Practically Perfect (30 page)

I am not guilty of the crime which I have been convicted of, nor do I know anything about it, and I thank Mr. Bull, my lawyer, for what he has done for me, as I did not have one dollar to pay him for fighting my case. If I had another trial I could have proved where I got the money, but I did not know I would have to account for it; and, not being able to see my lawyer until the last few days, I was unable to give him the information I wanted, consequently he had nothing to work on for a new trial, nor had he any money to work with. I had several witnesses, but did not have money to get them here, and I did not know where they were before the trial, finding out afterwards, but too late. I hope that people will soon learn that I died an innocent man. I forgive my enemies, and die with a clear conscience, so help me God.
[16]

During his last hours Ryan did not appear troubled by what was to come. He slept soundly until thirty minutes before he was to be hanged. Then things passed in a blur. After his spiritual adviser woke the sleeping killer the two talked for a little more than ten minutes, and then the hangman arrived. He quickly pinioned Ryan’s arms behind his back, and with the local sheriff leading the way, the small group milling about the death cell departed for the scaffold. Behind the sheriff came a turnkey, followed by the condemned man, his executioner, and reciting prayers as he walked, Ryan’s spiritual adviser.

As soon as Maurice caught sight of the scaffold he began to cry, and for a time appeared to be on the verge of collapse. With every step up the stairs to the platform of the gallows his panic grew. By the time he was guided to the trap door, he was almost shouting, “I am innocent!” The hangman quickly pulled the death hood over the killer’s head, but as he started to bend to pinion his legs, realized that Ryan was about to collapse. The executioner immediately stood, and as he did he pulled the lever. One moment Ryan was there, and in the next he was gone.
The drop did not break his neck, but it instantly rendered him unconscious. It took Ryan almost twelve minutes to strangle to death, his body hanging motionless as his oxygen-starved brain slowly stopped functioning.
[17]

Marcel Bernier: The Bodies Came Back

Quebecker Denise Therrien was a sixteen-year-old honour student at South Shawinigan High when she went missing in August 1961. Like her mother, she was pretty, petite, and a hard worker. In fact, with only two weeks of her summer holidays left, she was determined to earn a few more dollars so that she could add to her back-to-school wardrobe. With that in mind she registered with the Provincial Employment Bureau in Shawinigan for work as either a housekeeper or babysitter.

On August 7, she had a stroke of luck. Micheline, her sister, was a receptionist at the Bureau, and when a man phoned inquiring about a babysitter, Micheline immediately thought of Denise. She told the man she had someone in mind for the job, and she would call him back to get more details later. No, that wouldn’t do, he said. He would call back. With that he hung up, and Micheline called her sister to see if she wanted the $25 a week job. A couple of hours later the man phoned, identifying himself as Claude Marchand. Micheline told him someone would be able to start the following day, and took down instructions for where the babysitter would be picked up.

When Micheline got home after work she again talked to Denise about the job, and sensed that her sister was a little hesitant about taking it. In the end the sixteen-year-old shook off her sense of foreboding and admitted she needed the money. The next morning Denise put on a green dress, matching shoes, black socks, and a black sweater. From her summer savings she took $3 to pay for her bus fare to the spot where she would be picked up. On the way she asked the driver to drop her off near the Caribou Motel, about two miles distant. When the bus arrived at her stop no one was waiting. Denise stayed in her seat for almost another mile, and then decided to get off and find a phone to call home. But no sooner had the bus pulled to a stop than a truck pulled up. After a brief conversation with the man behind the wheel, Denise got into the vehicle.

No one in the Therrien residence slept that night. When Denise did not return from her appointment by 7:00 p.m. relatives and family friends began searching for her. Their first stop was the address given to the employment agency by the man who called himself Claude Marchand. It turned out to be an empty chalet, already shuttered for the winter. Early the next morning the telephone rang. As luck would have it, the phone was answered by Micheline, who realized at once to whom she was speaking. “I recognized the voice. He was the same person who called on Monday. He said Denise would be returned safely on Thursday if we didn’t call the police.”
[18]
Then he hung up. Before he did, she got the distinct impression that there was someone in the background whispering to the caller.

Despite instructions not to do so, Henry Therrien, the father of Micheline and Denise, called the police. It was their belief that Denise had been kidnapped, a suspicion that grew stronger when seven more calls were received over the next day and a half. Thursday evening the calls stopped. Even at this stage in the investigation, however, a number of police officers involved in following up leads thought there was more to the disappearance of Denise than a kidnapping. What concerned them was that at least twice over the summer other women responded to similar requests for a babysitter, and one of the women was sexually assaulted. Another assault likely was avoided when a woman showed up at the Caribou Motel with a friend.

A couple of days after their daughter went missing the Therriens were sitting on their porch. The couple was frantic with worry and exhausted by the constant searching. This afternoon was warm and sunny and the two decided to sit for awhile. Suddenly a truck drove up. Beside the male driver sat two women. The man walked over to the Therriens and introduced himself. He said his companions were his wife and his mother-in-law. The Therriens were a little taken aback, since they had never seen the three before. When the driver began speaking to the distraught parents, he used vulgarities not normally tolerated in the deeply conservative home. Looking directly at them, the man said “It takes a real s.o.b. to do a thing like that.”
[19]
What startled the Therriens more than the language was the implication behind his words. Their daughter was missing for less than a week, and there was no official indication that anything bad might have happened to her. Mrs. Therrien recalled being upset by the comment of their visitor. “We had had no news whatsoever from her or about her since she disappeared.”
[20]

Denise was gone barely a week when the police began receiving sightings of young women believed to be the missing girl. One of the first came from North Bay, where a girl registered at an area motel using the name Denise Therrien, giving Shawinigan as her home address. The same day Quebec Provincial Police received a report that someone who looked just like Denise was standing in front of a Hull theatre. A third call came from a trucker, who said one of the female hitchhikers he picked up near Shawinigan looked a lot like the missing youth. The most promising of the false leads involved a nineteen-year-old male said to have been the missing girl’s lover. When investigators received the report they sensed they may finally be making progress. The man was located in Toronto, and brought to Montreal under police escort. It turned out that although he did know Denise, the two had never met — they were pen pals. While these reports were troubling, the Therriens were more concerned by comments they were reading in local newspapers, to the effect that police were now convinced that Denise was dead.

With nothing to show after weeks of searching, the mayor of Shawinigan called a public meeting to discuss what should be done. The consensus was that Denise was either dead, or had been kidnapped. Those attending the meeting agreed that if she was taken, they should do something while there was still time. The mayor agreed, and called on the missing girl’s abductors to name their price. The first ransom note arrived at the Therrien residence on August 19. The five page letter was written in French and printed on sheets torn from a small, 1961 calendar. Although not dated, the note was postmarked “Shawinigan — August 18,” and addressed to Henry Therrien. It instructed Denise’s father to wrap up $5,000 in $10 bills, and suspend the package from a railing at the north end of a bridge on Montreal Island. “As soon as we got the money, five hours later we will bring her down to your home unharmed.”
[21]
The note also contained a warning not to seek the help of either the police or civilians, and on a separate sheet, printed in large letters, the words “$5,000 in exchange for Denise. She is well.” The letter was signed “Claude Marchand.” Henry Therrien followed the instructions to the letter, but five hours after hanging the package from the Charlemagne Bridge his daughter was still missing. When he returned to Montreal the following morning, the money was where he left it.
[22]

A second ransom note was received six days later, again by mail. This one demanded $8,000, and instructed Mr. Therrien to place the money under a rock behind a local bus station by no later than midnight the day the note was received. Once again Therrien did what he was told to do, and once again the money went unclaimed. Although both notes were hand printed, investigators concluded they were produced by different people. But written ransom requests were not the only demands received by the Therriens. Every day for almost a week they answered a telephone demand for money. The first two callers wanted $5,000, while subsequent ransomers asked for a different amount. Police suspected that more than one of the calls were likely from the same person, and an investigator was stationed in the Therrien home in case further calls came in. When the telephone finally rang, the waiting officer instructed Therrien to keep his caller on the line, and headed into Shawinigan, where he located a man standing in a phone booth. The officer casually walked over, and when he heard reference to a $5,000 ransom, he placed the caller under arrest. Well before Denise was found the would-be fraudster completed his three-year jail sentence for trying to extort money from her parents.

By the end of August the entire Therrien family was worn out and desperate for news. Henry’s brother placed a newspaper ad offering $10,000 for a picture, or even a negative, showing Denise either dead or alive. Interviewed by reporters about the ad, Henry made no apologies. “The negative must show my daughter so that she can be recognized. It may be a picture of her dead or alive. Either is acceptable.”
[23]
Therrien told reporters that out of desperation he and his brother also visited a mystic living near Shawinigan, and hired a team of private detectives from Montreal, to assist the Quebec Provincial Police in their investigation.

When Denise Therrien went missing Marcel Bernier was a grave digger employed by the St. Michel Cemetery. Because the cemetery and Bernier’s small house were just across the highway from the spot where Denise was picked up by the mysterious Claude Marchand, he initially came under suspicion. Although police questioned him at length about the disappearance of the young woman, Bernier denied knowing anything, and even agreed to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence. With nothing to hold him, he was released. A more thorough investigation may have turned up something that would have helped investigators solve not one, but two murders.

The exact nature of Bernier’s relationship with Laurette Beaudoin was never made clear, but at the very least the two were drinking friends, and likely more intimate than that. About a week before Beaudoin went missing in April 1962, the pair were socializing. Bernier reached into his pocket for some money, and when he took his hand out a woman’s wallet fell onto the ground. Beaudoin did not make much of it at the time, even after Bernier told her that the wallet once belonged to Denise Therrien. But the more she thought about it, and drank, the more determined she was to profit from what she had learned. She began telling just about anyone who would listen that what she knew about the missing Shawinigan girl could convict someone of murder. Bernier heard about her claims, and eight months after Therrien disappeared, he met Beaudoin for drinks at a local hotel. The two then drove to Bernier’s house in the St. Michel Cemetery. There Beaudoin demanded that Bernier pay her $150, or she would go to the authorities with what she knew about Therrien. Bernier agreed to pay, but asked for time to raise the money. Beaudoin refused, and as the ensuing conversation grew heated, she threw a jug at him and tried to hit him with a shoe. Bernier went to the garage, found a piece of pipe, and returned to the house. Minutes later Beaudoin lay dead, her skull fractured in multiple places.

Bernier later claimed that the murder was not planned, that it was a spur of the moment thing. But there was more to his story than he initially let on. After killing Beaudoin he put her body in his truck and drove to a grave he dug the previous day. When he was asked whether he opened the grave for a funeral, Bernier’s one word response sealed his fate: “No.”
[24]
Not satisfied to merely bury the body of his victim, the killer soaked it in gasoline and then set it on fire.

For the next two and a half years the investigation into the deaths of Denise Therrien and Laurette Beaudoin went nowhere. Bernier left his job after assaulting the priest responsible for administering the affairs of the St. Michel Cemetery, and he moved to Montreal to work for a construction company. Shortly after Claude Wagner became Quebec’s new attorney-general he held a press conference to announce his priorities. He was going to overhaul the administration of justice in the province; he was going to kick off his war on criminals by taking down the leaders of organized crime; and, he said, he would be reopening the Therrien case. He told reporters that in the past few days his office received new and very precise information about what happened to the missing youth.