Yes, disorganized crime vs organized crime. Gang shootings in Ontario seem to always end up with the suspect in cuffs, even if there is no fatalities.

Compared to the Lower Mainland, where it is unheard for the suspects to get caught.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/01/...n-new-ranking/

Top Ten safest places to live in Canada: (Source: Money.ca)

Follow-up on the seven fire deaths in Old Montreal that have been labelled murders by the police. They now have a suspect and... wow.

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/j...es-cameras.php

Google Translate for those who don't read French:

Fatal fire in Old Montreal: Betrayed by cameras

Denis Bégin, nicknamed the “Halloween killer”, admitted that he was present last March when a devastating fire broke out in a building on Place D’Youville. However, he claims that the fire which killed seven people was started by another individual, whose photo he took. He embarked on a sordid bargain by offering to give the image to the police in exchange for various advantages.

This is what emerges from detailed reports written by the Correctional Service of Canada, obtained first by La Presse. The documents reveal for the first time that images filmed at the start of the fire allowed detectives from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) to get their hands on Bégin, who remains their number one suspect, even if he has not been charged with this crime.

They also reveal how Bégin, a career criminal with a serious criminal record, managed to live quietly in Montreal for years and create a building maintenance business under a false identity after escaping from the minimum security penitentiary where he was serving a life sentence for murder.

It was also during maintenance work that he found himself at the heritage building in Old Montreal where an arson started on March 16, 2023, leaving seven dead and nine injured. He was still on the run after his prison escape at this time.

Twice classified as a psychopath

The Correctional Service reports were filed with the Superior Court as part of a dispute between Denis Bégin and the prison authorities. When La Presse revealed that he was the number one suspect in the investigation into the arson in Old Montreal last October, Mr. Bégin was transferred against his will to a maximum security penitentiary. He asks a judge to cancel this transfer, which he believes is unjustified.

Prison documents refer to him by his nickname “the Halloween Killer.” A nickname given to him because he killed a young man with a gun on October 31, 1993, in front of a crowd of revelers gathered in a bar, while he wore a goalkeeper mask like the character in Jason, in the film Friday the 13th. It was this murder that earned him a life sentence.

Denis Bégin, who has spent more time in prison since 1979, has been designated twice as a “psychopath” within the prison system. The diagnosis was later changed to “antisocial personality disorder.”

His manipulative side was highlighted several times during his in-custody evaluations. Yet even though he had already attempted to escape once and was suspected of planning other escape attempts, he managed to obtain a transfer to a minimum security facility in the winter 2019. A few days later, he took over the fields thanks to an accomplice who came to pick him up by car.

He later admitted that his escape had been planned for a long time. “He therefore once again succeeded in fooling the participants,” specifies one of the reports filed in court.

Bégin told authorities that he quickly obtained false identity documents to start a new life after his escape, because he was “no longer capable of prison.” He admitted to having lived under various assumed names during his years on the run and to having developed a romantic relationship with a woman from whom he had hidden his true identity. “The gentleman claims that he led an orderly life with his partner,” the report states.

Came to get tools

Under his false identity, Denis Bégin founded a building maintenance company established in the southwest of Montreal. He participated in renovation work in the Old Montreal area, and according to what he told the authorities, he returned to get tools from a construction site in the William-Watson-Ogilvie heritage building on March 16. .

Correctional Service reports explain that SPVM major crimes investigators obtained video images of a vehicle stopping in front of the building that day. The video shows a vehicle of the same make and color as the one Bégin owned under his false identity, during his escape.

“We see the subject getting out of said vehicle to enter the building. The latter came out approximately 5 minutes later followed by the fire (visible a few seconds later), then left with his vehicle,” relates the report.

After the fire, the police began meeting with the different owners of this type of vehicle in the region. When they arrived at Denis Bégin, his version left them perplexed: he gave the name of a homeless man well known to the police, to whom he hardly resembled.

La Presse has already told how a patrol officer from neighborhood station 21, with very detailed knowledge of the homeless environment in the city center, had sniffed out the deception. Investigators then took the fingerprints of their interlocutor, according to documents filed in court.

“It was following this fingerprinting that the identity of Mr. Bégin was revealed,” specifies the prison report.

“The latter was then arrested as an escapee and a suspect in the deadly fire,” the text continues.

A hidden photo

Last May, Denis Bégin was brought back behind bars. He was charged with escape and impersonation, but investigators were not yet ready to file charges in connection with the fire.

During interrogation, Bégin admitted that he was there when the fire broke out. But he denied having lit it. He said he saw someone else do it and photographed it.

“He says he has a photo in his possession to prove the identity of this person (in a secure Cloud), but he tried to obtain a contract protecting him from any accusation to show said photo, which he was refused” , summarizes a report filed in court.

The SPVM investigators were clear with Bégin: he had to abandon all hope of immunity. Bégin then began to tell prison staff that he was going to obtain early parole or have certain charges dropped thanks to a “deal” with the police to reveal to them the identity of the real arsonist. He asked several times to meet the detective sergeant in charge of the case at the SPVM. His famous “deal” has still not materialized.

Since then, his attitude has worried the prison authorities.

“In other words, if Mr. Bégin saw a man spreading accelerant or setting fire to the building, he took care to take a photo of him, but did not report the incident to anyone either, nor provided assistance to the tenants of the building, this is highly worrying,” specifies an official in his report.

One of two things: either this photo exists and he prefers to exploit the system rather than fulfill his duty as a citizen by revealing the identity of the man who killed 7 people, or this photo does not exist and he tries to find a way out. In both cases, his decision-making process is worrying. — Excerpt from a Correctional Service of Canada report

The federal employee notes that Bégin does not say everything he knows about this affair. “He […] refused to answer our questions regarding the investigation in which he was involved, claiming that a “deal” would probably be signed with the police in the near future. »

However, in an interview with prison services, the SPVM was clear: “He remains a witness/suspect in this case,” writes a Correctional Service employee in his report.

Denis Bégin's lawyer did not want to comment on the case when La Presse contacted her on Thursday.

A heavy past

In addition to the Halloween murder of which he was found guilty in 1997, Denis Bégin was convicted of arson, theft, break and enter, fraud, mischief, extortion and murder during his life.

“His file also contains a range of information, each more worrying than the last, namely suspicions of murder (x2), sexual, physical and psychological violence against his ex-partner, as well as information linked to international drug trafficking (heroin, cocaine) in collaboration with the Colombian clan and the Hells Angels,” specifies one of the Correctional Service reports. He was also suspected of having thrown a Molotov cocktail at his parents' house, which could never be proven.

Bégin has already affirmed that it was in his garage that killers had made the bomb which accidentally killed little Daniel Desrochers, 11 years old, in the middle of the biker war, on August 13, 1995. He had tried to bargain with the police at this subject, to obtain certain advantages, without success. For several years, he has been at odds with certain members of the Hells Angels, the report states.

He has already confessed to a second murder to police in a written statement. He admitted to strangling a real estate appraiser who refused to overvalue his property as part of a fraud scheme. He said he covered up the man's death as a suicide.

He later recanted and was not charged with this crime, but the Correctional Service agent responsible for his case doubts the sincerity of this retraction. Bégin had no interest in inventing such a story, he emphasizes.

Police information also links Denis Bégin to a third murder committed in Venezuela, according to the agent, but again, the absence of sufficient evidence did not allow him to be charged.

No rest

In prison, his journey “was not always easy”, underlines the agent. He was banned for three years from meeting female employees of the penitentiary following inappropriate remarks towards a nurse and information deemed credible about a plot to attack the health professional.

Bégin had also written a love letter to a prison teacher and harassed her release agent.

Denis Bégin's request to cancel his transfer of establishment will be heard at a later date.

Until then, the murder investigation into the arson in Old Montreal continues.

Crazy story. A case of the system failing and costing people their lives. Hope this doesn't happen again.

Last spring a fetus was discovered a block and a half from where I live. This morning the school up the street is taped off. Couple people on the next street over reported that the cops talked to them and said there was an assault and the assailant was arrested and knew the victim. Then late this afternoon the police said suspicious death of a 20 year old female.

I don't know anyone on that street but at least one of my neighbours does.

Pretty sad.

And now the news says the death is no longer considered suspicious and there are no suspects being sought and no charges being laid. I said to my wife at the time that you can't trust what someone said on a whatsapp group chat. Need to wait for solid evidence because you know, someone says one thing and the next person says another. Funny how that happens so often.

In this case, two people on the street said cops told them there was an assault. Could be them sensationalizing or cops talking nonsense. There is also the remote possibility that cops know there was an assault but are keeping it under wraps. I think we all know people who hear or read one thing and then twist it, either intentionally or unintentionally. A few of my inlaws for example. Most of the time due to ignorance and it's fairly harmless at least.

RIP to the young woman.

Six people killed including four children in a house in SW Ottawa overnight (Barrhaven).

Police have said it is NOT intimate partner violence.

Some social media buzz is saying it was landlord-tenant dispute.

So sad. We should bring in the death penalty for people that kill children. The news says they have a suspect in custody but no details on who he is.

We had a massacre here in Manitoba a few weeks back. A guy killed his family, including 3 little kids. very sad.

This massacre in Ottawa happened yesterday. The police are being really quiet about this despite having a suspect in custody. Seems weird they would anounce that this was a mass shooting and it was NOT a domestic dispute. Wonder why they are being so quite about this?

The suspected killer is a Sri Lankan foreign student. All of the victims are of Sri Lankan origin according to the Sri Lankan High Commission in Ottawa, with some if not all of them Sri Lankan nationals. (Not sure if any are Canadian citizens too.)

Surely it wasn't over rent and ended up killing a 2.5 month baby, 2 year old and 7 year old? I mean murder never justified but that just seems crazy. (I know weirder things have happened.

Very sad. :(

They have walked that back being a shooting. Knife like object I believe.

Yeah I heard. That makes the whole thing even more cold blooded and disturbing.

Wonder what the made the guy snap in such an extreme way?:???:

I often wonder how robust our support is for those that are arriving to Canada. The numbers are so large that a lot of these recent immigrants could fall through the cracks. Moving to a new country is tough, and can be rough. Most Canadian cities are extremely unaffordable with little housing available. Just a couple of major factors that can make it very stressful for newcomers. I've definitely seen a few mentally ill people walking around Vancouver that sound like they could be recent immigrants. They're all alone, and completely out of it.

Apperently the killer lived with the family in what seems to be a fairly nice suburb of Ottawa. He was an international student. A few days before this happened the family celebrated his birthday and bought him a cake. He was with people of his own commnunity. So far this doesn't sound like some one that was down on his luck.

No motive for the massacre has been given but my guess is the guy probably has schizophrenia or something along those lines.

Or maybe at his birthday party he perceived some insult or something that set him off.

Highly unlikely. These are peaceful people, SInhalese Buddhist are some of the nicest people on earth. Often targets of Hindu and Muslims extremist. This is a clear case of some ones mental state gone extremely wrong.