Richard Aubin was horrified when he got his shovel out to fix some basement drains in a house he was gutting at 5012 Ste. Marie in Little Henry's on Tues. Aug. 12, 1986.
What he found was a terrifying collection of bones buried in the basement.Fellow shovelers Yves Couture, Gerard Fleury and Michel Caron were so shocked that they called the police and Margaret Marugg and Jean Lafleche showed up to investigate from Station 23.
So next time you walk by that house, run, don't walk.
***
Benoit Gaignery, aka Ben Gaignery, from the south shore, had a very bad heroin addiction in the mid-80s.He was married to Anne-Marie D'amour, who was sweet as honey, and hot as the frying pan that a stoner forgets on the burner.
They were 21, and had a 3-year-old daughter and were engaged to be married at the end of 1985.
In spite of his good fortunes, young Ben confessed that he had issues of self-confidence and would hide behind an image of nonsense by sipping 15 beers and smoking a joint before turning into a full-bore heroin addict.
"Instead of paying my rent and buying food for my family, I would inject myself with $500-$600 a week in the arm," he told Allo-Police.
On August 29, 1985 Anne-Marie asked for advice in helping with the pain she felt from four tooth extractions she had undergone at the Verdun Hospital.
He gave her a bit of his heroin and she died.
He expressed extreme remorse and faced charges the next year. .
***
Claude Dionne, 21, seen below, was looking for something cool to do in the summer of '86, which wasn't such an amazing summer. Wham! Simply Red, Bananarama were on the radio, alongside such crap as Peter Gabriel and Madonna, so it was at the tail end of a creative period which was to be be replaced by college radio, cowpunk, REM-style borefest bands.So Dionne went out on Fri. Aug 21, 1986 and spent the night hanging around bars.
At about 3:30 a.m he happened to meet up with a stranger named Jacques Brais, who lived in Granby, but came originally from Montreal.
Brais was on welfare and came into town to hit the nightclubs with the $280 left of his welfare cheque stuffed into his pocket.
Dionne generously agreed to allow Brais to sleep on his couch at 1832 Saint Christophe #4, near the corner of Ontario, a particularly sketchy area back then.
Brais fell asleep quickly.
From clubbing, to being clubbed: Brais was hammered to death with an aluminum baseball bat as he slept on Dionne's couch. The $280 was removed from his pocket.
Dionne called cops himself on Sat. Aug. 2, 1986. He was charged with murder.
***
Olive Astbury, 87, lived alone in a home near Fitch Bay Village near Magog and on March 30, 1986, found herself raided by a pack of bandits, who allegedly included Roger Bronson, 21, a young man she knew.Bronson, from Ayer's Cliff to the south, allegedly marched into her home with three other friends, all clad in stockinged faces, and cut her phone line, grabbed the $1,000 cash she had stashed and stole her car.
Others allegedly in on the robbery were Normand Wood, 29, David Keeble, 24, Scotty Percy, 26, all of Ayer's Cliff.
The young men were arrested on a tip a few weeks later.
Astbury would be 113 if she's still alive now.
The others would be between 47 and 55.I don't know if they're still alive. I don't know if I'm still alive.
***
We have discussed the concept of urban mood borders elsewhere on this site and Davidson St below Sherbrooke is a good example.You're cruising pleasantly near Pie IX and see the last big street west of the Big O but when you look down you see a lawless place with a sinister feel.
You reach for your numchuks as you stare at the sneakers hanging power lines and graffiti celebrating the death of police officers.
One June 24, 1986, Georges Seguin, 23 of 2466 Davidson apartment 13-A and Claude Lauzier, 23, of Desire St. in Montreal were suspected of killing mother of four Paulette Trepanier, 48, who lived in a nearby apartment. The two young goofs had spent the evening before St. Jean Baptiste celebrating La Fay-tuh Nationale with some older folks. She was there.
Lauzier told his buddy Seguin that his neighbor Trepanier owned him $300. So they decided to retrieve the cash by force. Seguin allegedly said it'd be best to stab her so she wouldn't be able to finger him afterwards.
So between 3 and 4 a m Tuesday June, 24 1986 they took out a fire extinguisher from nearby and knocked on her door. She answered naked. She was frequently nude inside her tiny 1 ½ apartment.
They blasted her in the face with the chemicals from the extinguisher.
Lauzier then allegedly grabbed her from the back and Seguin stabbed her a dozen times.
She fell on her and then they allegedly* hit her in the face with a baseball bat several times. She'd eventually die, of course.
Neighbour Andre Filion was awoken by the noise and came around to see what was shaking.
It turned out he was shaking after he got hammered in the forehead with a bat.
They allegedly tossed the baseball bat in the laneway on the roof of a garage and dumped the knife in a bush.
They returned home at 4:30 a.m. and woke the janitor to tell him that something strange happened. They were fingered soon after.
***
Nothing ever happens in Candiac, but the exception that proves that rule occurred on June 29, 1986 at
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| Anne Lise Krause |
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| Gunther Krause |
Anne Lise Krause, 50, claimed that she did it.
The aluminum bat was found inside the house. Turns out their son Martin, 18, a student, committed the unspeakable act and she confessed for him.
Gunther had come to Montreal in the mid-60s to work as an engineer at Pratt and Whitney in Longueuil.
They had two kids, Judith Krause, 24, an accountant, and Martin, both born in Quebec.
The parents had a bad fight at 8:30 Saturday morning June 28. It even spilled outside.
Judith was there watching on as her father yelled at her mom and even tried to stop her from getting into her car.
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| Martin Krause, 18, busted |
Son Martin wasn't there to see the fight but when he returned, he had a discussion with his dad, who was watching the World Cup of soccer on a TV in the basement.
The two argued and Martin allegedly literally decapitated his father with the bat.
Young Martin then took the car and drove to Lake Bowker to join his mother and sister. He told his mom what happened. They returned the next day, burned the clothing and she claimed responsibility as she called the police. Instead young Martin was arrested and strolled out with cops to face his charges.
***
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| Lajeunesse-Howey at 1287 Wolfe |
She had only recently moved into her home at 1287 Wolfe nine days earlier but the place was giving her the willies.
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| Yves Belanger |
He went to the corner store for her and did her other such small convenient favours
But on a steamy June 28, 1986 young Yves Belanger went clubbing until 3 a.m. and then allegedly broke into her place and killed her to steal her stuff.
Murder, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, was a much more common custom back them.
***
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| Kids looked at the scene where the kidnapper Teasdale (inset) took one in the noggin |
Kidnapping plots are a surprising rarity considering how often we see them in film and TV programs. So when Pierre Leclerc, part owner of the Fabreville Glass store at 4766 Ste. Rose was hit by such a demand on Friday Aug. 22, 1986, for $13,000 to be paid within 72 hours, he must have been plenty shocked.
The extortionists said that his pregnant wife would not have the baby she was expected to deliver soon if he didn't pay it up.
In fact the kidnappers had initially asked for much more but negotiations saw the price fixed at $13,000.
He arranged a dropoff and police were watching closely in hopes of catching the culprit.
Leclerc delivered 130 $100 bills to a home on Vianney in Blainville.
Cops then saw a red 1978 Mercury Cougar slowly sneaking off. They jumped into hot pursuit but the Cougar was speeding and was already a half mile ahead when cops stopped him at a roadblock on 89th Ave. W.
Police said that he looked like he was reaching for a gun and so one police Laval marksman shot Mike Teasale in the head, killing him in front of a home on 2 89th W. in Blainville.
Teasdale, 26, had been on parole after plotting a murder. He was, of course, dead. Also arrested was his girlfriend Danielle Brousseau, 30, as well as Claude Bourgeois, 32, and Ginette Bourgeois, 31.
It appears that Brousseau used to go out with Leclerc and he might have been targeted out of revenge.
***
Vincente Lafalce, 38, who was known by his musical stage name Cacho Lafalce, was unhappily married to Lilla Lafalce, 33, and living with their child at that tall high-rise at Girouard and Sherbrooke.
She rather blatantly had another lover, an anglo living in Montreal North, whom she barely bothered hiding from her husband, who even once caught them in bed together at his home.
Vincent became so distraught that he came close to killing himself on January 12, 1986.
He wrote up a suicide note and called a friend who tried for three hours to dissuade him.
Lafalce, who came to Montreal in 1974 hoping to make a career in music, finally put his foot down nine days later and asked his wife to leave her lover. She declined and laughed in his face.
So he took a .38 pistol, right in front of their sick son and aimed at his wife and shot six times, hitting her in the head three times and three times in the body. He called police and confessed. He was charged with murder.
***
Out on the south shore in Contrecoeur, a 45 minute drive from Westmount Square lies an rink called the Steve Mandeville Arena.
"Who exactly is Steve Mandeville?" I hear you ask.
He was the hockey-playing 11-year-old son of Ginette and Maurice Mandeville, who was coached by a 39-year-old Andre Charest, who had issues with cocaine, having once taken a small girl hostage in his car and driven her around.
So Mandeville received a phone call from his coach, asking him to come to the local arena at 7 p.m. on Aug. 25, 1986. He was later found dead 12 km away from the arena in a roadside with his bicycle. He had been strangled by a telephone cord. But he had not been sexually molested.
Witnesses identified a car with a bicycle sticking out of it and cops fast found the man and traces of the boy's hair and blood in the trunk.
Charest was a divorced father of three, having fathered kids with two different women. He lived a block away from the Mandevilles and worked data entry at the same company as the father, Sidbec Dosco Steel. He had participated in the 100-person search for the boy.
About 1,000 people attended Mandeville's funeral.
*(I say "allegedly" because I didn't see any follow-up to the story so it has been already been long established in a court of law whether they actually did these deeds or not, I simply don't know that element of the story).
The extortionists said that his pregnant wife would not have the baby she was expected to deliver soon if he didn't pay it up.
In fact the kidnappers had initially asked for much more but negotiations saw the price fixed at $13,000.
He arranged a dropoff and police were watching closely in hopes of catching the culprit.
Leclerc delivered 130 $100 bills to a home on Vianney in Blainville.
Cops then saw a red 1978 Mercury Cougar slowly sneaking off. They jumped into hot pursuit but the Cougar was speeding and was already a half mile ahead when cops stopped him at a roadblock on 89th Ave. W.
Police said that he looked like he was reaching for a gun and so one police Laval marksman shot Mike Teasale in the head, killing him in front of a home on 2 89th W. in Blainville.
Teasdale, 26, had been on parole after plotting a murder. He was, of course, dead. Also arrested was his girlfriend Danielle Brousseau, 30, as well as Claude Bourgeois, 32, and Ginette Bourgeois, 31.
It appears that Brousseau used to go out with Leclerc and he might have been targeted out of revenge.
***
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| Vincente and Lilla Lafalce |
She rather blatantly had another lover, an anglo living in Montreal North, whom she barely bothered hiding from her husband, who even once caught them in bed together at his home.
Vincent became so distraught that he came close to killing himself on January 12, 1986.
He wrote up a suicide note and called a friend who tried for three hours to dissuade him.
Lafalce, who came to Montreal in 1974 hoping to make a career in music, finally put his foot down nine days later and asked his wife to leave her lover. She declined and laughed in his face.
So he took a .38 pistol, right in front of their sick son and aimed at his wife and shot six times, hitting her in the head three times and three times in the body. He called police and confessed. He was charged with murder.
***
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| Steve Mandeville |
"Who exactly is Steve Mandeville?" I hear you ask.
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| Andre Charest |
So Mandeville received a phone call from his coach, asking him to come to the local arena at 7 p.m. on Aug. 25, 1986. He was later found dead 12 km away from the arena in a roadside with his bicycle. He had been strangled by a telephone cord. But he had not been sexually molested.
Witnesses identified a car with a bicycle sticking out of it and cops fast found the man and traces of the boy's hair and blood in the trunk.
Charest was a divorced father of three, having fathered kids with two different women. He lived a block away from the Mandevilles and worked data entry at the same company as the father, Sidbec Dosco Steel. He had participated in the 100-person search for the boy.
About 1,000 people attended Mandeville's funeral.
*(I say "allegedly" because I didn't see any follow-up to the story so it has been already been long established in a court of law whether they actually did these deeds or not, I simply don't know that element of the story).