Halloween attack in Quebec: a disturbing video presented to the jury

A disturbing fifteen-minute video showing the whereabouts of Carl Girouard in his vehicle and then on foot during his murderous journey was shown to the members of the jury.

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It was the patrolman of the Quebec City Police Service Vincent Giguère who had the task, the day after the tragedy, to collect all the available images of the accused, when he arrived in Quebec. We see the Saturn brand vehicle for the first time around 9:18 p.m. when it is on Grande Allée and turns towards the National Museum of Fine Arts, to take the roundabout and return to Grande Allée, eastbound.

The car then passed under the Porte Saint-Louis and headed behind the Château Frontenac, near the American consulate, where it stopped for a few moments. The vehicle then resumed the road and returned to the Montcalm district, before returning to Grande Allée, eastbound, at 10:04 p.m., and going down Saint-Louis Street to park in front of the Château Frontenac.

Killer Journey

It is at this moment that Carl Girouard gets out of his vehicle, his katana in hand, enters the entrance arch of the Château Frontenac, passes in front of the reception and returns in front of the Place d’Armes. , where is Rémy Bélanger, who was injured by Girouard. The very graphic attack was filmed by a Château Frontenac surveillance camera.

The court has issued a publication ban on the sequence where the first victim, François Duchesne, is fatally attacked. The image comes from the same camera, that of the Château Frontenac, but the event takes place near rue du Trésor.

Sometimes at a run, sometimes walking, Girouard then crosses part of the Séminaire de Québec and sits for about fifteen seconds near rue de la Vieille-Université, before resuming his journey, rue des Remparts. It was there that he killed his second victim, Suzanne Clermont, 61.

The attack is not filmed, but we see the assailant take a few running steps, the saber in front of him, before leaving the screen. This second sequence is also subject to a ban and cannot be shown publicly. In the afternoon, the analysis of this video will continue.

This morning, the social worker who followed the accused for nine months in 2015 spoke about his vision of the “ideal world”.

Cross-examined by Girouard’s lawyer, social worker Charles-André Bourduas said he had a total of nine meetings with the accused, including one at his residence. A few weeks earlier, it was to this social worker that Girouard had confided “to have a plan to kill people with a sword at random”.

At his home, the CLSC employee discussed with the accused the sword that was in his room as well as a painting representing a storm. However, the accused told his interlocutor that it was not this sword that he would use to commit his stunt, but another that he would buy on the internet.

During the discussion, it is also a question of the suffering of the accused. The latter then replies, “Suffering is temporary, but honor is forever.”

“Didn’t he have a fascination for a distant time?” asked the witness M^and Pierre Gagnon. The social worker then spoke of a vision of the defendant’s “ideal world”, where there would be:

• a smaller population;
• no firearms;
• less pollution;
• of love and sharing.

The social worker did not have the opportunity to issue a diagnosis on the situation, but he noticed that his remarks “had a certain delusional aspect”. He also writes in his report that he “seems to have obsessive fixations.”

A discussion also took place with a psychiatrist and a doctor to redirect to a mental health counter the one who, on October 31, 2020, is the author of two homicides and five attempted murders.