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| Donald Lavoie |
| Donald Lavoie, along with his brother Carl, was born in Chicoutimi and spent much of his childhood in orphanages and foster homes. As a young adult, Lavoie became involved in crime and served two years in prison for burglary. By 1970 Lavoie had settled in Montreal and hooked up with Claude Dubeau, Claude Dubois' right-hand man. He would become one of the gang's top enforcers and assassins. Lavoie walked into the Jan-Lou cafe in June 1971 and shot to death Louis Fournier, the owner, and Robert Beaupré, the manager, because they had refused to pay "protection" to the Dubois Gang. But witnesses at the scene identified Lavoie and, after his picture |
| appeared in a newspaper, he fled to New York City. With money provided by the organization, he remained in the "Big Apple" for nearly a years until he was deported for pulling a loaded gun on a cop. Lavoie was escorted back to Montreal to stand trial but, after contradicting testimony from witnesses, was acquitted of murder in October, 1972. Lavoie was a natural born killer and, by the late 1970s, had become one of the Claude Dubois' top henchmen. He had participated in 27 murders and his name struck fear into the hearts of even the toughest of hoodlums in the Montreal underworld. On November 22, 1980, Lavoie attended the wedding reception of Michel Dubeau, a respected Dubois Clan soldier, at the Quality Inn hotel on Sherbrooke street. During the evening, he left the hall to get some fresh air. As he strolled through the hotel, Lavoie overheared Claude Dubois and Alain Charron, another Dubois Gang henchman, planning his execution. Hoods blocked every exit so escape was impossible. Almost. Lavoie managed to slide down a laundry chute to the basement and, as he hid in the hotel's parking lot, he witnessed Charron and another gang member, firearms in hand, searching the area for him. The next day, an infuriated Lavoie telephoned Alain Charron and told him to tell Claude Dubois that he wasn't going to die without a fight and to prepare for war. Lavoie joined forces with Jean Tremblay, who was also being hunted by the Dubois Gang, and the two began to plan the murder of Claude Dubois. But to fund their war, Lavoie and Tremblay needed money and fast. Along with Marc--André Blanchette and Tremblay's brother Paul, they devised a plan to rob Thomas Prucha, a prosperous bank manager. The group forced their way into his apartment on December 7, 1980 and snatch Prucha, his wife, and his mother-in-law. Lavoie held the two females hostage while the Tremblay brothers and Blanchette accompanied Prucha to his bank where he handed over $135,000. His wife and mother-in-law were released unharmed a few hours later. On December 23, 1980, police tore into Lavoie's chalet in Saint-Alphonse-de-Rodriguez, near Joliette, and arrested Donald Lavoie and Jean Tremblay and charged the two with kidnapping and extortion. The former Dubois Gang member spent Christmas day alone in his cell and reflected on the few choices left before him. He decided to rat. His first victim as a government witness was his former partner Jean Tremblay. Because of Lavoie's testimony, Tremblay was sentenced to twenty years on January 7, 1982. Lavoie's next target: his former boss Claude Dubois. Dubois and his cief lieutenants Claude Dubeau and Yvon Belzil were charged with first-degree murder on April 8, 1982. Lavoie was the prosecution's star witness and testified that, on Dubois' orders, he and Claude Dubeau had murdered Richard Désormiers and Jacques-André Bourassa on July 25, 1973 while Belzil stole Désormiers' automobile. The defense team - Léo-René Maranda, Léo Duval, and Robert Lahaie - attempted to trip up Lavoie but the witness kept his calm. Dubois, Dubeau, and Belzil saw their freedom slowly slip away from them during the ten week trial and received life sentences on December 8, 1982 (their sentences would eventually be reduced to ten years). Lavoie went on to testify against many of his former associates, including influential Dubois brothers Adrien, Jean-Guy, and Jean-Paul. His testimony brought the powerful organiztion to its knees, which has never recovered from the blows. Aside from the 27 murders he participated in, Lavoie also supplied information on eighty other unsolved homicides. He was sentenced to eight years in jail, which he served on the fourth floor of the Parthenais penitentiary in Montreal side-by-side with other famous Quebec informants Yves "Apache" Trudeau and Réal Simard. Lavoie is now living under an assumed name somewhere in Canada. |