Horror Comes Announced

"Never could we have suspected there was a potentially dangerous situation. We learned after that the presumed killer had a correspondence on Facebook [with the victim].
 Rejean Lemay, principal, College Marie-de-l'Incarnation, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec 

"We work often in the schools to say, 'When things are brought to your attention, you have to talk. Speak to someone, not necessarily a police officer -- an adult, a teacher, someone you trust.'
"It seems there were some warning signals, but they were not enough to prevent such an act."
Michel Letarte, Trois-Rivieres police

Peter McCabe / Postmedia News     Trois-Rivières police outside the home where three young people were found dead early on Tuesday morning, February 11, 2014.

Two young men -- boys of 17 -- were emerging from a home in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, just as police arrived, responding to a 911 call that had come in not much earlier, and which seemed to indicate that as the call was being made, a dreadful crime was in the process of become a triple murder. Two sisters, one 22, the other 17, and the 17-year-old boyfriend of the younger girl were gunned down by the two 17-year-olds.

One of the youths claimed he had 'been in love' with the younger of the two sisters, and that he had undergone agony, communicating with her through Facebook, finally threatening her. It seems that threats are so casually tossed about, they become pedestrian in the mind of those reading, receiving them, and the possibility that such threats could conceivably be carried out seem so bizarre, so unreal, they're dismissed.

"I'll kill you before you kill me. If you know who I'm talking about. [He was] "living from a desire for death."

Perhaps a temporary frisson of fear, and then, a mental shrug, and the thought that it was, after all, a good, a sound decision the young woman had made, to sever her relationship with this morosely intense, jealous young man. Indictments filed in Youth Court give pause to consider; the two accused were prepared to spread their evil design even further than the three they murdered.

The mother of the two girls was also in their sights. And because the pact that they had agreed upon before embarking on this dreadful morning's work hadn't worked out -- that one of them would shoot the other to death, before turning his weapon on himself -- they thought of making an effort to shoot the arriving police, who would respond with gunfire and the result would be planned suicide.

It's difficult to imagine the horrified reaction of the two sisters and the young man when the two armed assassins made their presence in the family home. The mother was away at work. The unarmed and certainly frightened trio could do nothing to protect themselves; presumably their pleas that the two armed men leave the premises fell on deaf ears.

This was a family so integrated into their community that both parents volunteered at the school all their children had attended. Their loss represents a loss to the community which valued their social contract with those among whom they lived. The young boyfriend of the 17-year-old was planning in studying engineering. The younger sister was organizing a fund-raiser. Her sister attending university.

Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press    Friends of three people who were found dead in a home comfort each other, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014 in Trois Rivieres, Que.

 

Now the pair face three charges each of first-degree murder. One of the victims had placed a 911 call just before her life was lost. "We received the call, and it was practically something that was happening live", commented Agent Michel Letarte of the Trois-Rivieres police.