Alleged hit man now faces four murder charges

Frédérick Silva, the alleged hit man arrested this year after spending several months in hiding, now faces a total of four murder charges at the Montreal courthouse.

When he was arrested in February, Silva, now 39, was formally charged with second-degree murder in the death of Daniel Armando Somoza-Gildea — a Concordia University student who died on May 24, 2017 — as well as the first-degree murder of Alessandro Vinci, 31, who was gunned down on Oct. 11 last year.

During a hearing at the Montreal courthouse on Monday, a new indictment was filed in Silva’s case accusing him of two other first-degree murders carried out in Montreal last year. He was charged with killing Sébastien Beauchamp, a former member of a Hells Angels support club who was shot in the St-Léonard borough on Dec. 20. That charge came as little surprise as a man who allegedly helped Silva while he was on the lam, Giovanni Presta, was charged with Beauchamp’s murder shortly after he was arrested in February.

The new development is that Beauchamp was also charged this week with the murder of Yvon Marchand, a 51-year-old man with a lengthy criminal record who was gunned down on Oct. 29 last year in front of the duplex where he lived on Pierre-Tétreault St.

Silva is also charged with the attempted murder of Salvatore Scoppa, the brother of Mafia leader Andrea (Andrew) Scoppa, in Terrebonne on Feb. 17, 2017.

All five charges were included on a direct indictment presented to Superior Court Justice Johanne St- Gelais this week. Direct indictments are used when the Crown intends to proceed directly to trial without a preliminary inquiry.

Silva’s case returns to court on Dec. 17.