WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2004

R.I.P. Julie Boisvenu

Julie Boisvenu was murdered two years ago today. I'm going to tell Julie's story again, because I believe there are lessons here that should never be forgotten.

In the early morning hours of June 23rd 2002 Julie was out celebrating with friends in downtown Sherbrooke, Quebec. The previous day she had received a promotion from her employer. At about 4:00 am Julie left the bar and was never seen alive again. Police found her Kia 4x4 a few blocks away. It had apparently knocked over a fire hydrant and been abandoned.

One week later Julie's decomposing body was found in a ditch near Bromptonville, just north of Sherbrooke. She was lying face down, partially nude in a drainage ditch. She had been raped, beaten and strangled to death.

Police spent the better part of the summer tracking down Julie's killer. The scope and dedication of the investigation was vast - in part due to the press my sister's case was receiving at the same time across Canada. Police didn't want to be embarrassed again.

In September 2002 Police arrested Hugo Bernier for the murder of Julie Boisvenu. What are known of Bernier's actions on the night of June 23 are enough to make you wonder why we have law enforcement in the first place, if they are so willing to give offenders the tools to practice their trade.

Prior to murdering Boisvenu, Bernier had been stopped twice that night in Sherbrooke by two different police squads. At 2:00 am, the 27-year-old Bernier was detained in downtown Sherbrooke for loitering. When officers approached him, Bernier ran. Police eventually caught him and Bernier produced a false ID. Then they let him go.

One hour later at 3:00 am Bernier was again stopped by a different squad, this time for loitering in a parking garage. Again they let him go.

Within an hour, Bernier would rape, beat senseless, and strangle the life out of Julie Boisvenu.

Bernier was no stranger to law enforcement; in fact, when he took Julie's life he should have been sequestered in a parole house. On August 18th 2000 Bernier was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison for confining and sexually aggressing a young woman for over 4 hours. Benier should have served out that sentence, along with three years of parole.

When Boisvenu's body was found another prominent victim from the Townships threatened to take up the cause of the National Parole Board releasing dangerous offenders prematurely, should Boisvenu's case prove to involve parole issues. It did, and since then, Marcel Bolduc - the father of Isabelle Bolduc, a 22-year-old music student who was kidnapped, raped and fatally beaten with an iron pipe in 1996 by two parolees - has done just that. Currently myself, Marcel Bolduc, Julie's father, Pierre Boisvenu, and other prominent Canadian victims have been working together to form a National organization dedicated to victims rights. When the political dust settles after June 28th, I will be able to speak more on that. Until then, pray for a minority government so we can get some work done for victims in Canada.

-------------------------------------------------------

Follow-up

Hugo Bernier is set to go to trail this September. The case will not be heard in Sherbrooke, but 100 miles away in Montreal. In the aftermath of the Bernier's arrest, police blundered again. In their enthusiasm over the investigation, police held a press conference in which they accidentally released information about the investigation that the judge thought could be construed as prejudicial to a jury pool. He then ruled to move proceedings to Montreal, the home turf of Bernier's legal team. Now the victims - the Boisvenus - must commute everyday to Montreal if they hope to be part of the proceedings. Pierre Boisvenu has appealed to IVAC for victim compensation to provide financial assistance to attend the trial, but IVAC turned him down. So far Mr. Boisvenu has been reimbursed exactly $600 to cover the cost of funeral expenses.

It goes without saying that I am a great admirer of Pierre Boisvenu. Always poised and charming, never self-pitying, he is a great public face and voice for victim advocacy.

Bob Beullac

I only learned recently that Robert Beullac died a year ago today of acute myelogenous leukemia. Bob was a private investigator hired by my father after my sister went missing, when my parents stopped getting sufficient answers about Theresa's disappearance from police and school officials. Bob was a giant of a man; he stood 6'5" and carried this huge gun harnessed under his armpit. He was trained as a lawyer and was often used by defense attorneys on cases involving ordinary citizens who had fallen to the wayside of the law - is it any wonder that Bob and the Surete du Quebec never got along.

After twenty-five years, my parents are still left with an understandable bitterness about the events and people that surrounded the disappearance and death of their daughter. But they always had a kind word for Bob. For years they would exchange Christmas cards. Bob would send newspaper clippings about crime in the Eastern Townships to my father. In turn my father would send back some article of interest that he had found, the words, "for your file" written in the upper corner. In time, this correspondence slowly faded.

In 2001, when I began my own investigation, Bob Beullac was one of the first people I called. It had been close to twenty-five years. Where the Quebec authorities struggled for weeks trying to locate my sister's police file, Bob found his file instantly. It was on the upper right corner of his desk. He told me he had never removed it from that place. 

Bob was generous with his time. He would go over the old case in phone conversations and emails. We discussed the old theories, and new ones. Soon, the exchanges began, just like with my father. We would send articles back and forth to each other: "FYI", or "Did you see this about Julie Boisvenu?". One day Bob wrote to tell me he was very sick and probably would not be able to write anymore; would I like all his old papers? Soon after a brown package arrived in the mail. In it, Bob's personal file on my sister's case, and a couple of crime almanacs from the '70s published by Allo Police. I never heard from him again.

Bob once told me that my sister, Theresa was killed three times. There was her physical death, then there was her second death when authorities disgraced her memory by providing such a poor investigation, and then her third death; when in 2002, the Surete du Quebec refused to acknowledge their past mistakes (an apology did eventually come - but much later). 

I will miss Bob Beullac. His presence was electric, his enthusiasm inspiring. He never condescended to me and my efforts, and with 40 years of investigative experience he had every right to. He was a good man.