Murderer dies in jail

A man serving a life sentence for killing two people and paralyzing a third in St. Peter and St. Paul in 1974 has died in federal custody.

Correctional Service Canada (CSC) said in a news release Friday that Ernest Joseph DesRoches died of apparent natural causes following an illness.

He was at the Regional Treatment Centre at Millhaven Institution, a maximum security prison in Bath, Ont.

DesRoches had been serving two life sentences for non-capital murder since June 14, 1974.

Gloria Ellsworth and her sister Bernadette were returning home to St. Peter and St. Paul from bingo at the Tignish Parish Centre on Feb. 21, 1974.

DesRoches, 29 at the time, killed Bernadette and her husband, Ivan.

The couple’s one-year-old daughter, Krista, made a full recovery after being beaten so badly by the blunt end of a gun that her right eye was swollen shut.

Ellsworth was paralyzed after being shot five times. About a month later, she lost a baby she was carrying.

“I remember my sister asking him, ‘How come you're doing this to us? What did we ever do to you?' He just shot her. He never did answer her. He never did tell us why," Ellsworth told The Guardian in a 1999 story.

DesRoches had been in trouble with the law before but nobody believed he was capable of murder.

"I couldn't believe it was happening. I think it would have been easier to understand had it been a stranger," Ellsworth, who could see DesRoches' house through the fields from her front step, told The Guardian in 1999.

DesRoches was also serving time for forcible confinement and prison breach with intent. In 2011, he was denied full parole.

The inmate’s next of kin have been notified of his death.