‘I thought I was going to die’

Abductee suggests revenge a motive in kidnapping

A man kidnapped from his Maniwaki-area cottage this month believes his abduction might have been motivated by revenge.

Les Patrois, a 65-year-old retired business owner from Ottawa, told the Citizen that just after 2 a.m. on Feb. 16, he and a 70-year-old hearing impaired female friend with whom he was visiting the cottage were bound, gagged and blindfolded by two intruders armed with a gun and a machete.

The pair told police they managed to escape their captors after being driven two hours southwest of the cottage and locked in a travel on L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, near Pembroke.

The Sûreté du Québec have charged three suspects from Ottawa in the kidnapping: two youths aged 16 and 17, and a 22-year-old man, Joshua Branker. The three suspects were released from custody last Thursday on bail with conditions.

Patrois himself, meanwhile, is currently awaiting his own day in court over a series of charges laid against him last year. On Aug. 30, Patrois was charged with five counts of committing an indecent act, two counts of gross indecency and one count of having sexual intercourse with a minor. The charges date to incidents alleged to have taken place between 1975 and 1986. His trial is scheduled for Nov. 25.

Patrois said that because he is awaiting trial, he could not comment on whether he thought his abduction was connected to the charges he faces, which he called “unfounded.”

But he did say he believes a fourth person is involved in his kidnapping.

“Somebody put them up to it,” he said.

And he went on to give the Citizen his account of the night he and his friend were held captive.

Patrois’s friend, a visitor from British Columbia, wanted to see the cottage in the winter, so the pair drove up from Ottawa to the four-season retreat just outside of Bouchette, Que. (Patrois said the woman does not want to be publicly identified.)

They arrived at the cottage in the afternoon, Patrois said, cleaned the cottage, and cleared snow in preparation for the arrival of his wife Lillian, who was staying in Ottawa over the weekend to attend a relative’s bridal shower.

At 2 a.m. Saturday morning, Patrois said, he was awoken by a loud bang.

“I had no idea what it was. I jumped up,” he said. “And then another bang and I still didn’t register it.”

Immediately after the third bang, Patrois said, two men came rushing into his bedroom, one with a large machete and the other with a handgun. Dressed in black, with black toques and black scarves covering all but their eyes, they yelled at him to get on the floor.

Patrois said his assailants used his belt to tie his hands behind his back.

“They put it so tight on my wrists, I couldn’t feel my hands any more,” he said. He was forced into the living room first, then his friend; the assailants cut the belt off Patrois’s wrists, and bound the pair’s hands behind their backs with duct tape.

The perpetrators then started searching for valuables, Patrois said, finding $280 in his wallet, then began asking him where he kept his larger bills. The attacker with the machete commented that he knew the 65-year-old had a condo in Aruba.

“It’s not a condo. It’s a timeshare,” Patrois said. “My question right away was, how would he know I have a condo in Aruba?”

Patrois said he witnessed the invaders taking two laptops, two cellphones, 40 ounces of lemon rum, two cameras, a replica Rolex and two large steel flashlights. After packing up the items, the perpetrators instructed him to put his pants on.

“I went to put my boots on and they said, ‘No, you’re putting slippers on.’”

Only the woman was allowed a coat. Patrois was left in his T-shirt.

“It was then that they blindfolded us. Duct tape right around the head, wrapped twice,” he said. (The police report of the incident indicates the victims were bound later, at another location.) “They put tape right around my mouth, around my head.”

The woman was also gagged and blindfolded, Patrois said, then they were led outside and put into the back of Patrois’s pickup truck.

“I was panicking. I was hyperventilating,” he said. “I was trying, some way, to get the tape off my mouth a little bit so that I could breathe, because I can’t breathe very well through my nose.”

“I mumbled to them, ‘ Why are you doing this?’” and one of the attackers replied they were being paid $5,000 each to get rid of him, Patrois said.

“They were going to kill me.”

The pair were driven to the cottage parking lot, where over the top of his blindfold Patrois was able to see another car parked.

“There was a third person down there, and this person had a speech impediment. So it’s something you remember.”

He said he heard the kidnappers having phone conversations with a fourth party.

“They called somebody and they said, ‘It’s a go.’”

They began driving erratically away from the cottage, driving off the road twice, his assailants taunting him and punching him in the head three times along the way.

“One of them — I don’t know who — enjoyed playing with the revolver, cocking it, touching my forehead, pulling the trigger,” he said. “He would put the machete against my face and threaten to cut an ear off.”

“I thought I was going to die,” Patrois said, with tears welling in his eyes.

The man with the speech impediment followed them in the car. The kidnappers stopped for food at a McDonald’s along the way.

When they arrived at their destination, Patrois said, the kidnappers led him and his friend across a field of deep snow.

“They made us go into this place where we have to duck down to go in,” he said. Patrois said he would later find out it was a 1960s travel trailer, parked outside a barn on L’Isle-aux-Allumettes. “They told us that they were going away for a couple hours and when they get back, if we haven’t frozen to death, they had some papers for us to sign,” he said. “They wanted $100,000 and they wanted me to sign the cottage over to them.”

Before leaving, Patrois said his kidnappers removed his bonds and duct-taped his wrists in front of his body. After an hour sitting in fear and contemplation, Patrois said he made up his mind that he would try to escape.

Twisting his wrists back and forth, Patrois said he was able to snap the duct tape wrapped around his wrists. He removed the tape from his eyes and mouth and unbound his friend.

Patrois said he charged and kicked the trailer’s locked front door about 20 times before breaking it open.

He and his friend then fled across a field toward a road, seeking help at two houses but nobody was home. Then they spotted a truck on the road.

Patrois said he had to get in front of the truck to force the driver to stop. Though the driver first said he didn’t want to get involved, but he eventually gave the pair a ride to his home and had his wife call the police, Patrois said.

Moments later, Patrois heard their sirens.

“I ran over to the first policeman and I hugged him,” Patrois said. “I knew I was safe.” Patrons and his friend were transported to a hospital in Pembroke and treated for frostbite and minor injuries. They were able to return to Ottawa later that night.

Quebec police would neither confirm nor deny whether they are investigating a connection between the criminal charges Patrois faces and the alleged kidnapping.