foul play had occurred in the early hours of 3 February 1940 stated that, "He...Williams...betrayed the people and no doubt this would have stirred the pot enough for someone to have taken drastic measures by their own hands and started the fire at the house that led to the deaths of Eric, J.O.'s eldest son and Erica his infant daughter."—21 October 2003 Thomas Lodge concluded that it had been the Secretary of State for Canada who had failed to give guidance to the commission who were a collection of individuals running their own departments. He described the commission as an experiment in dictatorship and claimed he left his post because he could no longer carry on working with people who completely failed to agree on a positive policy and because he could not convince the Secretary of State to adopt his own point of view. The Dominions Office removed Lodge from his position of commissioner early in 1937 and the publication of his book Dictatorship in Newfoundland in 1939 put him out of favour in London. Nevertheless, he became a government director of the Labrador Development Company in 1940. Lodge would have been well-placed to have handled the two deaths. Claude Fraser, Sir John Hope Simpson's loyal secretary of Natural Resources had been appointed to the post of Government Director of the Labrador Development Company Limited on exactly the same day as when the deaths occurred. RCMP investigation about the events of 3 February 1940 On the following basis, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Serious Crimes Unit based in St. John's, Newfoundland decided to open their own investigation in August 2002 into what had really happened in the early hours of 3 February 1940 in Port Hope Simpson: No pertinent Newfoundland Rangers Monthly Report on Living Conditions in the Port Hope Simpson district for February 1940 has been found written by Ranger Clarence Dwyer or any other Ranger from the Port Hope Simpson Detachment. No medical report from the Doctor who apparently attended to Olga at the scene of the two deaths has been found. No death certificates for Arthur Eric Williams and Erica D'Anitoff Williams have been found. A consistent effort had been made over the years by Sir John Hope Simpson to keep the Newfoundland Rangers under the jurisdiction of the Natural Resources Department instead of under the Department of Justice. The grave's epitaph had been changed and