Twisted plot emerges
Sinister plot suggested after two sisters and friend killed in Trois-Rivières
Two 17-year-olds have been charged with three counts of murder after the bodies of three people — two sisters and another teenage boy — were found in a Trois-Rivières home early Tuesday. The two boys are also charged with conspiracy in an alleged plot to kill several police officers, their indictment reveals.
TROIS-RIVIÈRES — Indictments filed against two youths arrested in Trois-Rivières in a shocking triple homicide of two sisters and the boyfriend of the youngest girl suggest the accused had even more sinister plans then the coldblooded murders they are alleged to have carried out on Tuesday.
The two 17-year-olds appeared before Youth Court Judge Yvan Cousineau just before noon on Wednesday, where they learned they each face six charges.
Besides three counts each of first-degree murder, they also face three counts of conspiracy, including an alleged plot to “murder several police officers.”
The other charges allege they also planned to kill Hélène Bastarache, the mother of the two sisters, and that they conspired to kill the three people who were found dead in a house on Sicard St. on Tuesday. The charges identify the victims as sisters Roxanne Boisvert, 22, and Raphaëlle Boisvert, 17. The third is a young man named Jessy Chevalier, also 17, who is believed to have been Raphaëlle’s boyfriend.
According to a newspaper report published on Wednesday, Bastarache was at work in Joliette when the slayings were carried out.
The accused registered little reaction as they stood in the prisoner’s dock in the courtroom.
One, a young male with shoulder-length hair and the beginnings of a beard, managed a smile as he conversed with his l awyer and confirmed his date of birth as written on the indictment. He turned 17 only weeks ago.
The other, a young male with a spiky haircut, maintained a blank stare throughout the short hearing. The prosecutor in the case filed a motion requesting the pair be sentenced as adults if they are convicted.
For the time being, their identities are protected by a publication ban, imposed through the Youth Criminal Justice Act, because they are under the age of 18.
If the pair are convicted of first-degree murder, and a judge ultimately agrees they should be sentenced as adults, they would face an automatic life sentence. But as minors they would be eligible for parole after having served a minimum of 10 years behinds bars, said René Duval, one of the defence lawyers in the case. Adults convicted of first-degree murder are required to serve at least 25 years of the same automatic life sentence.
The case returns to court Feb. 25 for a formality hearing. The pair will remain detained for the time being.
The two defence lawyers in the case asked that the charges not be officially read into the court record to give them time to consider whether their clients should be tried before a judge and jury or a judge alone.
Duval told the judge he has yet to receive any of the evidence gathered by the TroisRivières police in their investigation.
The two youths charged on Wednesday were arrested as they left the house where the victims’ bodies were found early Tuesday.
The police had just arrived, guns drawn, when the pair were exiting the home. Neighbours on the tranquil street of single-storey homes even snapped cellphone pictures of the accused, arms raised in the air, being apprehended by police.
On Wednesday, Const. Michel Letarte of the TroisRivières police force confirmed that the victims were killed by a firearm or firearms. He wouldn’t confirm whether police seized more than one firearm during the investigation.
“What you have to understand is that there was an element of premeditation in what happened to the victims, and the (people who killed them) knew there was going to be a police intervention after it was carried out,” Letarte said in reference to the charge alleging the pair conspired to murder several police officers.
He also confirmed that one of the accused had a previous relationship with one of the sisters, reportedly the younger one, raising the spectre that a love triangle was behind the outburst of violence. According to various media reports, the younger sister was dating Chevalier when they were killed after having broken up with one of the arrested 17-year-olds.
When asked if jealousy is believed to have been the motive behind the triple slaying, Letarte replied: “It’s possible, but it could be that as the case progresses and everything is presented to the prosecution as evidence, the motive could be something more profound than that.”
The community, about 140 kilometres northeast of Montreal, was left reeling from the triple homicide in the early hours of Tuesday.
Roxanne Boisvert was a student at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, according to several Facebook memorial pages that sprang up after the slayings. She was the second of three Boisvert sisters.
The youngest, Raphaëlle, was a student at Collège Marie de l’Incarnation, a high school just a stone’s throw from the courthouse where the accused appeared on Wednesday.
Christina Noury, a spokeswoman for the school, said more than 30 professionals from a local CLSC were called upon to offer support to students who were upset over her death.
“It was a very emotional day (on Tuesday) for everyone, and (on Wednesday) the focus (for support) is on her closest friends and her fellow students in secondary five,” Noury said, adding that the girl’s older sister was a former student of the same school.
Noury said that neither of the accused was enrolled at Collège Marie de l’Incarnation.
Meanwhile, life on Sicard St. in Trois-Rivières appeared to have returned to some form of normality on Wednesday afternoon. Residents walked their dogs past the house where the tragedy occurred and glanced at the sole police car parked in front of it.
Neighbours who reside just a few doors away from where the killings took place politely declined to comment on what happened.