It's raining men - Forecast for Nov. 1967 had seven Montrealers falling from the gallows

Douglas Brown

 Just weeks after Montreal's joyous Expo World's Fair authorities were preparing to hang seven Montrealers in the single month of November.    

The murderers set to hang included Douglas Brown. 

 On Wednesday 19 September 1962, 19-year-old Brown, living at 5151 Notre Dame W. , invited his fellow St. Henri-residing sweetheart Pierrette Ouimet and her little brother Jacques Ouimet, 11, both of 647 Bourassa, to go for a spin.The trio hopped into a car with Brown's friend Real Leclair, 37, a mechanic and former Montreal police officer. 

 The four motored down through Ville St. Pierre where they stopped for gas at Paul's Tire Service at 34 Toronto-Montreal Boulevard. 

  The location has since been altered by highway stuff but sat near what's now the Roger Richer dog run not far from the local landmark Lafleur hot dog joint. 

 Ovide Bertrand, 61, pumped their gas and returned inside the station. Douglas Brown then exited the vehicle and walked briskly inside to talk to Bertrand alone.

 Brown - it turned out - believed the garage contained $5,000 in cash and made it clear to Ovide Bertrand that he wanted it. Bertrand had no such sum but he handed Brown what he had, $48. 

 Brown grabbed a tire iron that he had hidden in his pants and hammered Bertrand three times on the head, leaving the much-older man lying helpless in a pool of blood.

 Brown returned to the car with his shirt bloody. He warned his girlfriend and her brother not to tell anybody the event. 

 The badly-injured Bertrand crawled to the nearby Lafleur restaurant where he said "two youths," but then lost consciousness and died in hospital. 

  Young Pierrette and Jacques weren't able to keep their lips closed about the shocking affair and  policed rounded up and charged Douglas Brown, along with Leclair. 

 Brown was sentenced to life in prison, while Leclair was sentenced to hang. The verdict triggered an automatic appeal, as was the process with all death sentences. 

 New evidence emerged at the retrial, as two inmates revealed that Brown had confessed to to them. Leclair was acquitted and a jury on 1 December 1966 declared Brown guilty and to hang by the neck until dead. The courthouse crowd erupted in screams. "No! It's my child! How can he be guilty while the other was acquitted!" screamed Brown's mom. 

 Brown was scheduled to hang on 24 February but got a reprieve eight days prior. His execution was rescheduled for 3 November.

 Brown had plenty of company on the gallows that November. Other murderers scheduled to be hanged in Montreal that month included:

•  FLQ separatist terrorists Francois Schirm and Edmond Guenette, who killed a man in a gun robbery on Bleury and were sentenced to death on 21 May 1966. Their execution was also set for 3 Nov 1967. 
•  Robert Collin, 31, was slated to hang on 10 November for killing minor underworld figure Aime "Rocky" Brunette. 
•   David Albert Deleone was scheduled to hang one week later, on 17 November 196, as a consequence of shooting dead Wayne Hublin, 21, of 3484 Durocher, the downtown Capitol movie Theatre. Both men were black and considered each other rivals. They were both watching the Sidney Poitier film Duel at Diablo. 
•   Roger Chevalier, who was found guilty of killing Laurier Labelle in a parked car on Aird Street. He was to be hanged on 24 November. 
•   Roger Demers, 35, of Quebec City, was to be hanged on the same day after he killed Monique Charland, 20, and leaving her remains in a sand pit in May 1964. 

 Canada's Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for all murders, effective at the start of 1968, with the exception of cop and prison guard killers. The lawmakers also commuted all 16 Canadian death sentences to life in prison.

  Twelve of those 16 death row inmates were from Quebec, the other four being divided between Ontario and British Columbia. 

 Of the Quebecers, seven were from Montreal. So seven of the 16 death row inmates at the time of the abolition of capital punishment were from Montreal.  

 Other Montreal murderers who narrow escaped the hangman included: 

• Claude Martin, a 39-year-old longshoreman, who killed Albert Giguere, 64, bartender of the Copacabana nightclub in a robbery in the afternoon of 5 July 1966. 
•  Jean-Jacques Gladu , 28, who shot his girlfriend's mom Lucienne Soucy, 48, dead at 5252 St. Hubert St. on 15 October 1965. 
• Brothers Roland Poirier and his brother Jacques Poirier, who ran a nightclub protection racket and killed Margot Turner as punishment for mocking them on Aug. 15, 1964.  
•  Henri Boivin, 33, who killed his partner in crime Rene Gravel, 41 by hitting him over the head with an iron bar on 28 June 1966. Both were in prison at the time serving a murder big for killing a grocer three years earlier. 
•  William Tamas, 39, a Hungarian-born man who shot and killed his live-in girlfriend Alice Alarie Fogarty, 51, at their place on Durocher Street. He was sentenced to death in January 1966. 
•   Gravedigger Marcel Bernier, 43, - not a Montrealer - was from Shawinigan. He also escaped the hangman after sex slaying of teenage babysitter Denise Therrien in 1961. 

 Brown, who stood 5'7" and weighed 130 lbs, was likely thrilled to avoid the noose but he caused more problems on 7 August 1972 when he climbed a fence and escaped the Leclerc Institute Prison. He had vowed revenge against just about everybody, so those involved in his prosecution were surely nervous with his escape. 

Newspapers ceased mentioning Brown so presumably he returned to prison and lived out his string. He'd be around 78 if he's still alive.