[2] Lucas had been convicted of the murder of 44-year-old Therland Crater, a drug dealer and police informant from Detroit.

He is also assumed to have killed 20-year-old Carolyn Ann Newman, Crater's common-law wife, but was never tried in her death.

The car in question was found to have been owned by the individual against whom Crater was supposed to testify: a drug dealer named Saunders.

Lucas, along with fellow prisoner Ronald Turpin (who had been convicted of an unrelated murder), was executed at the Toronto (Don) Jail by hanging,[4] the only form of civilian capital punishment ever used in post-Confederation Canada, although the military employed execution by firing squad.

In 1976, capital punishment for murder was removed from Canada's Criminal Code, but could still be used under the National Defence Act until 1998.