Friday, January 16, 2009

The abduction of James Cross

   This home on at 1297 Redpath Crescent was the site of one of Quebec's most dramatic events: the kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross on Monday, Oct. 5, 1970 at 8:15 a.m.
Cross was shaving, wearing underwear, shirt and socks.
His wife, maid Anila Santos, Brolly the dalmation and his three year old daughter were also in the house as Nigel Hamer knocked on the door with a package while Jacques Lanctot and Yves Langlois watched from the side of the house.

Lanctot sprung out with a .32 and Hamer pulled out a M-1 sawed-off shotgun as the Portuguese maid sought a pen to sign the alleged birthday gift.

Cross wore a dark green checkered sportsjacket and black pants as he was taken away.

Langlois also held a rifle in the driveway. They drove off with Cross in the trunk and kept him hostage a long time.

It was the first kidnapping in Montreal since the Greta Goede affair 12 years earlier, in 1958.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:45 pm

    FLQ Kidnapping ! and this looks more like Outremont than Westmount...so I would assume Pierre Laporte kidnapping.

    Jimmy Zoubris

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  2. Anonymous3:20 pm

    This is a really wild guess, but was it the kidnapping of James Cross? That looks like a house that would be on Redpath Crescent.

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  3. Anonymous4:05 pm

    Kidnapping of James Cross (1970)

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  4. Anonymous10:14 pm

    Laporte was kidnapped in the South Shore. Nothing to do with Outremont.

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  5. Anonymous11:47 am

    i've also read that cross was transferred from his kidnapper's car into an accomplice's taxi that was waiting at the taxi stand outside of the montreal neurological institute at the top of university street.

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  6. Anonymous12:37 am

    Cross spent a total of 59 days in captivity.

    The Cossette-Trudels, husband and wife, each received a prison sentence of two years less a day but served only 8 months.

    8 months. That's 240 days. This works out to 4 days for every one day Cross was held in captivity by these animals.

    The other members of the cell received longer sentences of about 3 years each.

    I'd say crime pays, wouldn't you?

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  7. Anonymous10:27 am

    Wrong house....this is not the house.
    The house was located further up the road....

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  8. His daughter was married and aged 23.

    ReplyDelete

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