In the brutal underworld of 1980s Montreal, a deadly act of vengeance silenced four men, one of whom was Robert Lelièvre. His life ended abruptly on November 24, 1984, in a catastrophic explosion that tore through a downtown apartment. Lelièvre, a man identified by police as a French-Canadian gangster, was not an innocent victim caught in the crossfire; he was a player in a dangerous game that ultimately consumed him.
His death was a direct consequence of his own violent actions just twelve days earlier.
The chain of events leading to the bombing began on November 13, 1984, with the murder of Frank "Dunie" Ryan, the powerful and wealthy leader of Montreal's West End Gang. Ryan was lured into a room at his base of operations, the Nittolo's Garden Motel, by a trusted associate, Paul April. Inside, April and Robert Lelièvre were waiting. Their plan was reportedly to extort money from Ryan before killing him. When the 42-year-old gang leader resisted, a struggle ensued. Lelièvre fired a shotgun, and as Ryan lay dying, he was shot again. The killers fled, leaving behind a major power vacuum and an underworld baying for blood.
Retaliation was swift and absolute. The new leader of the West End Gang, Allan "The Weasel" Ross, reportedly put out a $200,000 contract on the men responsible for Ryan's death. The contract was accepted by one of the most feared men in Canadian criminal history: Yves "Apache" Trudeau, the Hells Angels' most prolific and notorious hitman. Known as "The Mad Bomber," Trudeau was a specialist in explosives, a skill he had honed while working at an explosives factory in his youth. Between 1973 and 1985, he was responsible for at least 43 proven killings, using methods that ranged from shootings and beatings to strangulation and, his specialty, bombings.
On that late November night, Trudeau put his expertise to use. A television set packed with 16 kilos of C-4 plastic explosives was delivered to the ninth-floor apartment on de Maisonneuve Boulevard where April and Lelièvre were hiding out with two other men, Louis-Charles Paquette and Gilles Paquette. Trudeau's associate, Michel Blass, made the delivery. Once Blass was clear, Trudeau detonated the bomb remotely. The resulting blast was devastating, killing all four men inside and injuring eight other people in the building. Initially, police were uncertain of the cause, but the truth would emerge from the mouth of the killer himself.
The break in the case came less than a year later, following an internal Hells Angels purge known as the Lennoxville Massacre in March 1985. Trudeau, who was a target but survived because he was in a detox center, knew his days were numbered. Fearing for his life, he made a deal with police. In exchange for becoming a Crown witness, Trudeau confessed to 43 murders, including the bombing that killed Robert Lelièvre. His testimony provided an unprecedented look into the violent biker wars and organized crime that plagued Quebec.
The legal outcome for Yves Trudeau was met with public outrage. For his role in 43 deaths, he pleaded guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter and received a life sentence, but with parole eligibility after just seven years. The controversial deal was seen by many as a betrayal of justice for his numerous victims. True to the agreement, Trudeau was released on parole in 1994 and given a new identity.
His freedom was short-lived. In 2004, he was arrested again, this time for the sexual assault of a young boy, which earned him an additional four-year prison sentence. By this time, he was a pariah in both the criminal and civilian worlds. Diagnosed with bone-marrow cancer, Yves Trudeau was granted parole in 2007 and transferred to a medical facility, where he died in July 2008. For Robert Lelièvre, justice came not in a courtroom, but in the form of a television set that delivered the same brutal violence he himself had inflicted.
