Uncover - S15: "The Village 3" E4: A Murder is a Murder is a Murder

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

A married man is murdered while on a business trip in Montreal. The case highlights the challenges of investigating the murders. Delayed investigations and unsolved cases are a dear price to pay when a serial killer may be on the loose. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/the-village-the-montreal-murders-transcripts-listen-1.6479960

Do you have something you want to improve about yourself? Maybe it's something petty or embarrassing. That's where Personal Best comes in. Personal Best from CBC Podcasts is a self-improvement show for people who don't like self-improvement. Vulture calls it a delightfully dorky romp through a world of hidden wants and quiet dreams. And Time Magazine says it's one of the funniest podcasts to hit our earbuds in years. Did they really say that? That is really nice of them.

Find Personal Best on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. It is with a very heavy heart that I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Brian Booth, the Chief Executive Officer... February 1st, 1990.

Doug Phillips, a politician in the northern territory of the Yukon, is addressing the legislative assembly. Brian was a constituent of mine. He was also a friend... His friend and neighbor has just been killed in Montreal while on business.

Brian was regarded very highly by his colleagues all across Canada and they're paying tribute to him today as we are in this house. Our heartfelt sympathy is extended to his family. Brian Booth will be sadly missed by all Yukoners. A father of two, a public servant, a pillar of the community. Brian wasn't just a government worker who worked for the Workers' Compensation Board. He was very much involved in the community. You know, people come to the Yukon and some people come up here

and they work for a few years and they leave. Brian was one of those people that when he came to the Yukon, he really made it his home and Brian and his family really made a significant contribution to the territory with respect to youth, the Workers' Compensation Board, the St. John Ambulance, and the White Horse Cadet Camp. So I think all Yukoners are indebted to the legacy that Brian Booth has left us. That's why his death, so far away from home, shook the community to its core. We heard it on the CBC radio in the morning that it was reported,

and everyone was totally shocked because Brian was such a likable guy and no one could understand what happened. In the aftermath of Brian Booth's death, grieving friends and family grappled with the complexities of a man they thought they knew. Detectives, meanwhile, tried to piece together

another story. It involves a $50 debt, a transistor radio, and murder. They didn't identify it immediately as a gay murder, yet all the signs were there. In a lot of murders, there's something that joins the people together. Here, it's two strangers meeting in the night. Victims will seldom complain to police or even admit to being gay. Perfect targets for hatred and violence.

The fact is that he was gay and that it was a sex crime. If this was 13 little teenage girls, heads would be rolling. So what the hell is going on now? Nothing. And we're pissed off and fed up. I'm Francis Plourde. This is The Village. The Montreal Murders.

Episode 4. A murder is a murder is a murder. So, in the fall of 1991, nearly two years after Brian Booth was killed, Nearly two years after Brian Booth was killed, the Montreal police finally acknowledge what the community has been saying for such a long time. That there might be a serial killer targeting the village. Detectives reopened eight cold cases, including Brian Booth's. I went to the courthouse to dig up his case file. So many of the murders in Montreal in the 90s were left unsolved

that I'm trying to get an idea about how the investigations were conducted and see what patterns show up in the case files. Luckily, Brian's file is one of the few that are still there, and might have some answers. It leads me to the first investigator who took the case in January of 1990. I'm headed to his home north of Montreal with my colleague, Marie-Ève Tremblay. Marie-Ève is hosting the podcast Le Village, Radio-Canada's take on this story. In reviewing Brian Booth's file, we both agree.

The cops seem to have been exceptionally efficient on this case, well, at least compared to others. Bonjour, Monsieur Granger. Bonjour. Roger Granger, now in his late 70s, lives deep in the woods in a log home he built himself. I was a police officer since 1962 and was assigned subsequently to a homicide squad. Granger is old school, gets down to business quick.

Immediately, he is describing the scene of Brian Booth's murder, room 2603 of Montreal's Grand Hotel. It was a violent crime. The person had been stabbed and attached with electric wires. The room was a mess. Items were missing, but there was no forced entry. Brian Booth, a short man in his 50s, lay on the bed in his underwear,

hands tied behind his back. The killer had stuffed a towel in his mouth, stabbed him in the heart with a screwdriver, and strangled him with a lamb cord. There was a theft for sure, and I've been through what Mr. Boot did in the preceding days. Aside from attending his business conference, he'd gone shopping and spent time in the village. It was all places for homosexuals. All the clubs, mostly on St. Catherine Street. Mr. Boot was visiting those places regularly. Every time he would come to Montreal, he would go to such places.

I was lucky, because at that time, there was an ex-police officer that was the owner of many of those clubs, and he introduced me to people, gave me some extra information in regards of that murder. The clubs in the village were not exactly Roger Granger's comfort zone.

But he says it didn't matter. He had a job to do. If you want to be a good cop, you're not supposed to go with prejudices. You do your thing. I hope everybody does. And I think you consider yourself a good cop. No, I leave the other ones to decide that. No, no, I think I did a good job. But back to my question, with those gay murders, what we know is that the success rate was lower than the usual success rate.

And one element that I think you kind of confirmed was the fact that there was no keys to understand the evidence. But is it possible that some investigators didn't take those seriously because those were gay people? Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge. You investigate a murder, it doesn't matter if the victim or the suspect is homosexual or black or Asian. You have to make tabula rasa. You have to clean the table and you start with new stuff.

No prejudice, otherwise you're not doing your job the proper way. His visits to the village paid off. He eventually identified two suspects. Beauv had spent time with Beauv before he was killed. But the suspects, they didn't have anything to do with the murder itself. Granger followed other leads as well. For instance, he discovered Booth had been attacked in another hotel room under similar circumstances five years earlier in Vancouver.

It confirmed that it wasn't the first time the victim had invited a stranger into his room. But it didn't lead this investigation anywhere. Granger had come to a dead end. In the early 90s, Montreal police were dealing with more than 100 murders a year. That's about two and a half times today's count. The homicide squad was overloaded. And without any leads, they moved on quickly.

Booth's file was parked until late 1991, when the head of homicide gave weight to the theory that a serial killer might be behind the murders and brought in some fresh blood to investigate. Gilles Racette was among them. And we started getting some cold cases. We only came in when they formed that little squad. He was handed Brian Booth's file. And within weeks, he found a person of interest.

Some information came in about that specific case. Martin Rangier, the young Rangier kid, he had been brought into this, and I think he had to pay back some kind of a debt. Martin Rangier, the person of interest Rasset is talking about, was 18 years old the night Brian Booth was killed. Rasset describes him as a nice kid who felt remorse. Ranget collaborated with the police and pleaded guilty to charges of robbery. He served a few months' time

and moved on with his life. Now, 30 years later, I wanted to find out if he was still around to share his side of the story. Do you think he has any reason to want to talk? No, it's probably not something he's really proud of. Nothing online, no phone number, but a possible address. My colleague Michel and I hit the road. So it's the house there with the protection. Oh, there's no bell. No.

Okay, so should we... Rangy's not in. But a neighbor is able to help. Says he might work nearby. We head there next. 200 metres. Your destination will be on the right. That's where we find him. Is Martin Rangé here? Yes, hello. where we find him.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. So we tracked down Martin Rangier, the young guy connected to Brian Booth's murder. He's now 50 years old. He is a good guy. He is. Okay, but tell me what happened. I introduced myself. I'm from Agio Canada. It's a bit complicated, but I apologize for, you know, meeting you at your workplace. Do you have time today?

I would like to meet. And he said, yeah, it's a bit heavy, right? And I said, yes, that's why I don't want to do it in public. I just want to talk with you about it. And he said, yeah, it's very heavy. I was very naive. It's in the past. I have to deal with it. Wow. I need to face the consequences of that. So, yeah, I'm going to meet you at 1 o'clock.

Great. So what are we going to do? Come pick him up? We're going to discuss around the coffee at 1 o'clock. Here? Here. Okay. We meet Martin as planned at 1 p.m. He chooses a table in the farthest corner and sits with his back against the wall. He says that he'd like to tell his story,

to get it off his chest. But he's torn. We can see that his body is rigid. He looks fragile at the prospect of reliving what happened that night. And he's still afraid of the killer, which is why he declines a recorded interview. He does tell us, though,

that he regrets not preventing the murder. So, all we're left with is the official record, Martin's court testimony from 30 years ago, and the mention of a name, Jean-François Beaupré. In the testimony, he says that he's scared of Beaupré and that his reasoning is, well, if he killed him, he says that he's scared of Beaupré and that his reasoning is, well, if he killed him, he could kill me, so I can't stand up to him and I can't do anything about this. Yeah, and he did all that to erase a $50 debt.

Can you imagine that? It's crazy. Martin Rangier had been working odd jobs, painting, that kind of stuff. He'd borrowed $50 from his neighbor. On the day of the murder, the neighbor asked him to settle the debt. He told me, since I didn't have the money to pay him back, that he was here to make an arrangement. That's all. pour le rembourser qu'il était pour faire un arrangement. C'est tout. Martin didn't have the cash,

so the neighbours said he could repay him with a favour. Nothing dangerous, just a night out. Together, they met Jean-François Beaupré at a greasy spoon at the edge of Carré-Saint-Louis, a popular cruising spot. That's where Jean-François Beaupré laid out his plan. He asked me to go to St. Catherine Street with him to go to a bar.

Head to a bar in the village. Target someone who looks well-off. Check for a ring, jewelry, expensive shoes. Martin's job was to take him home. They conned him into serving as bait because he was a rather Martin's job was to be the bait. He was willing to go along, whether he was happy about it is... I have my doubts, but anyways, he was... Once they got him home, the plan was to rob him,

then strip him, take some nude photos, and use them for blackmail. Only then would Martin's debt be paid off. Martin felt like he had no other choice, and he agreed to the plan. But it was easier said than done. Martin, who was straight, wasn't having any luck picking up men. Around midnight, they hit their fourth bar, and a man in his fifties offered Martin a beer. That man was Brian Booth. They got into some small talk in English, and Martin asked, but Booth declined the offer. He said he didn't know the city and was leery of hustlers. So instead, a drunk Brian Booth invited Martin to go back with him. Minutes after Martin entered Booth's room in the Grand Hotel, there was a knock on the door. It was Jean-François Beaupré.

One of the two, I think it was Beaupré, was going to pose as the older brother of Martin Rangier, and that was the pretext of beating up on the old guy. Of course, it went far beyond just beating him up. Beaupré pushed his way in, shoved Booth up against the bed, and choked him. Martin was shocked. You're going to kill him, he said. Beaupré said no, then started stabbing Booth. As Booth drew his last breath, Beaupré told Ranget to grab anything of value. I executed his orders because I was starting to get scared.

Martin Ranget was terrified. He did what he was told. They escaped with $75, a ring, a watch, toiletries, and a brand-new radio they found in the room. That night, 18-year-old Martin Ranget took off into hiding. I think he had a lot of remorse about that, and he opened up to some people, and if I remember correctly, this is how the information came back to us. So the first thing we did was go and arrest him.

That was almost two years after the murder. He had it on his conscience, and he was willing to talk. This is how we arrested Beaupré, who was the actual murderer. Jean-François Beaupré denied any involvement in the murder. But a tiny piece of evidence from the crime scene confirmed that Martin was telling the murder. But a tiny piece of evidence from the crime scene confirmed that Martin was telling the truth. The day before he was killed, Brian Booth had gone shopping. Going through different things in the apartment,

I noticed that there was a bill for a radio that was bought the day before, but there was no radio. So I went to the radio shack. If the sale was run through a credit card, American Express, they would file the serial number of the article. That transistor radio turned up in Jean-François Beaupré's apartment. I was very glad that just that little thing led to the arrest of the guy. Beaupré, it turns out, had a history of violence and not a very good probation record. In 1975, he'd been jailed for minor crimes, breaking and entering, possession of stolen goods.

He was 21. Then, while out on parole, he raped two women and ended back in jail. And Beaupré was on parole for those crimes the night he killed Brian Booth. He was on probation and the liaison officer that dealt with him, she was afraid of him. with him, she was afraid of him. She had noticed, and I think she had in her note, that after the murder happened, Beaupré had appeared a lot more relaxed, rather happy, rather contended. And then when we intervened, it seemed like he was working up again a tension there. And this is why she was afraid of him.

Anyways, we arrested him. We interrogated him. He came very close to telling us, but ended up never admitting to the murder. us, but ended up never admitting to the murder. The jury found Beaupré guilty of second-degree murder. The judge described Beaupré's action as heinous and sentenced him to life in prison. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, so I have no competence whatsoever. The first thing that comes to mind, because he's attacking a homosexual, maybe he did hate homosexuals. Maybe something in his background makes it, or he was just looking for somebody to hate. Maybe the motive was homophobia or whatever.

I don't know. Martin Ranget testified that it was. He told the court how Beaupré saw gay men as frugal. They hoarded their cash, which made them prime targets for robbery. How Beaupré had read stories about high-status individuals caught with young men, and that often, the ones who were easier to meet were married or powerful. People with something to hide. People like Brian Booth.

Jean-François Beaupré was recently granted day parole. In their latest parole board review, therapists described him as someone with significant narcissistic, violent and antisocial traits. The review board has decided that Beaupré is a manageable risk to society. And yet his reintegration potential is described as low. At 68, Beaupré is still denying any involvement in the murder of Brian Booth. Investigators say that one of the toughest parts about this case was talking it through with the victim's family.

It's a sad, sad affair. Brian Booth had two kids, and Mrs. Booth had no idea of her husband's double life. I hope they're satisfied with the results of the investigation. And I hope they understand why I didn't talk to them very often during the investigation. But I thought it was very tough for the family. We reached out to the family. They wanted to express their appreciation of the police for the handling of the situation.

Poor Brian Booth. There was some satisfaction in seeing one case solved. But Michael Hendricks knew that most of the cases were still cold. And he kept a close watch on all the new ones. The murders came quite rapidly thereafter, through 1993. And of course the frustration level would go higher and higher and higher and higher. Because, you know, you go from 1 to 10 to 13. It's horrific.

Montreal's gay community said it's not going to take it anymore. Montreal activists were about to turn to more extreme tactics, including threatening to out-closeted men. There is a war over there. We're dying of AIDS, we're dying of murders, we're dying of violence. So if the only instrument I have is a bazooka, I'm going to use a bazooka.

Out with them all. That's coming up next on The Village. The series is produced by Carrie Haber, Michel Gagnon, and me, Francis Plourd. Original concept by Justin Ling. Check out the previous two seasons of The Village

everywhere you get your podcasts. And if you're interested in hearing what our colleagues at Radio-Canada are doing with this story, you'll find the French-language production of Le Village, Meurtre, Combat, Fierté,

over at audio.ca. Our story editors are Chris Oak and Damon Fairless. Our digital producer is Esquire Robert. Editing, mixing, and sound design by Carrie Haber and Julia Whitman. Special thanks to Dave Donne, Alex Laplante, Benoit Michaud, Vincent Bonnet, Gino Arel, and Marie-Eve Tremblay. Carrie Haber is the series showrunner. Our senior producer is Cecil Fernandez.

The director of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. Thanks for listening. Action! Fight back! Fighting! Action! Fight back! Fighting!