Killer will not serve consecutive sentences for Quebec murders
Judge references mosque massacre case
Ugo Fredette will not have to serve consecutive sentences even though he killed two people under very different circumstances three years ago.
Superior Court Justice Myriam Lachance said Friday that Fredette, 45, was already sentenced in 2019 when a jury at the St-Jérôme courthouse found him guilty on two counts of first-degree murder.
He automatically received a life sentence with no chance of parole until he has served at least 25 years behind bars. But in June, prosecutor Steve Baribeau argued Fredette's case merited consecutive sentences that would have allowed for the period of parole ineligibility to be extended.
On Friday, Lachance disagreed with Baribeau because of a decision made by the Quebec Court of Appeal in November in the case involving Alexandre Bissonnette, the man who admitted he murdered six Muslim people in a mosque in Quebec City in 2017.
On Nov. 26, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled the section of the Criminal Code that was amended in 2011 was unconstitutional and reversed a previous decision ordering Bissonnette to serve at least 40 years before he would be eligible for parole.
“In this regard, it is important to note that the sentence is not one that imposes 25 years of imprisonment, but rather a sentence of imprisonment for life, without the possibility of applying for parole before 25 years. In other words, there is no guarantee that the Parole Board will grant parole in 25 years,” the appellate court wrote in its decision.
Fredette, who is incarcerated at the Port Cartier Institution, a maximum-security penitentiary 840 kilometres northeast of Montreal, watched the decision through a video conference. His showed little reaction to Lachance's decision.
On Oct. 19, 2019, a jury found Fredette guilty of the first-degree murder of Véronique Barbe, his estranged spouse, and Yvon Lacasse, a 71-year-old man. Fredette killed Lacasse at a rest stop in Lachute after he killed Barbe. He stole Lacasse's car because he fled from Barbe's home with a child and descriptions of his vehicle had been broadcast and published by several media after the Sûreté du Québec issued an Amber Alert. Fredette is appealing the jury's verdict.