Fatal fire in Old Montreal | Betrayed by cameras

Denis Bégin, nicknamed the “Halloween killer”, admitted that he was present last March when a devastating fire broke out in a building on Place D’Youville. However, he claims that the fire which killed seven people was started by another individual, whose photo he took. He embarked on a sordid bargain by offering to give the image to the police in exchange for various advantages.

This is what emerges from detailed reports written by the Correctional Service of Canada, obtained first by The Press. The documents reveal for the first time that images filmed at the start of the fire allowed detectives from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) to get their hands on Bégin, who remains their number one suspect, even if he has not been charged with this crime.

They also reveal how Bégin, a career criminal with a serious criminal record, managed to live quietly in Montreal for years and create a building maintenance business under a false identity after escaping from the minimum security penitentiary where he was serving a life sentence for murder.

It was also during maintenance work that he found himself at the heritage building in Old Montreal where an arson started on March 16, 2023, leaving seven dead and nine injured. He was still on the run after his prison escape at this time.

Twice classified as a psychopath

The Correctional Service reports were filed with the Superior Court as part of a dispute between Denis Bégin and the prison authorities. When The Press revealed that he was the number one suspect in the investigation into the arson in Old Montreal, last October, Mr. Bégin was transferred against his will to a maximum security penitentiary. He is asking a judge to cancel this transfer, which he says is unjustified.

Prison documents refer to him by his nickname “the Halloween Killer.” A nickname which was given to him because he had killed a young man with a gun on October 31, 1993, in front of a crowd of revelers gathered in a bar, while he wore a goalkeeper mask like the character of Jason, in the film Friday 13. It was this murder that earned him a life sentence.

Denis Bégin, who has spent more time in prison since 1979, has been designated twice as a “psychopath” within the prison system. The diagnosis was later changed to “antisocial personality disorder.”

His manipulative side was highlighted several times during his in-custody evaluations. Yet even though he had already attempted to escape once and was suspected of planning other escape attempts, he managed to obtain a transfer to a minimum security facility in the winter 2019. A few days later, he took over the fields thanks to an accomplice who came to pick him up by car.

He later admitted that his escape had been planned for a long time. “He therefore once again succeeded in fooling the participants,” specifies one of the reports filed in court.

Bégin told authorities that he quickly obtained false identity documents to start a new life after his escape, because he was “no longer capable of prison.” He admitted to living under various assumed names during his years on the run and to having developed a romantic relationship with a woman from whom he had hidden his true identity. “The gentleman claims that he led an orderly life with his partner,” the report states.

Came to get tools

Under his false identity, Denis Bégin founded a building maintenance company established in the southwest of Montreal. He participated in renovation work in the Old Montreal area, and according to what he told the authorities, he returned to get tools from a construction site in the William-Watson-Ogilvie heritage building on March 16. .

Correctional Service reports explain that SPVM major crimes investigators obtained video images of a vehicle stopping in front of the building that day. The video shows a vehicle of the same make and color as the one Bégin owned under his false identity, during his escape.

“We see the subject exiting said vehicle to enter the building. The latter came out approximately 5 minutes later followed by the fire (visible a few seconds later), then left with his vehicle,” relates the report.

After the fire, the police began meeting with the various owners of this type of vehicle in the region. When they arrived at Denis Bégin, his version left them perplexed: he gave the name of a homeless man well known to the police, to whom he hardly resembled.

The Press has already told how a patroller from neighborhood station 21, with very detailed knowledge of the homeless environment in the city center, had sniffed out the deception. Investigators then took the fingerprints of their interlocutor, according to documents filed in court.

“It was following this fingerprinting that the identity of Mr. Bégin was revealed,” specifies the prison report.

“The latter was then arrested as an escapee and a suspect in the deadly fire,” the text continues.

A hidden photo

Last May, Denis Bégin was brought back behind bars. He was charged with eluding and impersonation, but investigators were not yet ready to file charges in connection with the fire.

During questioning, Bégin admitted that he was there when the fire broke out. But he denied having lit it. He said he saw someone else do it and photographed it.

“He says he has a photo in his possession to prove the identity of this person (in a secure Cloud), but he tried to obtain a contract protecting him from any accusation to show said photo, which he was refused” , summarizes a report filed in court.

The SPVM investigators were clear with Bégin: he had to abandon all hope of immunity. Bégin then began telling prison staff that he was going to get early parole or have certain charges dropped through a “deal” with the police to reveal the identity of the real arsonist. He asked several times to meet the detective sergeant in charge of the case at the SPVM. His famous “deal” has still not materialized.

Since then, his attitude has worried the prison authorities.

“In other words, if Mr. Bégin saw a man spreading accelerant or setting fire to the building, he took care to take a photo of him, but did not report the incident to anyone either, nor provided assistance to the tenants of the building, this is highly worrying,” specifies an official in his report.

The federal employee notes that Bégin does not say everything he knows about this affair. ” He has […] refused to answer our questions regarding the investigation in which he was involved, claiming that a “deal” would probably be signed with the police in the near future. »

However, in an interview with prison services, the SPVM was clear: “He remains a witness/suspect in this case,” writes a Correctional Service employee in his report.

Denis Bégin’s lawyer did not want to comment on the case when The Press contacted her on Thursday.

A heavy past

In addition to the Halloween murder of which he was found guilty in 1997, Denis Bégin was convicted of arson, theft, break and enter, fraud, mischief, extortion and murder during his life.

“His file also contains a range of information, each more worrying than the last, namely suspicions of murder (x2), sexual, physical and psychological violence against his ex-spouse, as well as information linked to international drug trafficking (heroin, cocaine) in collaboration with the Colombian clan and the Hells Angels,” specifies one of the Correctional Service reports. He was also suspected of having thrown a Molotov cocktail at his parents’ house, which could never be proven.

Bégin has already affirmed that it was in his garage that killers had made the bomb which accidentally killed little Daniel Desrochers, 11 years old, in the middle of the biker war, on August 13, 1995. He had tried to bargain with the police at this subject, to obtain certain advantages, without success. For several years, he has been at odds with certain members of the Hells Angels, the report states.

He has already confessed to a second murder to police in a written statement. He admitted to strangling a real estate appraiser who refused to overvalue his property as part of a fraud scheme. He said he covered up the man’s death as a suicide.

He later recanted and was not charged with this crime, but the Correctional Service agent responsible for his case doubts the sincerity of this retraction. Bégin had no interest in inventing such a story, he emphasizes.

Police information also links Denis Bégin to a third murder committed in Venezuela, according to the agent, but again, the lack of sufficient evidence did not allow him to be charged.

No rest

In prison, his journey “was not always easy”, underlines the agent. He was banned for three years from meeting female employees of the penitentiary following inappropriate comments towards a nurse and information deemed credible about a plot to assault the health professional.

Bégin had also written a love letter to a prison teacher and harassed her release agent.

Denis Bégin’s request to cancel his transfer of establishment will be heard at a later date.

Until then, the murder investigation into the arson in Old Montreal continues.