Cumberland Four
Ontario, Canada
Date of Crime: January 16, 1990
Robert Stewart, Richard Mallory, Richard Trudel, and James
Sauvé were convicted of the murders of 24-year-old Michel Giroux and his
27-year-old pregnant common-law wife, Manon Bourdeau. The victims were
shot to death at their home on Queen Street in the Ottawa suburb of
Cumberland. Stewart and Trudel were distribution-level drug dealers
while Mallory and Sauvé were their enforcers. Giroux was a
retail-level drug dealer. According to the Crown, Giroux owed money to
Stewart and Stewart ordered his killing as an example to other drug dealers
who owed him money.
All four defendants were arrested in Dec. 1990 and charged
with the murders. The case against the four was built around the
testimony of Denis Gaudreault who allegedly drove the four to the murder
scene. The proceedings that followed were the longest and most
expensive in Canadian history, costing the government $31 million. The
case was a “cash cow” for the legal profession. The CBC unearthed
evidence that a lawyer's wife was paid $250,000 to transcribe some court
documents. Trudel and Sauvé were convicted in May 1996. Stewart
and Mallory were convicted in Feb. 2000. The trials were the first and
second longest in Canadian history.
Police had given out false information about the murders to
identify false informants. This information was published in the
Ottawa Citizen newspaper and Gaudreault identified himself as a false
informant by repeating this information to police. Gaudreault
subsequently said he drove Trudel and Mallory to the murder scene in a red
pick-up truck. Police then located a white Cadillac that Trudel had
been driving. It actually belonged to Sauvé, but Trudel had given it
to Stewart for repairs. Since Stewart left it at a bar parking lot,
and Sauvé was not in the bar, police impounded it as abandoned. They
then connected all four defendants to this car. Sauvé had a previous
conviction for manslaughter. Thinking Sauvé might be involved, police
falsely told Gaudreault that they had a witness who said that Sauvé
committed the murders. Gaudreault quickly accommodated this idea and
changed his story to say he drove all four defendants to the murder scene in
Sauvé's Cadillac. Gaudreault's final version of his story was that he
and Stewart remained in the car while Sauvé and the other two entered
Giroux's house and committed the murders. Police never found
Gaudreault's fingerprints in or on the car. Gaudreault did not possess
a driver's license.
Ontario Provincial Police took Gaudreault on a drive to
determine the route he took to the murder scene. They videotaped the
drive. During the drive, Gaudreault could not find the victims' house,
despite driving by it four times. The newspaper had reported the wrong
address. Gaudreault then asked officers if they were going the right
way. Besides Gaudreault, other informants testified that one or more
of the defendants confessed to the crime. Stewart and Mallory began
calling themselves the “Monopoly Boys” because all any inmate had to do was
testify that they heard a confession and they got a “Get Out of Jail Free”
card and lots of cash.
In 2007, the convictions of all four defendants were dismissed and charges
were stayed. A judge ruled that the case had been “ravaged over time” and
the 16 years of delays – due to adjournments, lack of proper disclosure,
lost evidence and witnesses lying under oath – called into question the
integrity of the justice system. [4/08]
________________________________
References: National
Post, Toronto
Star, R.
v. Mallory,
R.
v Trudel
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Canadian Cases
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