Montreal's streetcar slasher and panic craze he laid

  The miserable young woman at left is Pascale Blouin, 23, of 3637 Ontario St. one of many Montrealers who claimed to have been attacked by a razor-blade wielding maniac at the end of January 1954, in a bizarre episode that would lead police to question which of the attacks occurred for real and which were self-inflicted injuries.
   The attacks led to mass-hysteria in the city and school closures and was reported extensively elsewhere. The modus operandi of the attacker was to follow women walking up the stairs of a streetcar and then hack a signature slice at their right calves with a blade.
   Friday 19 Jan. 1954 saw the attacks kick off, as women reported being attacked by a man wielding a razor. On Friday 22 Jan. four women filed similar reports, mainly due to attacks at St. Catherine and St. Lawrence. The earlier attacks went largely unreported, much in contrast to the later attacks.
   On Tuesday 26 Jan. Mimi Dufour, 30, of 1016 Mount Royal East, was attacked at Park and Pine and fitted with 18 stitches (or 31 stitches according to Le Devoir) after she realized she had been cut after boarding a streetcar, police received two other complaints on that same day of similar botched attacks.

   Dufour said that she had noticed a man following her and described him as 5'7", 180 lbs, 35 years of age. Her description apparently matched the description of another 15-year-old victim. Dufour apparently identified a photo in police files as being the assailant. 
   The publicity ratcheted up the hype and police colourfully described the suspect as a, "flat-nosed savage on a slashing rampage," and suggested that the attacker was attempting to express a sexual fetish.
   The attacker allegedly attacked three women during a snowstorm on Wed. Jan. 27, 1954, Mrs. Mary Granger McDonald, 32, 2171 St. Luke, was sliced while boarding a streetcar at St. Catherine and St. Marc. Lise Champagnat,  (or Compagnat), 20, of 303 Beaubien East, while walking on the street. Se said she left her home to buy bread and the slasher pushed her against a wall and cut her. 

  In another case Marielle Boudin, 15, looked down at her leg on the streetcar only to notice that her leg had suffered a four inch cut.

  Another woman, name unknown, but living at 2274 Dorchester W., told police that a man cut her fur coat but police concluded that it was not the slasher. 

   Police offered a $1,000 bounty on the slasher. "I can understand why women are filled with terror," said Insp. Jean Tasse reassuringly. The cops spoke of putting plainsclothes decoys onto buses to catch the man at work.
   The next day's victims included May Meikle, 21, of 3270 Barclay. She suffered a cut that required 12 stitches. She was walking up Metcalfe near St Catherine in the morning, a guy came up and said, "your leg is bleeding." She looked down and it was and the guy ran off laughing.
   Others reporting attacks on Jan. 28 were Marcelle Cusson, 24, 2271 Montgomery, (10 stitches after being attacked at her east end house) Rene Sarault, 38, 2590 Pie IX (a begger came to her door asking for money and then hit her on the hand). Two of the attacks occurred within a few minutes in distant parts of town. The attacker struck at 9:30 a.m. 5:45 p.m and 8 p.m., so he kept very busy.
   The panic was such that some schools were let out early at the request of their worried parents.
   There was no real clear description of the suspect, although he was said to be about 5'5" and somewhere like 35 years of age. The description was later adjusted, making him fat.
   La Patrie likened the panic to the 16 June 1936 case of a maniac attacking kids in St. Henry with a syringe.
   The attacks continued on Friday night as Mariette Gareau, 17, of 4319 Bordeaux realized that she was injured in four places on the right leg. She got four stitches. Marie Meiberreiter, 31, 2103 Tupper, got off a bus at Sherbrooke and Mayfair and saw a man on the tracks near Upper Lachine Road. He walked to her, put his hand on her mouth to stop her from screaming, threw her on the ground and cut her four times on the right leg, ran off yelling, "damn damn damn damn." She got 11 stitches. 

  Laurette Menard, 21, 6573 St. Lawrence, said she was assaulted near Duluth when on her way skating. She got 4 stitches on the right leg.

   Murielle Boutet, was also a supposed seventh victim after suffering an injury requiring 15 stitches, according to a news article carried across North America by newswire, which quoted Montreal police inspector Jean Tasse as saying that the first seven attacks were done by the same "flat nosed sadist on a slashing rampage." He said police suspected a 38-year-old former boxer recently released from prison for rape. 

  Boutet said,"When I sat down my ankle began to hurt. I looked down and saw blood spurting all over my leg and foot. A crazy-looking man sitting next to me laughed. He got out at the next stop. I don't know if he was the one who slashed me but I do know I was alone when I got on the bus." 

 The article reported that Boutet attended private school due to a "weak heart."

 Police considered getting officers to dress up as women to see if they would get attacked but no word on whether they actually through with this plan.
   The police soon started getting new complaints from the same women and started to figure that not all of these complaints could possibly be legit. Of the four weekend attacks, two were false. Of the 26 attacks, 12 of them might have been real. Police suspected some of self-inflicting their wounds.
   Soon they were getting multiple false confessions as well. They arrested 50 suspects and let them all go. On 2 February they arrested a portly man, 28, with mental problems carrying pornography. No more complaints were recorded. Police, however, quietly let the man go, as his too was another false confession.
   By Feb. 4, 1954 police were reporting that they had no more attacks and no more suspects. A bus crash that killed 16 near Three Rivers seemed more worthy of headlines, as did other fatalities and legitimate murders around the city.
   Police put a few people in mental institutions and a few well-known cons were given a variety of tickets, but by February 9, Montreal cops admitted that they had not gotten their man, who was still at large but they concluded had simply smartened up and discontinued his attacks.

   The attacks were also mentioned far and wide, including in newspapers from Greensburgh, Eugene, Ludington, Fredericksburg, Vancouver, Windsor, Victoria, St. Petersburg, Lawrence, Reading, Ottawa, Regina, and even the New York Times, which, unlike the others, reported that the attacks were largely fabricated. An additional source for this info is the La Patrie newspaper Jan-Feb 1954, on the Banq site, but the library has deemed wise to reconfigure those articles to prevent linking.
   The episode surely taught cops that while doing their best to warn the public of a danger, they ought not go overboard and actually stir up panic.