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The Mysterious Death of Tom Thomson:
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Theories & Hypotheses

Theory #4: Subdural Hematoma

... a collection of blood between the covering of the brain and the surface of the brain; can be fatal when caused by a severe head injury (p 187?) which Tom could have suffered if the fight with Shannon Fraser occurred at Mowat Lodge, and Tom fell against a heavy iron grate in the fireplace, as was suggested by Daphne Crombie, or if the fight continued outdoors and Tom bashed his head on the rocks.

Dr Noble Sharpe received his M.B. from the University of Toronto in 1911, and served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps in Europe until 1919. From 1919 to 1923, he served as Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Toronto and from 1923 to 1950, as Pathologist at Old Grace Hospital, the Toronto Hospital for Consumptives, and Toronto Western Hospital. In 1951 he was appointed Medical Director of the Ontario Attorney-General’s Laboratory, retiring in 1967. After his retirement, Sharpe served as a Consultant Pathologist with the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences. His medical credentials are impeccable.

Dr Noble Sharpe, ‘The Canoe Lake Mystery’, Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal, June 1970, 34-40.

‘I do not criticize Dr Howland for failing to make an internal examination. Decomposition would have masked indications of drowning as the cause of death. Even the absence of water in the lungs would not rule out the possibility. I am, however, puzzled by the bleeding from the ear. If this, whatever the cause, occurred in the water, it would in all probability have been washed away. Dried blood implies a time lapse before immersion.’

Dr Sharpe’s argument recognizes that any injury to the head that may have been occasioned by a mishap in the canoe ... presuming that Tom tripped over his own fishing line, fell and whacked the side of his head on a gunwale before rolling off and in to the water ... would have produced liquid blood that almost certainly would have been washed clean by the wave action of currents in the lake. Dried blood, on the other hand, could well be (and apparently was) still visible in the ear cavity even after the body had been in the water for eight days. This suggests that some significant trauma to the head had occurred some time prior to the body’s immersion in the lake, and also suggests that the person who dumped the body was also complicit in the head injury.

More Theories & Hypotheses

• Theories Home
• Theory #1: Accidental Drowning
• Theory #2: Manslaughter
• Theory #3: Murder with a Paddle
• Theory #4: Subdural Hematoma
• Theory #5: Murder with a Gun
• Theory #6: Suicide
• Further Mystery: Interment