Tavern king Joseph Beaudry's bloody Montreal drinking empire and how it culminated in his son's death

 
 Peter Murphy managed the Texas Tavern, one of over 30 establishments owned by Joseph Beaudry, who had spent 45 years expanding his Montreal booze empire.
   Murphy came to work at the Texas Tavern at 970 Decarie (now the Tequila Bar) on Saturday September 27 and never left. After the doors closed he stayed all night and did line after line of cocaine.
   When Joseph's son Renald Beaudry came in on Sunday morning he found an addled Murphy still sniffing the white powder.
    Beaudry was unimpressed, conflict ensued and Murphy ended up stabbing his boss Beaudry, 62, and leaving his body in the freezer.
   Losing his son was a bitter loss for the senior Beaudry but it was not such an unusual event in the larger scheme of things, as his bars had seen copious bloodshed over the years.
   Beaudry was a supervisor at Dow Brewery who sold an apartment building he owned in order to open his first bar, the Villeray Tavern at St. Denis and Villeray in 1943.

A timeline of some of the nastier moments in Beaudry's bar empire

29 June 1985 Four are shot dead at J.J. Bar at 3270 Jean Talon E. One of the victims was a girl on her first day on the job. Her father was a janitor who had worked for Beaudry for 30 years and asked Beaudry to hire his daughter. Beaudry was so upset that he sold the place at a $30,000 loss. Beaudry's son Reynald had once been beaten and robbed of the night's take at the J.J. by three thugs, in an attack that left him so badly injured that he had to wear a brace for 15 years after.
19 Feb. 1975 Seventeen guns were seized at the P'tit Ritz, which by then was managed by Renald Enterprises of Fabreville, indicating that Joe Beaudry's son was running the place.
21 Jan. 1975 Thirteen people at Beaudry's Gargantua bar, which included a stripper or two as entertainment, died in a fire set by Richard Blass and Fernand Beaudet.
29 Dec. 1973 Enzo Porco shoots Karol Brousseau, hitting him in the left ear at the Temporel
Bar at 3765 Villeray. The gun blockeda fter the firs tshot (Browning 9mm with 14 bullets).
20 Sept. 1972 Bernard Trudeau was shot and injured at the Brazil Cafe at 2017 Frontenac, formerly known as the Havana Cafe.
25 Sept 1967 - Two masked and armed men robbed a tavern and its six clinets of $500, taking the contents of the cash from barman Malcolm Ashton.
8 May 1967 Barman shoots wanted felon Andre Filion, 24, in the leg at the Boudoir du Nord at 8145 St. Denis. Filion had tried to start fights and got angry when the manager asked him to leave.
29 Dec. 1966 Two armed thieves robbed the Belmont Tavern at 1401 of $10,500. They drove off towards the Victoria Bridge.
27 Sept. 1965 Denise Houle, 26, was shot outside Beaudry's P'tit Ritz at Prefontaine and St. Catherine. Houle was an off-duty stripper who lived upstairs from the place. Andre "Coco" Gendron fired the shots from a window across the street at 1416 Prefontaine. Police came to his $12-per-week apartment and shot him dead.
9 Dec 1963  George Barry of Geenfield Park was beaten and robbed in the bathroom of the Belmont on Wellington. The thieves took $67.
9 Oct 1962 Fire strikes the Havana Cafe after a period which saw thugs battle it out in a series of encounters.
 9 June 1961 - Lionel Desjardins, whose main job was to mop floors overnight at the Taverne du Nord at 552 Jarry E., was busted for cleaning out the safe of over $4,000. Beaudry owned the tavern, along with "seven or eight others" and also had an interest in many other establishments at the time.