The Prodigal Husband: The Tragedy of Helmuth and Hanna Buxbaum

Pauline Carey is the author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

In February 1986, Helmuth Buxbaum, the wealthy owner of a chain of
nursing homes, was convicted of first-degree murder of his wife, who had
been dragged from their car on a highway near London, Ontario, and
fatally shot by masked killers. Edward Greenspan conducted Buxbaum’s
defence, but Clayton Ruby took over the case for the appeals, which he
pursued through the courts of Canada and even the United Nations.

Ruby argued that a mentally incompetent man had been put on trial. In
1982, Buxbaum had suffered a stroke (a CAT scan revealed brain damage).
At the original trial, Buxbaum refused to enter a plea of insanity. Ruby
found several medical witnesses who testified that Buxbaum was insane at
the time of the murder, but the courts of appeal disallowed their
testimony. Ironically, after Buxbaum was convicted, a Supreme Court
ruling effectively changed the law to allow consideration of a
defendant’s insanity after the delivery of a verdict. This painstaking
examination, by the author of books about Donald Marshall and about
child abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage, raises disturbing questions
about Canada’s criminal justice system.