But yesterday Jimmy Coffin stood in the glare of TV cameras to tell Canadians the time has come to clear his father's name.
Gaspe prospector Wilbert Coffin was hanged in 1956 for murdering a U.S. tourist. Half a century later, the clamour over whether he was wrongly convicted is getting louder. "It hasn't ended in 50 years," Jimmy Coffin said of the controversy over his father's conviction. "If me coming forward helps end it, so be it."
Speaking to reporters for the first time in his 59 years, Coffin said he has always shunned the spotlight because "I just wanted to live a normal life."
But support from the Bloc Quebecois, a petition to the House of Commons and a decision by the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted to take up the 53-year-old case encouraged Coffin to speak out.
"If he wasn't innocent, this wouldn't still be going on," said Coffin, who revealed his father's identity to co-workers last week so they wouldn't find out through the media.
He was accompanied in Ottawa by Wilbert's sister, Marie Stewart, 75, who made the 17-hour trip from Gaspe by bus.
"People across Canada are coming out in force behind us. The support is unbelievable," said Stewart, who arrived in Ottawa with a 2,228-name petition to add to 2,000 names already tabled in the House of Commons by Raynald Blais, MP for Gaspesie-Iles-de-la-Madeleine.
In addition to caring for her cancer-stricken husband, Leigh, and sister-in-law, Stewart has been baking and knitting to raise funds. She's raised $4,100 so far.
At question period, Blais pledged his party's support for the family's efforts to clear Wilbert Coffin's name. "I'd like to tell them that they are not alone in their quest for justice," he said.
At a press conference later with the Coffin family, Bloc justice critic Real Menard said he was moved by the family's courage and called the case a stain on Quebec history: "It's like a stigmata. It's a question of honour."
Menard welcomed the Justice Department's recent decision to review whether there are grounds to overturn Coffin's conviction.
Jimmy Coffin, a slight, bespectacled man whose blue eyes twinkle warmly when he smiles, has no memory of the father who was hanged when he was 9.
"Sometimes you have glimpses of the past, but I think it was too much for the mind to take. It was like someone erased the writing off the chalkboard," he said.
His mother, Marion Petrie, told him about his father's execution when he was 11. "There was a lot of tears."
He remained close to his mother until her death three years ago at age 91.
"She never faltered in her belief he was 100 per cent innocent."
Pennsylvania hunters Eugene Lindsey, 45, his son Richard, 17, and Frederick Claar, 19, were slain in the Gaspe bush in June 1953. The following year, Coffin was convicted of Richard Lindsey's murder in a three-week trial at which his lawyer called no witnesses.
Many, including author and retired senator Jacques Hebert, say Coffin was a scapegoat for authorities anxious for a speedy conviction to protect tourism.
The Criminal Convictions Review Group announced last week it has assigned a staff lawyer to investigate the Coffin case.
Menard said he hopes the group will recommend a new trial - which would be a legal first because the accused has been dead for 50 years.
Canada has never overturned a conviction posthumously, but Britain has granted posthumous pardons.
It's the first time the review group has taken on the case of a convicted person who is already dead.
