Suspect had troubled job history
Bush once gave a female co-worker a sex toy as a Christmas present
The police suspect in an Ottawa triple homicide was once fired from a human resources job in British Columbia after he gave a co-worker a sex toy for Christmas — setting the stage for a move across the country that would eventually put him in contact with a man he’s suspected of killing.
Ian Bush, 59, is expected to soon be charged with three counts of first-degree murder in connection to the 2007 unsolved homicides of Alban Garon, a retired tax court judge, Garon’s wife Raymonde and their neighbour, Marie-Claire Beniskos. His lawyer says he denies any involvement in their killings.
Bush had lived with his parents in the B.C. interior for a few years after high school. The family left Dryden, Ont., for B.C. before Bush came back to Ontario to attend Queen’s University in Kingston in 1974. He eventually moved back out west in 1992, when he took a position with the Canadian Pacific Forest Products pulp and paper mill in the small Vancouver Island town of Gold River.
A former co-worker said Bush had strained relationships with other employees and unnerved many with what the co-worker described as his intense manner. It would be a criticism often levied against the man, now the prime suspect in the triple slayings after being charged with attempted murder following the December 2014 home invasion of 101-yearold war veteran Ernest Côté.
“Everyone wondered what he might be capable of but no one said it,” said the former colleague, who asked not to be identified.
Bush was eventually let go after a series of run-ins, including one in which he gave a female staff member a sex toy as a Christmas present. He was given a severance payment and left the company after about two years on the job. It would be one of several jobs that Bush held for a short period. It was while in British Columbia that he launched the human resources consulting firm he continued to operate until his arrest on the home invasion charges in December — Bush and Associates Consulting, which lists some fictitious people as employees. He lost money in the business, according to exclusive tax documents obtained by the Citizen.
He tried to deduct these losses, as well as some moving expenses, on his income taxes after he left B.C.
When the Canada Revenue Agency refused to allow these deductions, Bush filed an appeal in the Tax Court of Canada. That litigation would lead to his first contact with Garon — a disturbing fax sent in 2001 from a made-up court that summoned the court’s chief judge to Bush’s home.
Bush is scheduled to appear in court Friday, when his court-ordered psychiatric assessment for the home invasion charges must be complete. Murder charges against him are expected to be formally laid Saturday.
The Garons’ nephew, a CBC Radio producer who lives in Quebec, plans to make the trip to Ottawa for Bush’s Friday appearance.
Marc Leveille is the son of Raymonde Garon’s sister, Giselle Leveille, who continues to live in the luxury Riverside Drive highrise building in which her sister and brother-in-law were killed. Raymonde’s brother, Jean-Pierre Lurette, who found the three bodies on that June 2007 morning, also lives in the building.
Echoing the sentiments of other family members, Leveille said news of the developments in the police investigation into his aunt and uncle’s killings wasn’t only unexpected, but that the family had basically written off any leads in the case as impossible.
“We’ve been waiting so long,” Leveille said. “It’s been three hectic days.”
Leveille’s parents have been separated for nearly 40 years, but when he told his father, who is not related to the Garons, about the break in the case, the man wept.
The family cautiously awaits the pending murder charges against Bush. The Citizen has learned that DNA found on duct tape inside Ernest Côté’s condominium matched DNA collected at the gruesome triple-suffocation scene and that all four alleged victims had plastic bags placed over their heads. The Garons’ family, however, needs to know police have officially closed the case and laid charges before they feel relief worthy of the last eight years.
Bush’s lawyer, Geraldine Castle-Trudel, said her client was stunned after learning from his family of the alleged link between the home invasion involving Côté and the killings of the Garons and Beniskos. Warrants had been executed by police in recent weeks in connection to a “murder” charge but the warrants didn’t specify the number of alleged victims or their identities.
Castle-Trudel said Bush “certainly takes the position he had absolutely nothing to do with it.”