Canadian True Crime - 119 FLIGHT 108: The Sault-au-Cochon Tragedy

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

QUEBEC  | The story of one of the first instances of in-flight bombing, one of the worst mass murders in Canadian history, and the last woman to hang.  In 1949, a passenger plane fell from the sky in the Sault-au-Cochon area of Quebec, killing everyone on board...Full list of resources and information sources and credits:See the page for this episode  at canadiantruecrime.caAD-FREE episodes are available via our Premium FeedsSign up via Apple Podcasts, Patreon or SupercastImagesThis long form piece has all the photos and great captions:(Spoilers!)Coupable! (Guilty) by Dave O'Malley on Vintage Wings of CanadaCredits:Research, writing, audio editing: Eileen MacfarlaneAdditional research, writing, sound design, audio production: Kristi LeeTheme by We Talk of DreamsDisclaimer voiced by the host of True Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. The podcast often has course language and disturbing content, and it's not for everyone. Around 350 to 400 million years ago, give or take, a meteorite entered our atmosphere and crashed to Earth, landing on Turtle Island in what's now known as the province of Quebec. The meteorite was estimated to be about two kilometres in diameter, and the force of its impact completely changed the terrain. The crater, or impact structure left by the meteorite, is about 50 kilometres in diameter, an area known today as the Charlevoix region, located an hour or two east of Quebec City.

Part of the crater lies directly under the Salaron River, and the rest of the area boasts some of the most unique landscape our planet has to offer, rolling terrain, dense forest, fjords, headlands and bays. The local tourism website describes a falling meteorite sculpting dramatic landscapes in its wake, and leaving behind, quote, a particular magnetism and energy where visitors stop, breathe and reawaken their senses. The Charlevoix region is a nature lover's heaven, and because it's also an internationally protected UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, hopefully it will stay that way. But while the area has had an incredible and magnetic history,

it hasn't been immune from attracting tragedy. It was a warm September morning just after 10.40am, and 35-year-old fisherman Patrick Simard was in the Charlevoix region, checking the ill traps he'd set on the Salaron River. He was fishing a long stretch of unpopulated and undeveloped shoreline, near the hamlet known as Soto-Cochon, located about 40 kilometres east of Quebec City. He heard the sound of a plane's engine overhead, and while it seemed to be a bit louder than usual, he thought nothing of the sound. But then, all of a sudden, there was an explosion overhead. The fisherman turned his head and saw a passenger plane with white smoke

billowing out of it, almost as though it had been hit by something, or shot out of the air. He had never seen a plane flying so low over the area, and against the backdrop of a clear sky, he could clearly see debris falling from the plane. Suddenly, it veered sharply to the left and plunged nose first behind a tree line atop some rocky bluffs, leaving only a flume of white smoke in its wake. Patrick didn't hear any kind of landing, and at first, he wondered if he had imagined the whole thing. He decided it couldn't have been a dream, and started climbing up a nearby hill to see if he could get a better view of the terrain. After finding a good vantage point, he peered out over the area and saw something nestled in the bushes at the top of another hill,

the wreckage of a white plane. A crew of five men were working alongside railway tracks closer to where the wreckage landed, when they heard the explosion, like a crash of thunder. They ran from their posts on the tracks, through the trees, towards the steep area where the plane came down. One railway worker would tell reporters that they thought they'd find the plane erupted in flames, but were surprised to find that it wasn't. Although parts of the plane were scattered throughout the bush and lined the forest floor, a large part of it remained intact, and quote, there was no fire at all, just a mass of wreckage and all those bodies. The shocked workers said they would never forget what they

saw that day as long as they lived, a quote from the Montreal Gazette. The front of the plane seemed to be in one piece, and it was jammed with broken and twisted bodies as if they had been thrown forward in the crash. The rail workers described seeing body parts that had been torn off, and it was clear to them that there were children on board. It seemed likely that there were no survivors, and if there were, there was nothing that the railway workers could do. In a state of shock, they hurried back to their work site to report it. Rescue teams and investigators took a while to get to the wreckage. Even today, the terrain in the Charlevoix region remains virtually untouched and can only be navigated with an off-road vehicle

and an experienced guide. But this was back in 1949, just after World War II and there were even less options. Rescue teams started arriving in the afternoon, some taking a train to the final railway stop and then continuing on foot to the steep wreckage site, a trek that took about an hour. And those who drove in motorcars as far as they could before the road ended had an even further trek to make. As the day's light started to fade, the teams of investigators and undertakers' assistants used torches to illuminate their way through the terrain. The plane had crashed atop a wooded hillside in a nature wildlife area called Cap-Termont, hitting some rocky bluffs as it fell, splintering the trees under the force. There were also

pieces of the plane found in tree branches. Just as the sun set, the first responders came upon the main part of the wreckage, where they saw that same horrific site that was etched into the railway workers' mines. The bodies jammed together, mangled. The remains of the passengers virtually indistinguishable from the remnants of their belongings. From witness descriptions, investigators knew that the plane had gone down nose first, flinging most of the passengers into the same area of the plane. There were also partial remains scattered on the forest floor. Some found over 200 feet from the wreckage. It took three days to remove the deceased, a somber journey that required the rescue teams to carry all the remains a mile and a half down the slope

to an awaiting medical train carriage. A small number of salvageable items were found, including what appeared to be storage receipts for two suitcases containing jewellery that had been stored at a warehouse in the city of Bay Comal, located northeast of Quebec City. That's exactly where the plane was headed. It had been identified as Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 108, operating a Quebec airways route from Montreal northeast to Bay Comal, with one stop along the way. The aircraft was a Douglas DC-3 two-engine propeller plane with a capacity of 21 to 32 passengers. After a stopover at Quebec City to let some passengers off and board some new ones,

the plane took off again only five minutes later than scheduled for the final leg of the journey. Unfortunately, it never made it to its final destination. Only 20 minutes into the flight, it crashed to the ground. All four crew members on board were killed. 30-year-old pilot Captain Pierre Loren was a seasoned flyer, having flown and bomber raids all over Europe. He was a husband and father, and his wife was heavily pregnant with their second child, a child who would never meet their father. His co-pilot, First Officer Gordon Alexander, perished on the flight as well, along with first engineer Emil Therrien and the stewardess or flight attendant Gertrude McKay. As the media began to report more facts about the terrible tragedy and release the names of the

four crew and 19 passengers who died, there were many questions. Plane travel had begun to be more widely accepted, no longer just an option for the wealthy class, and it was assumed that plane travel was safe. The public were shocked to learn that there were children on the flight. One child was just a baby. His parents, Henry Paul Bouchard and his wife, referred to only as Mrs H. Bouchard, were all on the flight, returning home after a vacation. Mother and baby had been identified by heartbroken relatives, but father, Henry Paul, was still unaccounted for. According to the passenger manifest, he was sitting closest to what was believed to be the original location of the blast. In fact, that seat was completely missing.

Investigators momentarily wondered if perhaps he was involved, although it seemed like an unlikely prospect since his wife and baby were with him. A few days after the crash, Henry Paul's relatives were told that there were leftover remains at the morgue that likely belonged to him. But it was a false start because they belonged to someone completely unrelated to the crash. Once the mistake was known, rescue teams were sent out to comb the woods again, but Henry Paul's family were told to prepare for the possibility that his body may have been broken beyond recognition. It was almost too horrific to fathom. The other passengers who boarded the plane at the start of the journey in Montreal included three New York business executives from

a copper company identified as Russell J. Parker, Arthur D. Stork, and Earl T. Stanard. The plane's final destination, the city of Bay Como, was and is a forestry centre for the pulp and paper industry, and two of the passengers, Ed Kelnan and Bill Shula, were employees of the Ontario paper company in St. Catharines, Ontario. Also on board were two inspectors for the Bank of Montreal, Cecil Ombres and A. R. Caller, as well as 24-year-old mechanic garage owner Lionel de Lair, who also perished on the flight, returning home after a visit to Montreal to see his sister. The last passenger who boarded at Montreal was 47-year-old Beatrice Furlot, a widow who was also visiting relatives. At the Quebec City stopover, some passengers disembarked, making way for new

passengers to board, including high school teacher Harold Pie and two married women, Mrs. R. Durrett and Mrs. J. Gay. The identities of the married women were all reported using their husband's initials and surname, but Mrs. Gay's first name was Rita, and she was a 28-year-old housewife and mother of one. Rita Gay was the only crash victim whose face was distinguishable when the wreckage was found, although it was badly bruised. She left behind a grieving husband and four-year-old daughter who had to face the prospect of life without her. There was another married woman on the plane. Mrs. R. Chaperdough was accompanied by her three children, 14-year-old daughter Florette, 13-year-old son Jean-Claude, and an unnamed 11-month-old baby boy whose body

was found in his mother's protective grip when they were both recovered. The only person from the family who remained was the one who wasn't on the flight, the father, Romeo Chaperdough, who was devastated to learn his entire family were killed on the way home from a family visit in Quebec City. With 23 fatalities, the crash of Flight 108 was determined to be the third worst accident in the history of Canadian aviation at the time. It was eclipsed by two earlier crashes in the 1940s, the 1943 crash of a B-24 bomber jet that killed 24 military men just north of Montreal, and three years after that in 1946, an international commercial flight crashed soon after taking off from Newfoundland, killing all 39 people on board. A key factor

in both those crashes was unfavorable weather conditions, but on the day that Flight 108 crashed, the skies were clear. An investigation into the crash was immediately opened by Canadian Pacific Airlines. After a preliminary investigation, the airline released a statement that read in Early inquiries by line officials reveal no explanation of the accident, although the possibility of an explosion in the luggage is not ruled out. The rear end of the plane, it was said, was fairly well intact, and all controls at the front were believed to be intact as well. The airline stated that there was nothing to indicate the crash had been caused by the weather or any mechanical issues with the plane, adding that over 50 million passengers had been flown

on that route without any incident. Behind the scenes, though, despite the initial explosion that caused the crash, the plane itself had not caught on fire. An investigators had found that the propellers were bent forward in a way that indicated they were spinning right up until the moment of impact when the plane crashed into the hillside, so engine failure was obviously not the cause of the crash. After Canadian Pacific Airlines announced that they could not rule out the possibility of an explosion in the luggage compartment, a coroner's jury was scheduled. Coroner Paul Marceau found no evidence of gross negligence and agreed with the airline that the likely cause of the

crash seemed to be a mysterious explosion originating from one of the luggage storage compartments. That particular section of the plane was near the aisle that led from the cabin to the control room on the left side of the plane. The passenger seat that was closest to that compartment, the seat that Henry Paul Boucher had been occupying, had since been found a quarter of a mile from the main site of the wreck, indicating that it had been expelled from the plane while it was still in the air. And his body was finally located two weeks after the crash, a similar distance from the wreckage. At least his family got closure. When it came to figuring out how whatever it was that had exploded ended up on the plane in the

first place, investigators spoke to airline and aviation authorities who provided information about the procedures for checking in passengers and luggage. This led them to zero in on the Quebec City stopover. Because it was the final destination for some passengers, a special luggage compartment had been designated to ensure their luggage could be easily retrieved, leaving space behind to store the luggage of the new passengers getting on, along with a number of parcels and packages to be sent via airmail. The reason this luggage compartment became a focus of the investigation was that this was where the explosion was believed to have happened. Investigators started looking into the passengers

who got off, the ones who got on, their luggage, and of course those mail packages. They examined and itemized every entry in the airmail logbook, learning that all the packages on board had been registered by established shipping companies. That is, except one. The only parcel in that luggage compartment that wasn't from a shipping company had apparently been dropped off by a woman in a taxi at the last minute. An airport employee remembered her as tall, stocky, and dressed all in black as she rushed to get her parcel on board the plane before it departed just minutes later. According to the logbooks, the box weighed about 25 pounds or just over 10 kilos. It was stamped with the word fragile and according to the address label,

it was to be sent to a Mr Alfred Plouffe at 180 Laval Street, Bay Como. Investigators looked into this person and soon realized the name and address were fake, so the next step was to search for the mysterious woman independently, starting with locating the taxi driver who had driven her to the airport. He described her as an elegant woman who actually made the trip miserable, ordering him to drive slowly and be careful because her parcel was fragile. The taxi driver wasn't a suspicious person, so just wrote it off as her being fussy. When they arrived at the airport, she told him to wait so he could drive her back home. He told investigators he didn't know her

name, but what he did have was the address that he dropped her off at. Investigators decided to stake out the street, hoping that they would find this mysterious woman in black. Meanwhile, a journalist for the Canadian press decided to make some phone calls of investigation himself. Edmund Shass had been tipped off to a story that a woman had taken a taxi from a downtown railway station to the airport with a parcel to be shipped on that fatal flight. When the journalist found out that the police had located the taxi driver, he spent a full day investigating and making phone calls to find out more, convinced that there was something nefarious going on. While he didn't learn the name or

identity of the woman in black, what he did discover was that she was just the runner, someone else had given her the parcel. Fired up about unraveling a mystery, the journalist started reporting on his findings before the police released the information publicly. This effectively ruined their stakeout operation. As funerals were being arranged for the victims of the crash, the media began referring to the mysterious woman as La Corbeau, or the Raven in French, and for a time, the investigation stalled. But 10 days after the crash, there was a lucky break. A man came forward to tell the police that he knew who the woman in black was. It was his younger sister, and the man told investigators

that if they went to see her, she would be able to tell them who was responsible for the package. Investigators had their next lead. Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to the next level? SquareSpace makes it easy for anyone to create an engaging web presence, grow a brand and sell anything from your products to the content you create and even your time. When I launched this passion project six years ago, I needed some kind of online hub to manage all the non-podcasting tasks that come with podcasting. I chose SquareSpace because it's an all-in-one platform that seamlessly helps me achieve multiple goals. It's important to have a website that looks good,

and I was inspired by SquareSpace's wide selection of clean and modern templates. They can be easily customized with pre-built layouts and flexible design tools to fit your needs, and you can even browse the category of your business to see examples of what others have done. I used the built-in blogging tools to create a new page for each episode, and there are so many intuitive options from embedding an audio player so listeners can stream episodes to scheduling posts to be published on a certain date, an easily moderated comment section and automatically displaying recent episodes on the homepage. Every SquareSpace website and online store includes SEO tools to help you maximize your visibility in search engines, and I love the powerful insights I can get from

the analytics tools, helping me better understand who's visiting the site, where they came from, and how they're interacting with it. Do you have a passion project or business idea or something to sell? Go to squarespace.com slash ctc for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch use offer code CTC to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash ctc with offer code CTC and get your passion project off the ground today. Marguerite Peter was a middle-aged mother of two who lived in Lower Town, an area of the historic neighborhood of Quebec City now known as Old Quebec, and the police didn't have much tracking to do because she was actually in hospital. It appeared she had tried to take

her own life by overdosing on a sedative, which was grounds for arrest since suicide was illegal in Canada at the time. Petrified, she told the police that the morning of September 9th, the day of the plane crash, she received an unexpected phone call from a friend and business associate who asked her to rush and meet him at the train station. He said he needed her to do him a favor. According to Marguerite, her friend ushered her to a storage locker that contained a box. He carefully picked it up and passed it to her slowly, telling her that it was a fragile statue that his wife was supposed to take with her on a flight that day. He explained that unfortunately his wife had hastily left for the airport without it, but there was still time to rush

it onto the plane since the scheduled flight hadn't left yet. Marguerite was only too happy to help her friend out. The instructions were as follows. Marguerite was to take the box to the airport and proceed directly to an agent to check it in as airmail. If she happened to see the man's wife there, she wasn't to bother her with the package as she would be preoccupied with boarding the plane. Marguerite told police that she did exactly as instructed and then caught the same taxi back home again. When she was told that the package likely contained dynamite, Marguerite was shocked. After police put their important new witness in protective custody, pending charges for attempted suicide, they announced to the press, quote, we have definite proof that explosives were placed

aboard the plane to get rid of a woman and we believe we can prove who did it. The name of Marguerite's friend and business associate was J. L. Bear Gay, a 31-year-old married father of one who lived in Quebec City. His wife was 28-year-old Rita Gay, one of the passengers who boarded flight 108 during the stopover there. As you'll recall, Rita was the only victim whose face was still able to be recognized through the bruises. After her death, her husband, J. L. Bear Gay, found himself a single father to the couple's four-year-old daughter. As it turned out, he was already known to first responders because they intercepted him as he walked up to the wreckage. After learning about the crash and the hours after it happened,

J. L. Bear and his brothers-in-law had driven to the area and trekked over to where the crash site seemed to be. After investigators told them to turn back because there were no survivors, he begged them to get to the bottom of what caused the crash. J. L. Bear Gay had been responsible for organizing a lavish funeral for Rita, ordering a five-foot cross made up of red roses to lay on top of her coffin. In the middle of the cross was a separate heart made up of white roses and inscribed with the words from your beloved L. Bear. And after the service, he was observed shaking hands with every person who came to pay their respects and was seen taking leave from his own grieving to console the loved

ones of the other passengers on the flight. Aside from the fact that J. L. Bear Gay was the one who had given that package to Marguerite Peter, he otherwise seemed to be an ordinary, grief-stricken husband. But when investigators did some quick digging around, they soon made an interesting discovery. Just two months beforehand, J. L. Bear had been charged with attempted assault with a deadly weapon after using it to threaten a young woman who was also believed to be his mistress. The assault charge had been downgraded to a legal possession of a weapon, but the circumstances and timing in the context of the plane crash were highly suspicious. And there was more. They discovered that in the weeks before the plane crash,

J. L. Bear had taken a life insurance policy in his wife Rita's name, which would pay $10,000 in the event of her death. And when he purchased her plane ticket, he paid 50 cents to purchase an additional flight insurance policy. All up, if his wife died in an accident on that specific flight, the payout would be $30,000, which today would be worth over $350,000. And it would all go to him as beneficiary. On September 23, 1949, two weeks after the bombing, police set out to pick up J. L. Bear Gay and bring him to the station for questioning. He had been staying at the home of his in-laws, but he suddenly left for his mother's place, which is where the police found him. He was

arrested and the next day charged with murdering his wife Rita. As investigators continued to gather evidence and conduct interviews, the media had been reporting everything they knew about the mysterious event and the people who may have been involved. At trial, the full picture would come out, but at this point, it was clear that the case boiled down to this. J. L. Bear Gay decided his wife had to die, so he put her on that plane, along with the bomb. Quebec locals were outraged when they realised all those other passengers were just collateral damage in one man's quest to murder his wife. Some cynical locals remembered a recent tragedy in Toronto where a boat caught fire and 132 passengers were tragically killed.

There were reportedly many sarcastic comments made that J. L. Bear Gay had probably hired someone to set the ship ablaze just to get rid of a pet he no longer wanted. Dark humour, but it drove home just how senseless and absurd the crime was. J. L. Bear Gay seemed unfazed by his arrest, not to mention the possibility that if he was found guilty, he would surely be sent to the gallows. In fact, he boldly threatened to sue the government for a loss of earnings, saying he'd been unfairly detained. But the public weren't having it. At the preliminary hearing held in the weeks following his arrest, mobs of angry people congregated to get a glimpse of him, some of them spitting at the man who took down a plane of innocent

people, including two families, just because he was having problems in his personal life. After the hearing, a trial was scheduled, but there was some news that caused a delay. As you'll remember, there were three passengers on the plane who were business executives from a New York City copper company. One of the men, Russell J. Parker, had an 18-year-old son who was obviously devastated by his father's death. Just two months after the crash, Patrick Parker was arrested and charged for armed robbery. He told police he needed money for a flight from Boston to Montreal, adding, quote, I was going to Canada because I wanted to get revenge and kill the man responsible for my father's death, the man who had the bomb put on the plane before

takeoff. As a result of this information, J. Albert Gay's defense counsel asked for adequate protection for his client at trial, just in case there was another shot at his life. In a statement to the media, the lawyer commented about the presumption of innocence, how it would be a tragedy to add a 24th victim in error to an already lengthy list. J. Albert Gay's trial for the murder of his wife started in February of the next year, 1950. In his opening address, the crown prosecutor told the court that through witness testimony, they were going to prove that J. Albert Gay orchestrated the purchase of dynamite, the construction of a time bomb, and the placing of that bomb onto the flight that he had already

booked his wife on. That he spent a great deal of effort coming up with a plan to make sure there would be no incriminating evidence found on the plane wreck, but something backfired which led to his arrest. And then, woven through the testimony of 80 crown witnesses, the court heard the story of what J. Albert Gay did, and it's a strange, strange tale. J. Albert Gay was born in September of 1917, the youngest of five children and a working-class Quebec City family. When he was just five, his railway worker father tragically passed away in a train accident, and the family moved to a poorer area of Quebec City. In French-speaking Quebec, it's customary to give children two hyphenated Christian names,

but many people choose to go by the second name in their daily life. So Albert was what his friends and family called him in childhood, but as he grew up, he developed a need to set himself apart from others, so he swapped out the Joseph for just the letter J, forming the distinctive name of J. Albert. An article in The New Yorker written by E. J. Khan Jr. described J. Albert as someone who always made an impression on people, a flashy dresser with handsome features, curly black hair, and an engaging smile. He went out of his way to charm people. In fact, he had been using his charisma to hustle since he was young.

By age 16, he was a regular in the area, someone who bought and sold things for profit, like watches and jewellery. And as his hustle started paying off, he liked to make a public show of giving money to those who needed it. It wasn't so much because he was a charitable person, but he enjoyed the attention he received from his generosity, and he also enjoyed having people owe him favours. When World War II started, the federal arsenal became the main employer in the Quebec City region. In fact, most of the people in the lower town area were employed there to help produce firearms to be used in the war. J. Albert would usually have been drafted to the military to serve, but he managed to avoid it by applying for a deferment.

During this time, he worked at the arsenal as a machine operator and supplemented his income with his jewellery resale business, eventually saving enough to become one of the few residents of the area who owned a motor car. But before that, soon after he'd started working at the arsenal, a woman named Rita Morrell had caught his eye. The couple, then aged in their early 20s, married that year and moved into a modest apartment. Marguerite Peter, the woman who carried the package on board the plane, worked at the arsenal, too. In fact, that's where she met J. L. Berguet. Marguerite was in her mid-30s, nine years his senior, and his flashy personality impressed her. She'd reportedly had a rough

childhood that became a rough adulthood, and she established a reputation as a hard industrious woman with a caustic tongue. She had two children, one from her first marriage and another from her second, although it was reported that she'd given birth to many more children who weren't in her care. While Marguerite was working at the arsenal, she grew very fond of J. L. Berguet, flattered that someone with such drive and promise would pay her attention. She considered herself a rung or two lower than him on the social class ladder. They soon established a quid pro quo type business relationship, which J. L. Berguet lending her money from time to time when she needed it, and in exchange,

she was available to help him out when he needed it. Although Marguerite told people she looked at J. L. Berguet like a son, her own husband wasn't so convinced and accused her of having an affair with the younger man. There doesn't appear to be any evidence that this was the case, and both parties denied it. In fact, J. L. Berguet scoffed when he heard the rumours, saying, have you seen her? After World War II ended and the arsenal factory shut down, all those workers were out of a job. Marguerite was always on the lookout for opportunities to earn money, and while she still didn't suffer falls lightly, she was generally quite agreeable when it came to shady business deals. She became known as the woman to see if you needed to lay low,

buy illegal alcohol, or have an abortion performed. Facing the same employment prospects, J. L. Berguet amped up his jewellery side hustle and decided to use his home as a base for a travelling salesman job. He would peddle his wares, engagement rings, watches and other trinkets in local Quebec towns, using his charm and charisma to deliver winning sales pitches. He saw opportunities for business deals wherever he went. When his clients told him they had broken watches, he devised a scheme where he would offer to repair them as part of his service. But he wasn't repairing them himself, he was just the middleman. He took them to an associate, a skilled watchmaker and repairman who was said to be a wizard with his hands, and passed the

work off as his own. But while his business interests seemed to go well, his family always seemed prone to disaster. Their house was broken into and jewellery was stolen, one of his businesses burnt down more than once, and just months before the plane crash that would kill his wife, her car had suddenly burst into flames while being inspected by a mechanic, that poor mechanic would spend months in hospital being treated for burn injuries. Each time these disasters happened, J.L. Bear would always express relief that he was insured, and then he would receive a lump sum from his insurance company. Along with these odd occurrences though, he liked being thought of as a charitable man,

and was involved with a Catholic fraternal or men's only organisation called the Knights of Columbus, who promoted charitable endeavours and also provided financial security to their members. J.L. Bear had been recommended by local priests for the highest honour in the Knights of Columbus, but he was rejected at the last minute when they discovered he had a substantial amount of debts in his name that he didn't seem to be paying down. J.L. Bear was devastated because he wanted the clout, but found that all he had to do to get the same attention was to lend money to people. One day he approached Marguerite Peter with an offer. She needed money and this suited him well because he knew someone who desperately needed a place to stay, his teenage mistress,

Marie-Anne Robitaille. J.L. Bear was in his late 20s when he met the 17-year-old waitress at a cafe she worked at, although she apparently told him she was 19, and he wasn't exactly truthful either, leading her to believe he was a successful businessman and eligible bachelor. They struck up a conversation, fell to an attraction and started a relationship. For J.L. Bear, it was of course an affair and he fell madly in love with the young waitress. Rita was busy keeping house and caring for their two-year-old daughter Lise now, too busy to give him all the attention he clearly craved. But Marie-Anne was unencumbered with seemingly endless time and energy to devote to her new suitor. The first few months were a whirlwind.

But at some point, Marie-Anne discovered that he hadn't been truthful about who he was, that he was married, the very opposite of an eligible bachelor, but he declared he was planning to leave his wife eventually and use this to manipulate Marie-Anne into continuing the affair. The problem was divorce wasn't a viable option. In the 1940s, the Roman Catholic Church still had a high level of influence over social and political matters in Quebec, so J.L. Bear felt he had no choice but to continue the affair in secret. Marie-Anne did introduce him to her parents, but she told them that his name was Roger Ange and he was a successful businessman and eligible bachelor. He courted her several times a week and her parents were thrilled when

he presented her with an engagement ring. While it seemed like a very important gesture to make, it really wasn't that grand for a travelling jewellery salesman who had many engagement rings in inventory. It was an easy way to keep up the ruse with her parents. But in other situations, Marie-Anne struggled to keep the sordid nature of their relationship a secret. When she said something that she shouldn't have and people started talking, Marguerite Peter was often called upon to smooth things over. It's not that the couple had to hide completely though. J.L. Bear had started taking Marie-Anne with him on his sales trips to local towns and cities in Quebec and he always introduced her as his wife.

The whole thing blew up eventually though when the rumours that J.L. Bear had been having an affair with a teenager reached his wife. When Rita learned the name and identity of the young woman, she showed up at Marie-Anne's parents' house to tell them the truth, that the man they knew as Roger Ange was not a bachelor. He was a married father of one named J.L. Bear Gay. Perhaps Rita hoped that this revelation would mean the end of this sordid affair and she could have her husband back. But it backfired. Marie-Anne's parents were so angry at the deception that they threw their daughter out of the house, prompting her to contact J.L. Bear to help her find somewhere else to live. He called in a favour from a friend, asking Marguerite Peter and her husband to put

Marie-Anne up at their apartment and J.L. Bear would pay them rent. Marguerite was always eager to get involved with new business deals, especially when it came to J.L. Bear, so she was more than happy to oblige. Marie-Anne moved into the apartment at the end of 1948, about nine months before the plane crashed. Just a month or two after that, it was the winter months of 1949, and 18-year-old Marie-Anne decided she'd had enough of the situation with J.L. Bear and the problems that it had caused with her parents. She decided to end the affair and return home, arranging with her parents to send her money for a train fare and to meet her at the station. But J.L. Bear gay followed her onto the train and threatened to make a scene if she didn't get off immediately. The threat worked. He took

her back to the apartment and after she was asleep he hid her gloves and coat. It was freezing outside and he knew that she wouldn't be able to escape without them. The next morning he bit her on her face several times. A cruel act designed to humiliate her and render her too embarrassed to go out in public. And it worked. She stayed put for a while longer at least. In the meantime, Rita Gay decided she was fed up with her husband's antics. Trying to shut down the affair hadn't worked, so in a rage she packed some things, took their daughter Lees and moved in with her parents until she could figure out her next move. J.L. Bear wasn't too phased about this as he thought he still had Marie-Anne in his clutches. But she was getting fed up too. Not only was his abusive

behaviour ramping up, but she started to realise that he was never going to leave his wife. As soon as she was able, Marie-Anne escaped back to her parents. J.L. Bear knew he couldn't show up there, so he tracked her down to a restaurant where she was working as a waitress. One night as she was walking through the darkened narrow streets to work, he accosted her with a gun, threatening to shoot himself and maybe her as well if she didn't return to him. Marie-Anne told him to leave her alone, and he fired a few shots in the air to prove a point. When a police officer heard the commotion, J.L. Bear ran off, and the officer escorted Marie-Anne to the restaurant where she worked and waited there for a while in case the man with the gun

showed up. When J.L. Bear thought the coast was clear, he entered the restaurant only to be arrested on the spot for attempted assault with a deadly weapon. He asked Marguerite Peter to hire a lawyer for him, who was able to reduce his charge to one count of carrying a gun illegally, with a fine of $25. But J.L. Bear didn't give up lightly. Days after he was released from prison, he was able to convince Marie-Anne to meet up with him, saying that he had something urgent to tell her. He said that his wife Rita believed that Marie-Anne had besmirched or damaged their family name and was planning on having her arrested. It wasn't true, and it was a completely nonsensical point to make, but Marie-Anne was terrified. J.L. Bear suggested she needed to go

to Montreal to lay low until the coast was clear, and he offered to go with her. Seeing this as her only option, she agreed. In Montreal, Marie-Anne saw a whole different side of J.L. Bear. He acted as though they were already married and was really making an effort, treating her much better than she was used to, funding shopping sprees and generally being attentive to her needs. He continued to remind her that he was going to leave his wife, and then they could finally get married for real. He surprised her with plane tickets for them both to fly from Montreal to Bay Como, soaring along the stunning north shore of the same Celeron River, where his wife would meet her death in a twisted pile of metal. Marie-Anne was air-sick for most of the

way, so she didn't think much of the fact that J.L. Bear had moved to a vacant window seat with a watch in hand, intently timing the journey as he watched the terrain out the window. A week later, Marie-Anne realised she'd been had again. She told J.L. Bear she was sick of his stories and his promises, and she was leaving again to return home, for good. He allowed her to walk out but handed her a note that read, I love you terribly, we'll be together again very soon. There was a PS on the letter instructing her to destroy it, but she didn't. J.L. Bear Gay thought long and hard about his predicament. He clearly had no self-awareness about his abusive treatment and manipulation of Marie-Anne, and concluded that the only reason

she wanted to leave him was just because he couldn't marry her, because he was already married to Rita. He decided that marrying Marie-Anne was the ultimate solution to all his problems, the only thing that would ensure both of them lived a happy life. He had to win her back. But divorce wasn't an option. J.L. Bear had thought about killing Rita before, but now his personal situation had devolved to a point where he decided to explore that idea some more. He also had to keep his jewellery business afloat, so he flew back to Bay Comal with two suitcases full of jewellery to sell, as he continued to flesh out his plan. But something was off that summer, and business was not booming, so he cut his losses and returned home, keeping the suitcases

of jewellery in storage at Bay Comal for next time. The plan to get rid of his wife became his primary focus, but he knew that he couldn't be the one to kill Rita. It was well known that he was an unfaithful spouse, and the couple were all but estranged since Rita and their daughter were living with her parents. J.L. Bear knew that if Rita was to be killed, all eyes would be on him, so he had to work out a way to cause her death without any chance of it coming back on him. He decided that the first step was to get back into his wife's good graces, at least for appearances. He showed up at his in-laws' house and pleaded with her to reconcile their family for good, telling her that he had seen the error of his ways. Rita took him back again in good faith.

So now that the couple were not estranged anymore, J.L. Bear discussed his idea with a few associates that he thought he could trust. But one of them was deeply alarmed by what he was suggesting, and wrote an anonymous letter to Rita saying, quote, watch out, because something is going to happen to you. This was in early August, about a month before the plane crash. The note was so vague that she likely didn't know what to make of it, let alone what action she should be taking, if any. In the meantime, J.L. Bear identified two people that would be able to help him with his plan. Marguerite Peter was one, and the other was her older brother, Jean-Eru Rouet. He was a bachelor of around 50 years old who used crutches and a wheelchair. He had tuberculosis of both hips,

which caused him much pain, restricted movement, and caused the deformity of his limbs. Jean-Eru struggled to walk, but his fast and agile hands made up for the loss of function in his legs, and he earned a living as a skilled watchmaker. When J.L. Bear had that side hustle repairing broken watches for clients, Jean-Eru was the watchmaker he took them to for repair. Now, to persuade the brother and sister duo to help him out with this new plan, J.L. Bear wanted to leverage the fact that both had financial issues of their own. Marguerite owed him $600, and he promised her that he would write the debt off if she agreed to help him. He also promised to pay Jean-Eru some money to get out of a pickle he was in, as well as giving him a

discount on jewellery with the possibility of buying him a new car if everything went well. After agreeing to terms, tasks were assigned, and everyone went on their way. J.L. Bear resumed the show of reconciliation with his wife, taking Rita on a week-long vacation where he made a special romantic effort to be kind to her. He loved bombed her, just like he had with Marie-Anne. Likely hoping she would tell everyone the good news about their successful reconciliation, and that would later serve to alleviate any possible suspicion that he was involved in her death. When the couple returned from their vacation, he checked in with his brother-sister accomplices to see where they were up to with their tasks. Marguerite had been

tasked with buying dynamite, and she gave a false name when signing off on the purchase of 20 half-pound sticks of dynamite, detonating caps and a length of fuse. At the trial, she testified that J.L. Bear told her it was to clear some farmland, and she knew nothing of the bomb. As for Jean-Eru, he would testify that J.L. Bear said he needed to blast some tree stumps and asked him to put together a detonation device for that purpose. But Jean-Eru had no idea where to start, so the two men put their heads together and decided a time bomb would be constructed, with a battery, a detonator and detonating cap, as well as an alarm clock to set the time that the bomb would explode. A test version was first built without the dynamite, and when the detonator

went off at the set time, the men cheered. They had just built a time bomb, the likes of which had never really been seen in Canada before. J.L. Bear still hadn't made a final decision about how he would use the bomb, but he was leaning towards a plane crash. That way, he could eliminate Rita and avoid being blamed for it. It's highly likely that he'd been inspired by another aviation tragedy that happened a few months earlier. In May of 1949, a domestic Philippine Airlines passenger jet exploded and plunged into the sea near Manila, killing 13 people. The Canadian press reported on the tragedy and the developments, including the announcement of an arrest. It would come out that a jealous man had hired some criminals to conceal a time bomb on the plane

that his romantic rival was going to be on. The assumption was that J.L. Bear had followed the news and was inspired to book a test flight to Bay Comal, where an air-sick marionge was completely unaware that there was an alternate reason for the flight. J.L. Bear decided a plane crash was the way to go. But he had a new challenge. It was to figure out a way to get Rita onto the plane in the first place. Air travel wasn't typically something that married women did without their husbands, so he had to come up with a persuasive reason. He remembered those two suitcases of jewellery that he had put in storage in the city of Bay Comal. All he had to do was persuade Rita to fly up there from Quebec City and bring them back. It was the perfect solution and she wouldn't

be coming back. Rita wasn't really enthusiastic about the prospect, but since her wayward husband had been making a noticeable effort lately and she felt he was sincere about reconciling their family, she agreed to do it. J.L. Bear went to the Canadian Pacific Airlines ticket office and purchased a return ticket for his wife on the next available plane to Bay Comal, which left in three days. He knew that if everything went to plan, she would not be needing that return ticket, but it was still important to deflect any future speculation of his involvement. At the same time, he also purchased the flight insurance policy, which paid out in the event of a crash. He'd already teed up that life insurance policy and Rita's name a few weeks earlier and

he called to confirm that the policy was still active. If Rita died on that exact flight by accident, he would be paid $30,000, which he reportedly intended to use to fund his new life with Marie-Anne. With all those details confirmed, J.L. Bear focused on three remaining tasks. One, maintain appropriate attentiveness to his wife and child right up until Rita was on that plane. Two, make sure that Jean-Éru was on track to finish engineering the final version of the bomb. And three, ready up Marguerite to deliver the package to the airport and ensure it gets on the plane. It was September the 9th, 1949, the day of the flight and J.L. Bear woke up early to finish off the bomb package with Jean-Éru. All they had to do was set the detonation time on the alarm clock

and arm the device. When it came to setting the time, J.L. Bear had done his homework. His plan was for the plane to plunge into the Celeron River, one of the largest rivers in North America, with a width of between one and two kilometers. And thanks to that crater left by the meteorite millions of years ago, the river has a depth of up to 250 feet, the height of a 23-story building. He figured it would be impossible to investigate the wreckage deep underwater. During that test flight he took with Marie-Anne, he determined that after takeoff, it took 20 minutes before the plane started flying directly over the river. The flight he booked Rita on was scheduled to leave at about 10.20 am,

so the timer was set for 10.45. With that, J.L. Bear and Jean-Éru carefully wrapped the small but heavy parcel and labelled it as fragile in bold letters, along with fictional names and addresses for the sender and the destination. Everything had to look completely normal, so as not to raise any suspicions. The clock was literally ticking now, so from this point on, everything had to be carefully timed to schedule. Package in hand, J.L. Bear's next stop was the railway station, where he'd arranged to meet Marguerite Peter at 8.30 am. He carefully handed her the package, along with money to pay for the airport shipping charges as well as a return taxi fare. Marguerite arrived at the airport in Quebec City just in time to rush the package up to the

airmail desk. The agent noticed that the smallish box with the fragile label was much heavier than it appeared to be. This would normally have been grounds for inspection, but there wasn't any time because the plane was due to take off any minute. The agent went against his better judgment and let it through, something he would later say he greatly regretted because it may have prevented the tragedy. In any event, the fragile box was carefully strapped into the front left side luggage compartment just in time. Now, if the plane had taken off at exactly the scheduled time, the bomb would have detonated directly over the Celeron River, just as J.L. Bear had planned. But unfortunately, it was late. It was only about four minutes, but J.L. Bear had not allowed any

wiggle room in the timing, so when the bomb detonated at 10.45 am, the plane had only been in the air for 16 minutes. What this meant was instead of plunging into the river and sinking to the bottom, it hurtled into rocky bluffs and shattered in a forest. At J.L. Bear's murder trial, a ticket sales desk employee testified that he and his four-year-old daughter came to the desk a few hours later to inquire about the flight Rita Gay was on. When he was told the plane had gone down, he became hysterical. An insurance company representative told the court that just a week after the crash, he tried to claim the insurance payout. There was also testimony from a pilot, a chemistry professor, airport agents, medical legal experts, railway investigators,

aeronautical engineers and other experts about the various scientific tests conducted that led them to determine that it was likely a time bomb that had been strapped into the front-left luggage compartment. Traces of a dynamite explosion were found in the wreckage with physical evidence from a smashed, dry-cell battery that detonated the blast and pieces of an alarm clock that likely timed the explosion. This part of the trial was long and technical testimony. Too much for the once-destraught widower in the prisoner's dock. J.L. Bear fell asleep. Even though all the passengers had died on the flight, the crown only had to prove that J.L. Bear intentionally murdered his wife, Rita Gay. The coroner went through her autopsy results,

telling the court that practically all of the bones in her body were broken. Her skull shattered, her lungs had burst open and there was an itemized list of damage to each of her organs. Her cause of death was a general hemorrhage as a result of a crushing of the head, and while it was possible that it was a result of the explosion, there was nothing to indicate that Rita was dead before the plane crashed into the mountainside. Photographs of her badly bruised and broken body were admitted into evidence, resulting in audible gasps from those in attendance. J.L. Bear broke his composure for the first time and wept. He had asked friends at Rita's funeral if they thought she had suffered. There was no evidence

that she didn't. When it was time for Marie-Anne's robotai to take the stand, the public were so desperate to hear her story that they lined up at the courthouse at midnight the night before to make sure they got a seat. The teenager had effectively been reduced to tabloid fodder in the months since J.L. Bear's arrest. On the stand, she detailed the two-year affair she had with him before the plane crash and testified that she had no knowledge about his plan. She said that he contacted her after the crash in the brief window of time before he was arrested and she told him she was sorry to hear about the death of his wife. His only comment was that it was too bad and then he changed the subject, asking Marie-Anne if she still loved him. She told the court, quote,

I said I was quiet at home and that my family didn't want me to go out with him. He said that was all right because he couldn't go out with anybody for six months. Clearly, it was all part of his plan to deflect any suspicion. As you'll remember, the reason the police were able to identify the woman in black was because ten days after the crash, a man came forward and said she was his sister, Marguerite Peter. It should be noted that this brother wasn't Jean-Éru the watchmaker, but a different sibling. Police found her in hospital where they were told she tried to kill herself by overdosing on sedatives. Because attempted suicide was illegal in Canada at the time, a week or so later, she was charged. Unlike her business associate, Marguerite wasn't

facing the death penalty, although it would have been highly ironic if she were to be found guilty of attempted suicide and sent to the gallows to be killed by the state instead. She was up for a possible two-year prison sentence. At her trial for attempted suicide, which started just a few weeks before Jaelle Baer's trial for murder, 41-year-old Marguerite Peter denied that she ever tried to kill herself and said that she'd actually gone to hospital for a completely different reason. As you'll remember, investigators had staked out her street after the taxi driver gave them her address, but she was nowhere to be found. This was no coincidence. She told the court that Jaelle Baer Gay had already tipped her off, arriving at her house in a panic waving a copy

of the latest newspaper. He pointed to that article by Edmund Shass that announced the police were looking for a woman in black, and he told Marguerite that it was only a matter of time before they would be knocking at her door, and then it would be over for her. Marguerite testified that, at this point, he told her the parcel that she couriered to the airport had actually contained a bomb. She replied, You told me the parcel only contained a statue, and he said it didn't matter. There would make no exception for her. She would be blamed for killing the 23 passengers on board Flight 108, he said, and if she wanted to avoid being sent to the gallows, she had two options, leave town immediately, or kill herself now before the police could find her.

After dishing out some handy tips for planning a suicide at home, he told her that whatever she decided, she was to leave a note taking full responsibility for the bomb. The story she was to give about motive was that she thought it was Jaelle Baer on the plane, and she wanted to kill him in an effort to get her $600 debt to him written off. When Jaelle Baer left after delivering this grim news, Marguerite was terrified, and later that evening she was taken to hospital with severe abdominal pain, likely caused by all the stress. Her doctor corroborated this, testifying that he'd prescribed a sedative to treat her abdominal pain, and it caused her to fall into a deep sleep. Blood tests showed no sign of overdose, and Marguerite Peter was acquitted

of attempted suicide. After Marguerite told her older brother that she was in hospital because a man threatened her and told her to kill herself, he called the police straight away. Just before arresting officers caught up to Jaelle Baer Gay, he was awarded a check for $1,000 from the Knights of Columbus. The Catholic men's only organization hoped it would bring him comfort, and alleviate the cost of Rita's funeral, and he graciously accepted it. A detective working on the case would describe him as having the gall of a canal horse. In closing arguments, the crown prosecutor would tell the court that Jaelle Baer Gay had tricked his two accomplices into taking part in his scheme to kill his wife, giving them serious tasks to carry out,

but for innocent reasons, like blasting land or tree stumps. There wasn't much to work with when it came to a defense, and his lawyer asked the jury to decide whether the crash was an accident or a crime. Quote, if it was a crime, then it was the most atrocious, most barbaric, and most abominable in history. But even if it was a crime, this does not mean that the accused is responsible for this abominable tragedy. The defense's case essentially consisted of a collection of witnesses who testified that Jaelle Baer had a habit of buying insurance. It wasn't indicative of his guilt. The three-week trial made for many sensational headlines, and roused more interest as the days went on. On the final date, the courtroom was

packed right up against the side of the judge's bench. The jury took only 17 minutes to return with a guilty verdict. Jaelle Baer Gay stood expressionless behind the brass railing of the prisoner's box, staring at his feet. The judge was overcome with emotion and struggled to speak at times, as he told the 32-year-old that there was no name for the heinous crime he committed. Quote, the hatred you had for your wife and the vice that gnawed at you made you commit the diabolical crime of which you've been accused. The vicious passion which drove you to the conquest of a young girl who was disgusted with you led you to this incredible thing of not hesitating to bring death to 22 other persons to rid yourself of the mother of your child. Your punishment will be to

be hanged by the neck June 23rd next until death. It would later come out that the plane crash wasn't the first time Jaelle Baer Gay had tried to murder his wife. About five months beforehand, he reportedly approached a friend of the family and offered him $500 to murder Rita by poisoning her wine. The friend told Jaelle Baer he was crazy and refused to do it. After the guilty verdict, Jaelle Baer was moved to Bordeaux Prison in Montreal to await his trip to the gallows. He tried to tell his story to magazines from his death sentence cell, apparently to teach readers a moral lesson and to get some money to put aside for his five-year-old daughter. While there, he also wrote a lengthy statement to the Crown Prosecutor where he not

only admitted his own guilt but said that he had not acted alone. As it appeared, he was angry that he was to be hanged while his accomplices Marguerite Peter and Jean-Éru Rouet got away scot-free. When investigators asked him to give more details, he said they had been in on it from the beginning. The Crown felt there was enough evidence to charge Jean-Éru with being an accessory to murder since he was the one that put the bomb together. And at his trial, there were new witnesses. A few acquaintances knew he was building the device, but he gave them inconsistent excuses for why it was needed, from blasting farmland to blowing fish out of a lake. Another acquaintance testified that the night before the plane crash, she overheard Jean-Éru tell Géalbert,

it will be ready on time. And as the news broke that the plane had crashed into the forest, he was overheard saying, that was not the way it was supposed to happen. Jean-Éru Rouet was found guilty of being an accessory to murder and was sentenced to death. In the meantime, his sister had been arrested again. After testifying at his trial, she was charged with intimidating witnesses and perjury and finally accessory to murder. Even though Marguerite purchased that dynamite, she always maintained that she had no idea the package she carried to the airport contained a bomb until after the crash. Her case fell apart when another taxi driver friend testified that Marguerite had come to him with a strange proposal. This was just

before Géalbert Gay decided the bomb would be put on the plane. She asked him to take Rita for a drive in his taxi, along with a package that contained a time bomb and he would be told when the timer was going to go off so he would know when to jump out of the car. It was a wild plan that required a taxi driver to blow up his own vehicle to kill a stranger he had no motive to want dead. When he refused to have any part of it, Marguerite backtracked and claimed she was only joking. Just like her brother, Marguerite Peter was found guilty of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to hang. On January the 12th 1951, 34-year-old Géalbert Gay walked to the gallows at Bordeaux prison.

His last words translated from French were, at least I die famous. 18 months after that, 52-year-old Jeanette Rue-Rouet was taken to the gallows in his wheelchair. He was hanged while he was sitting down. 43-year-old Marguerite made her own trip to the gallows on January 9th 1953. She was the 13th and last woman to be hanged in Canada. It would come out later that well-known Quebec journalist and novelist, Roger Lemmeley, actually lived next door to Géalbert Gay for a time and reported from his trial. He would go on to write a novel based on the story, but before that he wrote a long-form

article that was published in Maclean's magazine in 1951. In the piece titled My Friend Gay, The Murderer, the novelist wrote that he and others immediately suspected Géalbert was responsible for the crash when they discovered his wife was on the plane. Of Géalbert, he said, quote, He was interested in everything, talked of everything, yet knew nothing. He waved his thin hands as he talked to illustrate his conversation. He was completely irresponsible, imaginative, yet devoid of any practical sense. Flight 108, The Soto-Cochon Tragedy is notorious as one of the first instances of in-flight bombing and one of the worst mass murders in Canadian history.

And Géalbert Gay likely would have gotten away with it if the flight had left on schedule. It would have plunged into the depths of the Celeron River, leaving an underwater crime scene that would be very difficult if not impossible to investigate. There would have been no identification of that package strapped to the left side of the plane and no tracking it back to the mysterious woman in black which blew the case open. Thanks for listening and special thanks to Eileen McFarlane from CrimeLapse podcast for research, writing and also editing in this episode. For the full list of resources we relied on to write this episode and anything else you want to know about the podcast including how to access ad-free episodes visit canadiantruecrime.ca.

As always thank you so much for your kind ratings, reviews, messages and support. I read every message and I really appreciate them. Thanks also to the host of True for Voicing the Disclaimer and We Talk of Dreams who compose the theme song. I am still working on my schedule for the summer but I'll post an update soon about when you can expect the next episode. Thanks for your patience and see you then.