Perreault guilty in second murder trial

Retried after confession thrown out

A jury has found Alain Perreault guilty of first-degree murder in the 2003 death of Lyne Massicotte.

The jury pronounced the verdict at Perreault’s second trial in a courtroom in Quebec City on Thursday. After the verdict, Judge Richard Grenier announced the 54-year-old killer will not be eligible for parole before June 2035.

The judge also told the jury members that he had reached the same decision as them.

Perreault was found guilty of the murder of Massicotte, a resident of Chambly and mother of two teenagers, at his first trial in 2011.

The 43-year-old disappeared on July 17, 2003, after she travelled to the provincial capital to meet Alain Perreault, whom she had met in an Internet chat room. Her body was never found.

The police said Perreault was the last person to see Massicotte alive.

Perreault had admitted to the murder six-and-ahalf years later to undercover police officers whom he was led to believe were part of an organized crime gang he was trying to join. The criminal organization was made up.

However, Perreault appealed his verdict, saying the sting operation the police had used to arrest him was illegal.

That type of undercover operation, designed to draw confessions from suspects, is dubbed “Mr. Big.”

In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the admissibility of the evidence Perreault gave in the sting operation.

A new murder trial was ordered.

Massicotte’s car had been found in Old Quebec.