on. It certainly kept the HSR buses busy and the drivers working long hours as people lined up for city blocks to enter the courtroom and get a glimpse of the lovely well-dressed Evelyn.

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When I worked at Dofasco in the early 70's, there was a man that worked on the No.1 Galv. Line that they used to say was Evelyn's boyfriend. He was quite a loner and didn't speak to anyone very much...A rumour that I heard was that Evelyn moved out west after her release from prison and she may have changed her name too...I can still remember that some friends of my parents took us for a ride past the house where Evelyn lived. It was a strange attraction in those days.

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I have heard it said that everyone in Hamilton has a story about Evelyn Dick so I will share mine with you.

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After the war ended, a young service man came to stay with my family while he searched for employment. Eventually he was hired by the Tuckett Tobacco Company and I believe his job entailed delivery of their products to various outlets in the Hamilton area. One evening he came home and was very upset. He told this story to my father:

He and a woman who worked with him were travelling along the mountain brow when a group of children stopped his car by standing in the roadway. He got out because they told him they had found a man's body. He accompanied the children to the spot and saw that what they said was true. Immediately he told his female co-worker to drive to the nearest house and call the police then come back to get him. As soon as she did, they left the area post haste. He wanted nothing to do with anything as gruesome as what he had seen...

Even though I was just a young child I was quite aware of the Evelyn Dick case because during the ensuing trials, there was a lot of quiet discussion going on in our household. It wasn't until many years later that my father told me why there was so much interest in the case under our roof. The young man in question later left the Tuckett Company and went to work at the Hamilton Street Railway. No doubt he heard a lot more about Evelyn Dick's father while he was at work with the father's previous history stealing money from the HSR.

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My late father-in-law, a farmer in West Flamborough, once told me he was a juror at one of the trials for Evelyn Dick. I have no idea if this is correct but if you can verify that, I would be interested in knowing if it is so.

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I used to work with a woman who was born the same week as Evelyn Dick's daughter Heather We used to tease her they got the babies mixed up in the hospital. :)

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I saw your article this morning and wanted to thank you. It may sound odd but it's a special memory for me, my mom is Faith Reid and my uncle David were two of the five kids who found the Torso on the escarpment and it was a story always told to us as a kid with scrap books and several of the books written. I guess it was my late mom's claim to fame.lol.

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As an 'out-of-towner' who has made her home in Hamilton, the stories of this city leave me breathless. The city is never short of intriguing tales, and the landscape and architecture of Hamilton seem to add to its appeal.

In reviewing the Dick case—and perhaps because I have no preconceived notions about it—I was struck by the realization that a dismemberment as brutal as this would require more strength and stomach than one lone female could manage. She seems to have really borne the brunt of the finger-pointing and accusations, and to this day it seems people are willing to lay blame with her when I feel there was more to the torrid tale.

Interestingly, I was contacted by a lady who informed me that it was her great, great Uncle who discovered the 'baby in the suitcase' (Detective John Freeborn). She mentioned to me that upon seeing the suitcase, the detective felt a sense of dread as he had recently been involved in a similar case, with another dead baby

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Even though I lived in the London area, I was well steeped in the Evelyn Dick story by a family cousin from Hamilton, who was one of the daily visitors who lined up to hear the gory details of the trial. Thus when attending Metropolitan United Church London on a regular Sunday morning worship service, I was a bit surprised to hear Evelyn Dick's name and see her in the left front pew. She stepped forth while her name was read out loud from the pulpit...As I recall from other readings, she supposedly went to Edmonton after her release from Kinston Pen, and I recall reading that she supposedly married a minister after that. While I worked for the Hamilton Board of Education for 38 years, one colleague always claimed he knew where she sequestered herself under an assumed name, in the Binbrook area. Of course, it was never was verified. Keep up the reporting as the truth reveals itself.

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I am a real estate broker and about 10-20 years ago, I was asked to list a condo unit for sale for a widow and was looking to move into a retirement home. During the course of that process, she told me that she used to live in Ottawa with her husband was a senior bureaucrat with the federal government. She told me about Evelyn Dick and that after she was paroled they hired or took her in as a housekeeper or caregiver to their children. The widow said her family had a good relationship with Mrs. Dick and had no issues with her.

- The strange and compelling story of Evelyn Dick