A thief - unidentified still to this day - stole Brother Andre's heart from its marble pedestal beneath the basilica of the St. Joseph's Oratory on Thursday, March 16, 1973 at about 5 p.m.The thief picked three locks on an iron gate that surrounded the heart which sat on a pedestal that had no alarms.
Church officials noted that the heart had no market value and initially hoped that it was just a college kids' prank.But someone rang up the Journal de Montreal and threatened to destroy the heart unless they were given $50,000. The caller, a francophone, directed them to a car parked at Cremazie and Drolet where a roll of film was found containing photos of the heart.
Father Marcel Lalonde of the Catholic Holy Cross Fathers rejected the demand.
The church denied reports that it received a flood of donations aimed at speeding the return of the glass-encased relic of Andre Bessette.
The story made headlines around the world. Many ascribed the theft of the blood pumping organ to separatist bandits.
The crime captured the imagination of the city: The Vehicule Gallery on St. Catherine just west of the Main devoted an exhibit to the theft.
Artist Stephen Lack was one of the contributors:
Alan "Bozo" Moyle and Frank Vitale wanted to do an art show celebrating the kidnapping and ransom of the heart. It was an open call and there were amazing and scandalous works, the most memorable being on a table of smaller pieces, a heart of a cow obtained from a butcher shop, wrapped in plastic wrap and positioned in a baseball mitt. Over the two weeks of the show the raw heart birthed maggots.Meanwhile the oratory learned to do without the heart, as Christmas passed without the familiar item near the crutches discarded nearby by miraculously-healed believers.
Another was a life sized crucifix with a vibrating erection that someone put a ladder against and climbed the ladder to give the crucified a little oral to aid in the dispatch to the other side.
One of my contributions was a large sized black garbage bag tied to the upper railing of the gallery in a way that made it heart shaped, and then spray painted red and topped with gold sprayed styrofoam worms.
Just days before Christmas 1974 police received a tip from lawyer Frank Shoofey who directed them to a house in southwest Montreal where cops recovered the heart in a basement. (I'm trying to get the exact address).
No arrests were made. The heart was returned to its spot on Saturday December 21, 1974 after 645 days.
Who did it?
Separate sources have fingered the same person to Coolopolis. I will not reveal the name here now.
"Small time hood. Small nasty looking guy with a big mouth who was involved in several rapes."
The heart-stealing bandit was no angel. He shot a guy to death in a bar. Another would-be victim survived by playing dead. His son turned out to be a convicted killer too.The reputed thief was an anglophone from Point St. Charles and hung out near Cavendish and St. James. He had friends in the West End Gang.
The idea of stealing the heart was not so much to get the ransom but rather to use it as a bargaining chip.
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| Shoofey |
We will probably never know if police cut the individual or someone else in the West End Gang some slack in return for the return of the most sacred heart.
One possibly Irish Mafia-related event that took place during that period was the murder of a Montreal police officer by a Boston fugitive named John Connearney in Lasalle on June 14, 1973. Connearney was cited in one report as living in an apartment at St. James and Harvard, then primo-WEG turf.
There's no proof that Connearney was in with Montreal's Irish Mafia or if the heart was used in negotiations for him or any other situation but it's tempting to speculate.