Murderer Ugo Fredette failed Thursday to get a final appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The assassin of Véronique Barbe, his spouse, and of the good Samaritan Yvon Lacasse will have to spend at least 25 years behind bars before being eligible for parole.
Posted at 9:59
Updated at 10:34 a.m.
The highest court in the country refused Thursday morning to hear the appeal of Ugo Fredette, thereby confirming his guilty verdict and his life prison sentence. Only a few cases are heard each year by the Supreme Court.
It is therefore the end of the proceedings in this case, since the public prosecutor withdrew its appeal last week in the wake of the Bissonnette judgment of the Supreme Court, which put an end to the accumulation of sentences for murder in first degree. In the Fredette case, the Crown asked to set the period of ineligibility for parole at 50 years.
“After five years of long legal proceedings, everything is over. I am especially very happy for the Barbe and Lacasse families, who have always supported us through these years and with whom I have just spoken. Finally, they will be able to turn the page a little and continue to move forward in life without forgetting, ”reacted the Crown prosecutor, Ms.e Steve Baribeau, who piloted the trial. His colleague, Mr.e Alexis Marcotte-Bélanger, took charge of the appeal file.
The only criticism raised by the defense in the context of the appeal related to the unanimity required for each of the verdicts. For example, in the case of the murder of Yvon Lacasse, the jury had to unanimously conclude that the crime was premeditated or that the child had been forcibly confined, or both, to return a verdict of first degree murder.
Ugo Fredette murdered Véronique Barbe in a context of domestic violence and separation, on September 14, 2017. The murderer stabbed his spouse 17 times, with two separate knives, while two children were in their residence in Saint-Eustache . He even locked the doors before fleeing with a six-year-old child.
An hour later, Ugo Fredette beat Yvon Lacasse, a 71-year-old Good Samaritan, to death at a rest stop in Lachute to steal his vehicle. The murderer was eventually arrested the next day in Ontario, while he was wanted in the province’s longest AMBER alert at the time. A jury found him guilty in October 2019 at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse.