Notorious killer whose crimes shocked Quebec bails out of parole hearing
This report includes details that some readers might find disturbing.
A man who took part in a murder that shocked the province of Quebec nearly three decades ago put an abrupt halt to his parole hearing on Tuesday when it became apparent he was nowhere close to obtaining a release.
Marcel Blanchette, 78, is serving a life sentence for the sexual assault and murder of 22-year-old Sherbrooke resident Isabelle Bolduc in 1996. He was asking for day parole or to at least have access to unescorted leaves when he and his lawyer, Sylvie Bordelais, suddenly asked for a break in the lengthy hearing before the Parole Board of Canada.
When the hearing resumed, Bordelais asked that it be suspended and resume in July, which was granted.
“It is so he can present a release plan that is more structured,” Bordelais said.
“I think that (after what the parole board heard) this morning, you can’t grant me anything,” Blanchette conceded. “The plan, I have it in my head.
“I want simple things, to breathe pure air and listen to the birds.”
Blanchette’s parole officer told the board she was unable to give a favourable recommendation toward a release. She noted that Blanchette was rejected by a couple of halfway houses where he hoped to reside while on day parole.
“This isn’t just for today. It is important that you have trust between you and your case-management team, for the coming future. It isn’t just a case-management team between the walls (of a federal penitentiary). It is a case-management team outside the walls. You have a life sentence, Mr. Blanchette. There is no end to that,” board member Sandra Brouillette said. “Collaboration with Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board of Canada goes on until your last breath.”
Near the end of June 1996, Bolduc was kidnapped off a street in Sherbrooke and brought to an apartment where Blanchette and Jean-Paul Bainbridge, the man who grabbed her, sexually assaulted her repeatedly while another convicted criminal, Guy Labonté, looked on. After what a judge later described as “18 hours of verbal, physical and psychological terrorism,” she was forced into a car. Bainbridge drove while Blanchette wrapped his arm around Bolduc’s neck and strangled her. Both men struck her head with a metal pipe before Bainbridge dragged her body into a wooded area, where it was discovered a week later.
Days later, Blanchette kidnapped another woman named Manon St-Louis in Sherbrooke and sexually assaulted her three times before he was arrested in Montreal. He was armed with a gun and fired a shot into a tree to threaten St-Louis.
Blanchette’s violent crime spree, coupled with the fact that he and Bainbridge were out on parole at the time, shocked the province.
On Tuesday, Blanchette presented a different version of what happened to Bolduc than what was entered into court records.
“It is difficult to say, but among the three, I was the only one who did not penetrate her,” Blanchette said, clarifying later he did sexually assault Bolduc.
“The night it happened, it was not expected. I did not kidnap anyone. It was the other accomplice (Bainbridge). When he left (an apartment in Sherbrooke), I said: ‘If you are able to bring back a woman or two … but it was like a challenge.
“I didn’t say it seriously, but it was to motivate (Bainbridge).”
When asked by one of the two board members who presided over the hearing why they didn’t let Bolduc go, Blanchette was vague and said: “Some of us wanted to let her go.
“The only reason why we killed her was so she could not denounce us,” he said. “The primary thing was that she could not talk.”
St-Louis and Josée Bolduc, Isabelle’s aunt, delivered victim-impact statements through a video conference during the hearing.
“Why do I have to invest time and energy and lose days off from work without pay simply to ensure my safety to meet with (the parole board),” St-Louis asked. “I am asking that this person not be able to find himself with a perimeter of a thousand kilometres from me.”
Josée Bolduc said she was taking over for her older brother, Marcel, the victim’s father who has spoken on Isabelle Bolduc’s behalf from the day her body was found. The aunt said she was also speaking on behalf of her other siblings and many nieces and nephews so that Blanchette “never leaves a prison.”
“When he was released (on parole) in 1996, without having served his complete sentence, he did not respect his release conditions and he reoffended for the seventh time, this time to commit his barbaric crimes on Isabelle,” Bolduc said. “Two days after Isabelle’s body was found, he restarted again and reoffended for the eighth time.
“All that Marcel Blanchette knows how to do is commit unscrupulous crimes and to lie and manipulate the (justice) system.”
Bainbridge is also serving a life sentence. He was denied parole last year.
In 1997, Labonté pleaded guilty to forcible confinement and received a seven-year prison term.