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took place in Toronto’s Don jail when Ronald Turpin, (born 1933) and Arthur Lucas were executed for murder.  
 
A hold-up man, who snatched $632 from the till of the Red Rooster restaurant in Toronto in February 1962, got clean away – until a traffic cop pulled him over for a broken taillight. The hold-up man, Ronald Turpin, 29 pulled out his .32 calibre handgun and shot Fredrick Nash in the chest, and then tried to escape in Nash’s police car.  
 
He was caught almost immediately.  
Turpin was convicted of murder and sentenced to die by hanging.  
Arthur Lucas, 54, a black American, was also awaiting execution at the same time. In November 1961, he travelled from Detroit to Toronto to murder Therland Crater, who was scheduled to give evidence in a drugs trial along with his girl friend, Carolyn Newman.  
 
Lucas returned to Detroit after the double-murder but was arrested next day, and extradited to Canada where he was convicted. The Canadian Government held an emergency meeting on December 4th, 1961 to decide whether to commute the two death sentences, but the motion was thrown out. Accordingly, at two minutes after midnight on Tuesday, December 11th, 1962, Turpin and Lucas were taken to the execution chamber at Toronto’s Don Jail and hanged.  
 
Other Canadian killers were more fortunate. Between 1957 and 1963 John Diefenbaker’s Conservative government commuted 52 out of 66 death sentences, indicating that the end of the death penalty was near.  
 
When Turpin was told that he and Lucas would probably be the last people hanged in Canada, he replied, “Some consolation.”  
 
The final execution in Brandon was on February 25th 1915 when Harry Green was hanged for the murder of Thomas Hill who he shot on May 17th 1914 in Hartney.  
 
The Trudeau government abolished Capital Punishment altogether on July 14th 1976 by a vote of 130-124, at the time there were eleven men on Death row, and they all had their sentences commuted to life in prison.  
 
In 1987, Brian Mulroney's Conservative government attempted to reinstate capital punishment but failed.  
 
 
Source: http://www.executedtoday.com/2007/12/11/1962-arthur-lucas-and-ronald-turpin/