Claude Ranger, the Monkland Provigo killer who sought to collect a reward on himself

Thomas James, 31, Peter Pompeo, 27, Kyle Bigelow, 24, and Claude Ranger, 34

   Can a killer collect a reward by confessing to a crime he himself committed?
  The question has led to some theoretical debate, without clear resolution.
   But a Montreal criminal once tried to scoop up reward cash for a murder he committed in 1994, with some problematic results.
  ***
   Claude Ranger, 34, Kyle Bigelow, 24, and Peter Pompeo, 26, sat with Thomas James, 31, in Maz bar on Sherbrooke on Nov. 20, 1994, where Pompeo's mother worked as barmaid and manager.
  All listened to James' plan with interest.
 James' unlikely caper? Rob a pair of armored guards by simply shooting them as they departed with cash from the Provigo at 5595 Monkland.
   Though inelegant and unnecessarily violent, the plan sounded like a winner and all three signed on.
   Ranger, who had committed at least two previous armed robberies, was to wield one gun, with Bigelow going in with the other.

  ***       

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   James and Pompeo were to watch from outside and create a diversion with an alarm clock bomb and be wheelmen for the heavily-armed duo exiting with cash.

   The gang spent the night prior to the robbery at the Chateau Champlain Hotel  and arrived at the Provigo at 11 a.m. 24 November, 1994.
***

Richard Lavallee - guard killed

  1994 was year of shifts. People were discovering Internet via dial up. Grunge was on the ropes with Kurt Cobain's suicide. Gardening upstart Pierre Bourque beat veteran Jean Dore to become mayor of Montreal.
  Old style violent robberies had started to fade, as indeed Montreal saw only 52 murders in 1994, far fewer than the 80 annual average in the five years previous.
***
   A bus shelter poster pushed Tom Cruise's new film Interview with a Vampire in front of the Provigo on Monkland when the two-toned gold colored van Secur armored car pulled up in front of the grocery store on Nov. 22, 1994.
  Ranger and Bigelow stormed in at 11 a.m. wielding a 44 Magnum and a machine gun. They fired before the guards had a chance to aim back.
   Ranger blasted guard Richard Lavallee with three bullets to the abdomen. He died soon after. The second guard,  John Rosen, 64, was hit in the wrist as about 50 looked on.
  The gang escaped with $120,000 in cash.
  A bystander rushed to help the dying Lavallee and offered a moving account to journalists concerning his futile effort to keep the guard alive.
 ***
  The four escaped the scene. Police started investigating leads.
  But the investigation would get help from an unlikely source and in May 1995 Bigelow was arrested in the West End, while James and Pompeo were rounded up in Toronto.
  Ranger had made the mistake of reading a newspaper article about the guard he had killed. He found himself overcome with guilt and regret and decided to turn himself and his accomplices in.
   He confessed not only to the crime but also to a pair of other robberies, one of which left a jeweler injured on Cathcart in 1995.
   Indeed Ranger so talkative that he spent three weeks revealing his delinquent behavior in school, past crimes, drug use, his ability to manipulate prison staff, his love life, his debts and everything else in 2,431 pages of transcripts.
  Ranger was not very precise in negotiating the terms of his confession however and received no clemency in spite of his confession and cooperation.
   He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and is apparently still behind bars.
***
  Bigelow told the court that he really meant to shoot at a wall. He was found guilty on Valentines Day 1996 and sentenced to life. He appears to have been a model inmate and now lives in BC.
   Pompeo was sentenced to 14 years and has been out of prison for a long time.
   James was convicted and sentenced to life in prison as the mastermind behind the reckless, murderous robbery. A judge was unamused when an anonymous caller offered a juror $5,000 to influence his vote to see James freed.
   The jury was reduced to 11 and James was found guilty of premeditated murder March 7, 1997.
***
   Ranger, though in jail, realized that he might have the right to collect the $50,000 reward Secur offered for the capture and conviction of Lavallee's killer.
   He figured he had done just that and sought to collect the cash and newspapers reported in April 1998 that Ranger had launched a lawsuit to collect the cash that he felt was rightfully his.
***
Thomas James saw this as a chance to appeal his life sentence.
 He went to court claiming that Ranger's attempted cash grab proved that he was motivated to get money, not tell the truth. James argued that Ranger's testimony against him was corrupted by his goal of getting a cash reward.
   A court document from James' ultimately futile 2001 appeal attempt referenced Ranger's attempt to collect the reward.

During his preliminary (August 1995) and trial (February 1997) testimony, Claude Ranger has consistently argued that he has confided in police officers in a fit of guilt and sympathy after reading an article by press on the punishment of the family of the shot down security guard; cross-examined on the subject, he denied having asked, or even intended to ask for, the payment of the reward promised by Sécur.
 on 31 March 1998, a little less than 13 months after the verdict against the appellant, Ranger claimed from Sécur the payment of the promised reward. The action was brought on 9 April 1998. However, it was to be discontinued on 22 March 1999; the Superior Court document indicated that the discontinuance occurred "considering" his testimony at the preliminary hearing of the appellant, Pompeo and Bigelow, who were then co-accused.

   Ranger abandoned his lawsuit in 1999 for reasons unknown. So it remains a mystery whether Secur would have been forced to pay off the man that killed their slain employee.
   And thus it leaves the question unanswered: can a criminal collect a reward on himself?
   The $5,000 reward, at 8 percent annual compound interest would be worth about $388,000 after 25 years.
**
Maz, two years prior to the meeting, was the site of another grisly event, as Francis Glover, 32, was shot dead while helping evict two gun-wielding customers who were irate at not being allowed to enter. Danny Cosgrove, 36 and Chucky Mitchell, shot in the air before the altercation with the owner Josie Comantini, which ended up in Glover being shot dead on Sept. 15, 1992.