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The history of capital punishment with Lorna Poplak. She will discuss the history of the death penalty in Canada, including the inconsistent application of the death sentence, the treatment of women, wrongful convictions, the difficult journey toward abolition, and the last two hangings at Toronto’s notorious Don Jail. She will also speak to the stories of two inmates of the Huron Historic Gaol: the public execution of Nicholas Mellady and the egregious case against teenager Steven Truscott. Lorna Poplak is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and researcher with a fascination for the dark side of history. She is a member of Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, and Mesdames of Mayhem. Her two nonfiction books, both published by Dundurn Press, are Drop Dead: A Horrible History of Hanging in Canada (2017), and The Don: The Story of Toronto’s Infamous Jail (2021). In 2022, The Don was shortlisted for both the Crime Writers of Canada Excellence Award and the Heritage Toronto Book Award. In the pipeline is Lorna’s third true crime book, On the Lam: Great (and Not So Great) Escapes from Prison, which will be published by Dundurn in Fall 2025.