Cst Maurice Demonceau was standing near a soda fountain at St. Juste and Notre Dame.Restaurant owner Albert Pitchot told him to look across the street.
Two men with masks and dark glasses were hiding in a car. It was clearly a bank robbery in progress.
The problem was that Demonceau didn't have his gun. So he went to his nearby home to fetch his weapon.
The wheelman motored off, leaving his two buddies inside.
Two cops, Nelson Paquin and Paul Emile Duranleau came to the scene to deal with the cornered criminals.Douglas Perrault and Donald Perrault (no relation) gunned them down dead.
Nelson Paquin, who lived at 1475 Overdale was hit five times.
Duranleau four times. Both were shot in the heart.
The getaway car was a 1941 Cadillac, driven by Noel Cloutier, 24, was cornered in a laneway between Aird and Sicard.
Cops blamed lax bail rules for the killing and those were tightened within days. They remained on the lam for a while but were eventually caught in Taber Alberta. All three were hanged in Montreal on March 11, June 17 and Nov. 25, 1949.
Cloutier dressed in zoot-suit style clothing during his trial and one newspaper report described his behaviour as arrogant. He had been arrested several times for theft-related offenses since 1942.
Donald Perreault was not related to Douglas Perreault in spite of sharing a last name. His first arrests also took place midway through World War II.
The parking lot on the left was the former location of a Banque Canadienne Nationale branch at 7785 Notre Dame East which was held up by gunmen on September 23, 1948. The branch was later demolished.
ReplyDeleteThe depanneur in the photo was at that time a snack bar from which the police were called to the scene.
Two police officers soon arrived while the robbers were inside the bank but were shot to death by two of the thieves who then managed to make their escape by car.
A third gunmen--the driver of getaway car--sped away from the scene just as the police arrived, however he was chased and caught several blocks away following a brief shootout.
The two killers were later arrested in Western Canada by the RCMP after they had broken into a gas station.
See the Gazette for Sept. 24, 1948.
As you can imagine, this was a huge story at the time.
Cst. Nelson Paquin looka like Randy Quaid, who was in Mtl-shot Duddy Kravitz. The movie also starred Mtl's Joseph Wiseman, aka Dr. No from the James Bond movie.
ReplyDeleteNelson paquin était mon grand-père
ReplyDeleteCloutier's wife was pregnant with triplets, and he appealed for clemency based on that, but it was a no go. The children were born without any complications, and I wonder whatever became of them, and their own progeny.
ReplyDelete