Arrested after 12 days on the run, the Montrealer accused of having committed two premeditated murders at the beginning of the month proclaimed loud and clear, in the middle of the courtroom, to be the author of the crimes, and that he had his full head when he committed them.
Courtesy photo, SPVM
Claude Charbonneau was arrested Wednesday after 12 days on the run.
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“I did it, I’m going to be 25 twice [de détention, pour avoir fait deux victimes], I know all that ”, launched Claude Charbonneau, yesterday at the courthouse in Montreal.
Representing himself, without a lawyer, and after refusing the assistance of a legal aid attorney, the 61-year-old accused did not appear concerned when he was told that everything he would say could be used against him, during his trial.
“I know the game“, He said, saying he wanted to plead guilty as quickly as possible to the two murders that occurred on August 4 and 6.
Photo d’archives, Agence QMI
The second victim was found seriously injured in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district.
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According to the arrest warrant, Charbonneau allegedly attacked Theodoros Lakis Debeyiostis, an 80-year-old man who was found seriously injured in a residential building in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district. He unfortunately succumbed to his injuries.
With an ax
The victim was coldly murdered with an ax, according to information obtained by The newspaper.
Surveillance cameras would then have filmed Charbonneau calmly leaving the scene, the murder weapon in hand.
Photo d’archives, Agence QMI
The first victim of Claude Charbonneau was found in a building on Boulevard Henri-Bourassa Est.
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The police investigation initiated on Benny Avenue led investigators to another building in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville sector.
They hoped to meet Charbonneau there, but instead they discovered the corpse of Pierre Phaneuf, a 68-year-old man. The body bore marks of violence on the head.
An autopsy revealed that he had been killed two days earlier.
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Actively wanted by the police, Charbonneau was however nowhere to be found on the island of Montreal. And for good reason, he was hiding in Trois-Rivières, in Mauricie, where he was arrested Wednesday at the wheel of the minivan he would have used to flee following the second murder.
Life imprisonment
If Charbonneau seemed to want to avoid justice at all costs by hiding for 12 days, he seems to have finally decided to take responsibility for his actions by pleading guilty, even if this will automatically earn him life in prison.
It remains to be seen whether he can hope to get parole at age 86, or at 111, if he does not die sooner.
“I am sane,” he also assured the court yesterday, as if he himself wanted to close the door to a defense of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.
Judge Geneviève Graton may have warned him that it might be better to think about all this, Charbonneau did not care.
Advocacy impossible
The problem is that despite all his desire to be sentenced immediately, he could not plead guilty since appearances are always made in the Court of Quebec, as the Criminal Code allows.
However, murder cases can only be dealt with in Superior Court. It is also extremely rare that an accused of murder wants to plead guilty as soon as he appears.
Charbonneau will return to court on 1is next october. Until then, at the request of the Crown prosecutor, Me Anne-Andrée Charrette, she will be prohibited from communicating with a witness to the case as well as with the son of one of the victims.
He will also remain in preventive detention until further notice.
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