GRANBY | A 66-year-old woman who allegedly took advantage of her roommate with a mild intellectual disability for months ended up killing him in their Granby apartment last week.
• Read also – Granby: the man found dead last week was the victim of a murder
“Since January, she has been shouting at him. She stirred it quite a bit. We didn’t think it would go that far…” said Michel Lavallée, 49, a few hours after the arrest of his upstairs neighbor, Claudette Hamel, on Wednesday morning.
The tragedy would have played out a week earlier in an eight-unit building on rue du Center, in Granby.
Michel Lavallée, a neighbor of the apartment where Claudette Hamel allegedly killed a 68-year-old man, in Granby.
Photo Jonathan Tremblay
“At 3 a.m., we heard a big BOOM. Then, the authorities arrived in the morning,” explained Mr. Lavallée.
The victim, Réjean Plourde, had been living at home for several months. However, the two would not have formed a couple.
According to members of Mr. Plourde’s entourage, the accused isolated him from those close to him and an abusive relationship took hold.
“He is a man who would not have harmed a fly. He was friendly, said another neighbor, who insisted on keeping his identity secret. It’s boring, but she often insulted him. She was really mean to him. She took him for a slave.”
Finally accused
Claudette Hamel was finally charged Wednesday afternoon with the unpremeditated murder of the 68-year-old man at the Granby courthouse.
“Do I have to be in detention, with my health?” she asked herself during her appearance by videoconference.
Hamel, dressed in a Montreal Canadiens sweater, was then seated with a cane placed not far from her chair in a room at the Granby police station.
However, she will have to remain detained at least until her next appearance in court, at the end of April. His lawyers, Me Marianne Galipeau-Théroux and Me Catherine Pilon, intend to receive the evidence in the file by then.
Suspicious death
Hamel was quickly arrested following the discovery of her roommate’s body. However, she was released because the Granby police considered this case as a suspicious death, not knowing whether it was a murder, an accident or a voluntary act.
Analysis of the scene, various investigative steps and the results of the autopsy finally made it possible to establish that the sixty-year-old had indeed been the victim of a murder.
“There are elements of the investigation which confirmed that there was a reasonable probability of conviction on a charge of second degree murder,” simply explained Me Simon Lacoste, who is teaming up with Me Vicky Gallant for the public prosecutor.
The accused had already been convicted in 2009 in a case of assault causing harm. She received one year’s probation and 50 hours of community service.
With Valérie Gonthier and Maxime Deland, QMI Agency