In the autumn of 1989, a wave of terror gripped the communities along the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, Canada. An escaped murderer was at large, and the fear that had been simmering for months was about to strike at the very heart of the town of Chatham Head. Father James Smith, a 69-year-old male Roman Catholic priest, was a beloved and steadying presence in a community paralyzed by anxiety.
He offered comfort and prayer to his parishioners, reminding them that the darkness would not last forever. Tragically, the darkness would visit him directly.
On the evening of November 15, 1989, Father Smith was brutally attacked in the rectory of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. The following day, when he failed to appear for the 7:00 p.m. service, concerned parishioners went to the rectory to check on him. There, they made a horrifying discovery. The priest had been savagely beaten to death. The evidence inside the home told a story of a prolonged and violent struggle; blood was found in many rooms, indicating Father Smith had been kicked and pounded for hours before he died. The main assault appeared to have taken place in the kitchen and office.
The man responsible for this heinous act was Allan Joseph Legere, a serial killer who would come to be known as the "Monster of the Miramichi." Legere was already a convicted murderer, serving a life sentence for the 1986 beating death of shopkeeper John Glendenning. On May 3, 1989, while on a hospital visit in Moncton for an ear infection, Legere escaped custody by picking the locks on his handcuffs and leg shackles in a bathroom. For the next seven months, he waged a campaign of terror across the region, leaving a trail of murder, sexual assault, and arson.
Before killing Father Smith, Legere had murdered three other people during his time on the run. On May 28, he sexually assaulted and killed 75-year-old shopkeeper Annie Flam and brutally assaulted her sister-in-law before setting their home on fire. Then, on October 13, sisters Donna Daughney, 45, and Linda Daughney, 40, were sexually assaulted and beaten to death in their Newcastle home, which was also set ablaze. The murder of Father Smith was the final act in his bloody rampage. The investigation into the priest's death quickly pointed to Legere, who had stolen the priest's car after the murder.
The massive manhunt for Legere, one of the largest in Canadian history, finally came to an end on November 24, 1989. After a failed carjacking and taking hostages, he was cornered and recaptured by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His subsequent trial in 1991 was a landmark case in Canadian legal history, as it was one of the first to use DNA profiling to secure a conviction. DNA evidence recovered from a discarded tissue Legere used after his arrest, as well as semen samples from the other crime scenes, definitively linked him to the murders.
In November 1991, Allan Legere was found guilty of the four murders he committed while on the run, including the first-degree murder of Father James Smith. He was also convicted of arson, rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years, to be served concurrently with his previous life sentence. Legere was denied parole on multiple occasions, with the parole board consistently deeming him a high risk to the public.
The brutal killing of Father Smith and Legere's other victims left an indelible scar on the Miramichi community, where residents had lived in fear for 201 days, sleeping with guns and cancelling Halloween for their children. The murder of the priest, a man who had provided so much solace during that terrifying time, was a particularly devastating blow. Allan Legere died in custody at the Edmonton Institution on March 9, 2026, at the age of 78, ending the final chapter on the Monster of the Miramichi.
