The Pacific Junction Murders [2]
Canadian True Crime
Kristi Lee
4.7 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
[Part 2 of 2] With the infant recovered and the suspects in custody, the investigation only grows more disturbing. Shifting stories, buried secrets, and mounting evidence collide in a dramatic courtroom showdown — the first ever kidnapping trial in the province of New Brunswick and the last double hanging in Canada.
— This two-part series is a carefully selected replay from our archive, originally titled "The Lake Family Murders". We'll be back with new episodes in late April.
*Additional content warning: this series includes the death of a young child. Please take care when listening.
Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:
See the page for this episode at https://www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes/132
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Canadian true crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. |
| 0:04.7 | The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening. |
| 0:11.8 | This is part two of a two-part series. |
| 0:19.9 | Where we left off, Philip Lake and his common-law wife Bertha Ring had been murdered |
| 0:25.8 | at their New Brunswick home in the morning hours of January 6, 1936. Their toddler, Jackie, |
| 0:33.3 | was left to die of exposure outside, and their tiny shack was set on fire. Their four-month-old |
| 0:40.2 | baby, Betty, wasn't found, and it was assumed that her remains were consumed by the flames. |
| 0:46.9 | Earlier that evening, several locals had seen 19-year-old Arthur Bannister walking in the area, |
| 0:53.7 | with his 22-caliber rifle. When the RCMP went to Arthur Bannister walking in the area with his 22-caliber rifle. |
| 0:56.2 | When the RCMP went to the Bannister home with a mitton found along the trail, |
| 1:01.0 | his 20-year-old brother, Daniel Bannister, identified it as belonging to him, but said he'd loaned |
| 1:07.5 | it to Arthur. |
| 1:08.9 | And then, investigators discovered a baby at the Bannister |
| 1:12.7 | home that at first, their 40-year-old mother, Mae Bannister, insisted, was hers. But she soon |
| 1:19.8 | changed her story and said her 15-year-old daughter, Frances, brought the baby home after |
| 1:26.2 | rescuing it from a house fire. It seemed likely that |
| 1:30.0 | this baby and Little Betty Lake were one in the same, but there were so many unanswered questions. |
| 1:37.0 | The grand jury determined that brothers Arthur Bannister and Daniel Bannister would go to trial |
| 1:42.6 | on murder and kidnapping charges, where they would face a mandatory death sentence of found guilty. |
| 1:49.0 | Because the stories they'd given to investigators had been so different, they would need separate trials. |
| 1:56.0 | Their mother May would also go on trial on charges amounting to procuring, counselling and harboring a kidnapped child. |
| 2:04.1 | All three trials would be held in March of 1936, three months after the Lake family murders, |
... |
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