The young woman stuck in a love triangle which would have turned into tragedy with the murder of her new boyfriend in the fall of 2021 had felt harassed for months by her ex.
• Read also: Love triangle: he was allegedly shot and then stabbed in the heart several times by his friend
“I experienced harassment every day. Millions of messages and calls. “More than it was okay, more than he wanted to have the upper hand over me,” said Maïté Hébert at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse.
The beneficiary attendant has been testifying since this morning at the jury trial of her ex, Simon Décarie. The 29-year-old man is accused of the premeditated murder of his friend, Maxime Villeneuve, on October 6, 2021. At that time, the victim and Maïté Hébert had just started dating.
The accused Simon Décarie
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE COURT
The young woman had no longer been in a relationship with the accused since the end of July. Their relationship lasted for about three years with several ups and downs.
Multiple numbers
After their separation, she felt harassed by her ex’s calls and messages to the point where she was “really stressed out.” Décarie went so far as to contact her with different phone numbers, since she blocked him, she explained.
“He used apps to change his phone number. That’s what I deduce,” she said, testifying behind a screen.
Then, when she moved, Décarie found her new address: “He often passed by my house to find out what I was doing, if I was there and with whom,” she told the jury.
And even though she was free, he called her a “whore” and often asked her if she had slept with other men.
On September 11, 2021, Maïté Hébert was at home with her friend Ugo Patenaude when she received a call from her ex who told her he was in front of her house. At the same time, someone knocked on the window, Ugo Patenaude detailed at the trial yesterday. The woman quickly called 911.
“Then she remembered that her bedroom window was ajar. She went into panic. I saw half of Simon’s body trying to get in [dans l’appartement]. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to push him away,” he continued.
The latter then took a knife from the kitchen, called 911 and hid in the laundry room. A few moments later, Décarie was arrested by the police.
He asks her for forgiveness
Remember that on the evening of the murder, the victim Maxime Villeneuve had sent a text message to his friend Simon Décarie asking him for forgiveness for his new association. Less than an hour later, he was shot and stabbed several times through the heart in his apartment in Blainville.
Décarie was arrested 28 hours later. In the meantime, he allegedly offered $500 to a childhood friend to hide a firearm and his vehicle. He also allegedly admitted to another friend that he had “done something serious”.
A firearm found by the police in the trunk of the suspect’s Mazda3, which was seized on rue des Pommiers, in Blainville.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE COURT
Maïté Hébert’s testimony continues tomorrow.
– With Frédérique Giguère