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Guy Turcotte's Tragedy

50:21 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

A Quebec cardiologist killed his two children, was first ruled not criminally responsible, then convicted at retrial.

  1. Voluntary intoxication stopped excusing the crimeThe Bouchard-Lebrun ruling by the Supreme Court made the antifreeze argument useless at the second trial.
  2. Paid experts split the two verdictsDominique Bourget was mandated and paid by Turcotte's own defence, which Isabelle Gaston attacked as a conflict of interest.
  3. The mother's research forced a reckoningIsabelle Gaston filed a thesis-like memoir and a complaint with the Collège des médecins, which issued clearer forensic-expertise rules.
Executive Summary AI
  • On the morning of February 21, 2009, Marguerite drove to her son Guy Turcotte's house in Piémont, about 70 km from Montreal, found it locked with his car outside and called 911.2:28
  • SQ patrolman Patrick Bigrasse broke in and found three-year-old Anne-Sophie with 19 stab wounds and five-year-old Olivier with 27, while their father lay groggy from methanol under a pillow asking to be left to die.4:33
  • Admitted to his own hospital in Saint-Jérôme under his ex-wife's name, Turcotte told nurse Chantal the sentence that would follow him through both trials: he had done it to hurt Isabelle.9:00
  • At the first trial in 2011, defence psychiatrist Dominique Bourget argued that adjustment disorder plus antifreeze intoxication clouded his judgment, and the jury declared him not criminally responsible, sending him to the Philippe Pinel Institute instead of prison.25:41
  • After a Supreme Court ruling on voluntary intoxication killed the antifreeze defence, the 2015 retrial convicted Turcotte of murdering Anne-Sophie and Olivier, with at least 17 years before parole eligibility in 2033.37:22
Key Quote
“I will bring them with me.”
— Guy Turcotte19:11
Key Quote
“I did that to piss her off.”
— Guy Turcotte9:00
Key Quote
“We cannot ignore the effect of 46 knife blows on the bodies of two little children.”
— Prosecution psychiatrists21:53