OTTAWA - An Ottawa man serving a life sentence for his role in a killing that prompted gay-rights activists to call for anti-hate crime legislation has been found dead in his Quebec prison cell.
Quebec provincial police are investigating the apparent suicide of 36-year-old Jeffrey Lalonde in the medium-security Leclerc Institution in Laval, Que. Monday.
Lalonde was sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 slaying of 33-year-old Alain Brosseau, who was thrown head first off the Alexandra Bridge, which crosses the Ottawa River, to his death as he walked home from a late night shift as a waiter.
Lalonde pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death, which occurred during a series of attacks by a gang of teenagers hostile to homosexuals.
The attacks took place in Hull, Que., and Ottawa over a four-day period.
Court heard the group targeted Brosseau, who was not gay, because he was small in stature and walking alone.
He was walking across the bridge to his Quebec home when Lalonde and three others attacked him. They stole a ring and $80 before throwing him to his death.
Witnesses told court Lalonde told Brosseau ’I like your shoes’ just before letting go of his ankles.
Quebec Superior Court Judge Orville Frenette said Lalonde’s actions were incomprehensible as he sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
Just hours after Brosseau’s death, Lalonde and the other members of the group who attacked Brosseau took a cab to the Orleans area of Ottawa where they stabbed two men with knives and screwdrivers.
In a jailhouse interview with the Ottawa Citizen following his conviction, Lalonde said he had grown to hate homosexuals after becoming a prostitute by the age of 15 to afford food. The memory of those years, plus the painful childhood memories of being molested as a child by relatives, led him to despise homosexuals, he said.
During the interview, Lalonde claimed he was a different person.
’I realize now that (Brosseau) had nothing to do with my past. I just accept homosexuals now as human beings,’ he said.
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