On Septempber 9th, 1949, Canada experienced a tragedy unlike any it had ever seen before. While out of the spotlight for 70 years, the Sault-au-Cochon Tragedy remains a scar on the history of Canadian aviation. And the one responsible for that scar is Joseph-Albert Guay.
Joseph-Albert Guay was born on September 23rs, 1918 in Québec, Canada. He was the youngest of five children, and his mother spoiled him rotten. As a result, he grew up to be a completely horrible person. He was “violent, abusive, serially unfaithful, self-absorbed, and entitled”.
He married Rita Morel in 1940, subjecting her to his horrid personality. During WWII, he worked at Saint Malo arsenal in Québec City, where he lived with his wife. He also sidelined in watch repair. While he handled most of the buying, selling, and business dealings, he hired Généreux Ruest to do the actual repairs, as he was a trained clockmaker.
Soon enough, Guay lost interest in his wife. He was especially dismissive of her after the birth of their first, and only, child. He sought affairs elsewhere, engaging with several women. It was through these affairs that he came across Marie-Ange Robitaille. Guay became absolutely infatuated with his 17-year-old mistress. Guay himself was 29 at the time.
Guay told her to lie to her parents in order for them to see each other. He lied about his name and age, and claimed he was still a bachelor. He would do absolutely anything to be with Marie-Ange.
At the time, Québec had very strict policies. The Roman Catholic church controlled most of everything that went on within the province. This was especially true for matters of marriage. The church had a very strict stance on divorce – attaining one was nearly impossible. In his mind, Guay had no hope in hell of separating from Rita.
Guay and Marie-Ange carried on their affair for about 18 months. Rita was well aware of her husband’s philandering ways, but she put her foot down when she learned of his affair with a child. She did what any scorned wife would do – she went to Marie-Ange’s parents and informed them of what was happening with their daughter.
They were horrendously mortified. They kicked her out of their house. But Guay had that covered. He had a room lined up at a boarding house for her in Saint-Roche.
The boarding house was run by Marguerite Pitre and her husband. Pitre, who was born on September 15th, 1908 in Saint-Octave-de-Métis, also happened to be the sister of Généreux Ruest. Pitre was known for being a little unusual, and for wearing all black. She became known to neighbours, and the press, as Madame le Corbeau – Madame Raven. She facilitated Guay’s meetings with Marie-Ange.
Guay had it all set up in his favour. And then his favour turned sour.
He began exhibiting controlling and violent behaviour toward Marie-Ange. He was even arrested at one point for threatening her with a revolver. He would not allow her to return to her family home, nor would he allow her to leave the boarding house without him acting as chaperone.
In the spring of 1949, Guay took Marie-Ange and settled 650 kilometres away from Québec City in the town of Step-îles, where Guay owned some property. Guay wanted to be with Marie-Ange in every way possible. But his wife was standing in the way. Rather than attempt a separation or divorce, despite the challenges presented by the church, Guay settled for cold-hearted murder. He was forming a plan.
By mid-summer, Guay and Marie-Ange left Sept-Îles to return to Québec City. Guay returned to Rita, and Marie-Ange returned to her parents. Guay started putting his first plan into action.
Poison would do nicely. But there was a hiccup. Guay asked an acquaintance to poison Rita for him. The acquaintance declined – and never bothered to report the incident to police. Guay was back at the drawing board. He decided on an airplane bombing.
Guay then asked Ruest to build a bomb out of dynamite, batteries, and an alarm clock. Pitre was tasked with purchasing the dynamite. “At the time, sales of explosives to civilians in Canada were recorded, but not strictly regulated.”
Guay concocted his plan. He bought a plane ticket for his wife. Rita was to be a passenger on Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 108 on September 9th, 1949. She was to board at L’Ancienne-Lorette, a suburb of Québec City, where the flight made a scheduled stop along it’s route from Montréal to Baie Comeau.
Rita was reluctant. Her husband had told her she was running a very important business errand for him. Eventually, she gave in. What Rita didn’t know was that her husband had also purchased a $10,000 life insurance police in Rita’s name, and named himself as the beneficiary.
Earlier that day, Guay had given Pitre a package with instructions to deliver it to the airport. Guay then left her to her errand, and drove Rita to the airport. There was a package waiting for them when they arrived. Guay quickly put it in his wife’s luggage, telling her she was to deliver it to a business acquaintance.
Rita Morel had just unknowingly brought a bomb onto the plane.
Guay had timed the alarm clock to trigger the bomb so that it would go off while the plane was over the Saint Lawrence River. He figured this would make forensic examination of the explosion nearly impossible, therefore, never linking him to the crime. But there was a hitch.
The flight was delayed by 5 minutes. At around 11AM, the “bomb instead exploded over Cap Tourmente near Sault-au-Cochon in the Charlevoix region of Québec, causing the plane to crash”. 4 crew members and 19 passengers, 23 in all, were all killed instantly.
“The victims included four children and three American executives from the Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation, including the retiring president, E. T. Standard; his designated successor, Arthur D. Storke; and Russell Johnston Parker, a vice-president and father of typographer and type designer Mike Parker, as well as Edward J. Calnan and William B. Scoular, both St. Catherines residents, and both senior engineers with the Ontario Paper Company, returning from a business trip to Baie Comeau.”
The media picked up on the explosion, calling it the Sault-au-Cochon Tragedy. This was also the first attack against civillian aviation in North America.
At the crash site, investigators found traces of explosives. They revealed that the explosion was caused by a bomb hidden in the baggage compartment. On September 14th, the RCMP told Le Canada that they were “looking for a woman dressed in black who left a package on board the aircraft prior to departure”. It didn’t take long for the public to identify the woman as Marguerite Pitre.
She was brought in for questioning in due course. She told investigators that she did, indeed, bring a package to the airport. She told them she thought it contained a fragile statuette. She told them Albert Guay had asked her to run the errand in order to cancel a debt of $600 that she and her husband owed him. “Once she delivered the package, she testified, the debt would be cleared. That was the argument.”
Two weeks after the tragedy, on September 23rd, 1949, Joseph-Albert Guay, now 31 years old, was arrested. He was charged with 23 counts of murder. The motive was simple – get rid of his wife, claim the life insurance (he tried to three days after the tragedy), and run away with Marie-Ange.
His trial began in February of 1950. It was here that the acquaintance testified that Guay had offered to pay him $500 to poison Rita. The acquaintance steadfastly declined, and Guay came up with the bombing plot.
By this time, Pitre was distraught. She didn’t want to be complicit in the tragedy. She “swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and would have died had police interrogators not found her near death in her home. It was during her recovery that she agreed to tell police everything she knew.” She agreed to be a witness for the prosecution.
Pitre steadfastly stuck to her story. She told the court that she had no idea that she was delivering a bomb. She thought the package contained a statuette. She just wanted Guay to cancel the debt she owed.
It took the jury only 17 minutes to find Joseph-Albert Guay guilty of all charges. He was convicted, and sentenced to hang.
Before his execution, he turned the tables on Ruest and Pitre, claiming they were willing accomplices in the bombing.
Généreux Ruest was arrested on June 6th, 1950, and Marguerite Pitre was arrested on June 14th, 1950. Guay testified at Ruest’s trial.
Ruest never once wavered from his story. He was innocent, and that was that. He told the courts that Guay wanted the bomb in order to clear tree stumps on the land Guay owned in Sept-îles. The jury didn’t believe him. They found him guilty. He was convicted in November of 1950 and sentenced to hang.
On January 12th, 1951, at the age of 32, Joseph-albert Guay was hanged at Montréal’s Bordeaux Prison. His last words were “Au moins, je meurs célèbre” (At least I die famous).
Généreux Ruest was executed at Montréal’s Bordeaux Prison on July 25th, 1952, at 54 years old. “Suffering from osseous tuberculosis, he had to be transported to the gallows in a wheelchair.”
The last to be tried was Marguerite Pitre. Her trial began on March 6th, 1951, lasting 10 days. She told them that “she believed that Guay was sending a statue to a Mr. Plouffe who lived in Baie Comeau. The investigation would reveal that the address was a fake and there never was a Mr. Plouffe.” She also told the courts about wanting the debt to be cancelled between her and Guay, and that running this errand would lead to that.
Even though he was executed before her trial began, Guay’s version of events is the one the jury believed. Pitre was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.
On January 9th, 1953, Marguerite Pitre arrived at Bordeaux Prison. She was “accompanied by two nuns, and climbed to the prison’s third floor. After a few moments with her escorts, she entered the ante-room where the hangman was waiting for her.” She was hanged at 12:35 AM. She was 44 years old.
Marguerite Pitre was the 13th woman to be hanged in Canada. She was also the last woman to ever be executed in Canada.
It can be argued that this was a horrendous miscarriage of justice. Evidence of her complicity, and that of her brother, in the Sault-au-Cochon Tragedy is hardly ironclad. “In fact, it is certainly possible that her version of events was true: that she was duped by an evil man into playing an unwitting part in a mass murder.”
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Sources:
Sault-au-Cochon Tragedy – Maude-Emanuelle Lambert for The Canadian Encyclopedia
She Was The Last Woman Executed in Canada. She May Have Been Innocent – Patrick Lejtenyi for Vice
Albert Guay Wikipedia page
Madame le Corbeau Wikipedia page