One of the three people charged in connection with the discovery of human remains in Quebec, François Bouchard, was charged with first-degree murder on Friday. The other two people involved in this sordid affair are subsequently charged with aiding and abetting.
Published at 11:24 am.
In a court document published on Friday we can read that the 31-year-old Mr. Bouchard is suspected of causing the death of Santiago Gaona “between September 8 and 16” in the municipality of Contrecœur, east of Montreal. The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) had assumed from the beginning that the murder would have taken place in this place, where the defendant comes from.
Bouchard’s home had been the subject of a lengthy search by the Forensic Identification Service and the Judicial Sciences and Legal Medicine Laboratory.
The body of Santiago Gaona, originally from Colombia and in his mid-twenties, was then taken to the L’Ancienne-Lorette region of Quebec, eventually being left on the land of a tree cutter, ABC de l’Arbre. on Avenue Notre Dame.
PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
Santiago Gaona
Shocked, the company’s management quickly assured that it had no connection to the murder. According to our information, the body was dissected using industrial equipment available on site before being burned. The police also confiscated a pair of industrial garden shears.
Ties to street gangs?
The other two defendants, both from Montreal, Jean-Philippe Lamontagne, 44 years old, and Cassandra Major, 31 years old, are also charged with accessory after the fact for their alleged involvement in the transport of the body.
The three defendants already have an assault charge filed hours after their arrest on September 18 in Kahnawake. They appeared at the Quebec courthouse on Friday morning and are expected to return to court on November 24.
PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
François Bouchard
Unless the Supreme Court requests otherwise, the co-defendants should remain in custody pending further trial. MM. Bouchard and Lamontagne are being held in Quebec, while Cassandra Major is being held at the Leclerc detention center in Laval.
La Presse previously confirmed to police sources that this murder appeared to be linked to organized crime. François Bouchard would actually have been associated with a street gang in the Montreal area. According to Le Journal de Québec, it could be the Flame Head Boys (FHB), a gang from the north shore of Montreal. However, this information has not been confirmed by the Sûreté du Québec.
One thing is certain: Mr. Bouchard has had problems with the law in the past. For example, he has a recent history of assault, drugs, weapons possession and burglary.
As for the victim, Santiago Gaona, several witness statements have been reported since his identity was revealed in recent days. Mr. Gaona, who introduces himself as a musician from Colombia and is 26 years old, came to Quebec with his family a few years ago. According to relatives, he is said to have struggled with consumption problems.
Quebec remains “a safe city”
Although the murder did not take place in Quebec, this affair marked a new episode of violence for the capital where the body was found. In the Limoilou sector, three murders in less than a month had particularly shocked the community in the previous weeks. The capital “is a safe city,” Quebec Mayor Bruno Marchand said. Still, as Mr. Marchand called on Quebec to meet his demands for an increase in police and social workers, he concluded that “we don’t need to look at things going badly to intervene because things are going relatively well.”