Who Killed Theresa

One of the most interesting things about Francine Da Sylva's murder on October 18, 1985, is that three days earlier, Frank Shoofey was gunned down, on October 15, 1985. And not only that, Shoofey's law office on the 5th floor of that apartment building on Rue Cherrrier is two blocks from the alley where Da Sylva was stabbed to death. Standing at the entrance to that alley on Saint Timothee, you can see the Shoofey building up the hill.https://johnallore.substack.com/

I have some follow-up thoughts on the 1985 murder of Francine Da Sylva, but in order to get there, I need to revisit two other unsolved murders we've covered: the 1979 death of Nicole Gaudreault and the 1975 strangulation and incineration of Diane Thibeault. Solving for x involves bringing an unknown variable to one side, then seeing how other elements line up with that variable - that's what we're going to do here – move and reconsider some variables.https://johnallore.substack.com/

There’s an interesting article in the New York Review of Books on the true crime writer, Sarah Weinman. If you don’t know Weinman, she’s had a newsletter for years called The Crime Lady. In 2018 she published her first book, The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World. In his review, Peddling Darkness, John J. Lennon writes about Weinman’s latest book, Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free...www.theresaallore.com

Quebec police are playing poker in the game of genetic genealogy but not holding any cards.https://johnallore.substack.comPhoto = Study for Ok by Vincent Desiderio

Is it Luc Gregoire? The eyes see what they want to see. If Gregoire was criminally active on the island of Montreal as early as 1977, it casts a whole new perspective on a catalog of the city's unsolved murders. Problems, puzzles and sometimes murder.https://johnallore.substack.com/

Have you heard of Puzzle 15?I bet you have, you just don't know it. You know those 4 x 4 tile scrambles where you have to rearrange the sliding pieces into an image? Popeye? The Flinstones? That's the 15 puzzle, sometimes called Gem, Boss, or Mystic Square.Here's a puzzle. What happened to Marilyn Bergeron? This week marks the 15th anniversary of the disappearance of the 24-year-old girl who today would be thirty-nine. Bergeron left her family's home in Quebec City for a walk on the morning of February 17, 2008. She did not return.https://johnallore.substack.com/

Do you know bagatelle?You know bagatelle probably from the handheld pinball incantation from your childhood. The word "bagatelle" means a "trifle" or simply "child's play."I have a case that is child's play; the 1990 murder of 23-year-old Lise Brisebois. It's a wonder a suspect has never been mentioned as an obvious candidate has been geographically under the Surete du Quebec's nose for thirty years – a sort of criminal investigative bagatelle.https://johnallore.substack.com/

Problems, puzzles, and sometimes murder. And sometimes Jack The Ripper.https://johnallore.substack.com

A preview of my new podcast Undiluted Hocus Pocus - the wonder of problems, puzzles, and sometimes murder.Follow us on Spreaker: Undiluted Hocus PocusAnd also Substack

We're having a birthday. I launched Who Killed Theresa in early January, 2003. Twenty years is a long time to catalogue unsolved crime.For more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com

Discussion of the under reporting of crime stats, and the new U.S. Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act.Also, the recent arrest of Joseph George Sutherland for the 1983 Toronto murders of Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour. Plus, the long awaited return of the Sherbrooke mannequin case.For more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com

If Alain Montpetit truly wanted to be a great stage actor, or music artist, or a writer (I doubt it) he was afforded every opportunity to pursue these ambitions, which for most of us, are impossibilities. Most of us don't have the mechanism in place. Montpetit came from money, he had access to the right people, he had opportunity and influence. What he lacked was deep talent. He possessed superficial talent, he was a populist. I would suggest he knew this, and it was at the heart of his deep insecurities. for more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com

Today's story has elements of what I'm currently writing about: the puzzle of celebrity, excess and indulgence, the lure of centers of power like Montreal and New York City. It has a Life in the Fast Lane quality to it, with shades of Looking for Mr. Goodbar and The Eyes of Laura Mars. This is the murder of Marie-Josée Saint-Antoine, a Montreal fashion model who was stabbed repeatedly in her Gramercy Park apartment in 1982 after an evening of disco dancing in a New York club. A lot has been said about this case, most of it recently. People may say, "Oh that case, we know all about that, why you wanna do that case?" Well it's an investigation with a very long trajectory - 40 years - and initially, there was a lot of speculation and rumor that wasn't very helpful. Marie-Josée's reputation got caught up in that speculation - innuendo and suspicions about the world of fashion and modeling. www.theresaallore.com

Lauren Barnett is a writer and occasional horror cinema walking guide, her upcoming book of horror walks, Death Lines: Walking London Through Horror Cinema, is available for preorder with Strange Attractor Press. She also hosts the podcast, the London Horror Movie Club. Today we talk about some Chelsea films:The Sorcerers - 1967A Clockwork Orange - 1972Dracula A.D. - 1972Theatre of Blood - 1973Death Line - 1972 and a lot of Hitchcock. For more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com

Travels to New England and the Tri-state area. Preview of shows to come.www.theresaallore.com

Some updates on some cases: David Cross, Helene Hurtubise, Margaret Coleman. The slog of dealing with police investigative forces.

I don’t want to write a piece of advocacy, or some bullshit fantasy of triumph over adversity, or something where the endgame is some shitty television program. I just want to tell a really good story.

"Far from ever being punished for their investigative failures, these officers were rewarded for their years of mediocre service. In 1984, Roch Gaudreault received the Police Exemplary Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada. Real Chateauneuf received the honor in 1986; Patrick Hall and Jacques Filion -from the Carole Fecteau case, by the way, this is the 44 anniversary of her unsolved murder - in 1985; and Noel Bolduc, who was the lead on the Grimard and Bergeron, investigation in 1988."For more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com

The murder of Rolland Giguere must be the worst kept secret in Sherbrooke. Practically the whole town - including the police - probably knows who shot Giguere on the evening of October 31, 1969, but no one has the moral courage to stand up and do anything about it.For more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com

"When he was about nineteen - which places the event in 1978 - Gerald was out driving with his older and a third person, Regis and another. Gerald was sitting in the back, Regis was in the passenger seat, and the third person was driving the car. It was in the evening, and they picked up a hitchhiker in Lennoxville. Gerald thought he and the girl were about the same age, so also nineteen. The girl got in the car and sat in the back with Gerald. Gerald began kissing her. From the passenger seat, Regis reached back and began stroking her thighs. I'm guessing it was a lot more than kissing and fondling, but you get the picture.Regis asks the driver to stop the car. He then dragged the girl with him. Some time passed, Gerald got out of the car to see what's going on. He says he was going to help the girl. Gerald went down in a field and found Regis holding the girl's head down in water. Gerald mimes the gesture of Regis holding her down in the water by the back of her neck. Regis yelled at Gerald to get back in the car, the girl didn't move anymore and appeared to be dead."For more information please visit the website: www.theresaallore.com