Montreal police link suspect in gas station shooting to earlier homicide nearby
Montreal police now say the suspect arrested in the fatal shooting of a woman waiting to pick up her daughter outside a gas station was also responsible for a homicide a few blocks away.
Investigators believe the 21-year-old man arrested Monday was also responsible for two carjackings, and the attempted killing of a man who opened his front door when a stranger knocked.
The deaths are Montreal's 22nd and 23rd homicides of 2016.
The series of events in Pointe-aux-Trembles, in the east end of Montreal, began Sunday evening when police officers discovered the body of a man in his 20s at a residence on Ste-Catherine Street near 1st Avenue.
Police said the man had been shot at least once, and a significant amount of drugs were found at the home.
Around 11 p.m. ET Sunday, police were called to an Esso gas station, at the corner of St-Jean-Baptiste Boulevard and Sherbrooke Street, where they found a 49-year-old woman who had been shot lying on the ground. She had been at the gas station waiting for her daughter to finish work.
The woman was shot at least once in her upper body and taken to hospital in critical condition. She later died.
Josie Primiani, who runs a daycare behind the gas station, said parents and neighbours were left shaken by the shooting.
"Thank God it wasn't us, but I really feel sad for the poor woman who lost her life trying to do a good thing by picking up her daughter," she said.
The man who shot the woman at the gas station got into her car and drove south on St-Jean-Baptiste, police said.
A few blocks away, at the intersection of Notre-Dame Street, police found the woman's vehicle. It was damaged from a crash and there was no one inside. Witnesses told police they saw a man run from the scene.
Soon after, another 911 call came in.
The caller, a 64-year-old man, told dispatchers an armed man came to his door on de Normandie Street, not far from where the abandoned car was found.
The stranger demanded the man hand over his car keys, then shot him in the lower body and stole his car, police said. The man was not seriously hurt.
Montreal police pursued a suspect into the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Tunnel, but lost track of the car as it headed westbound on Highway 132.
Quebec provincial police, who were alerted to the chase by Montreal police, found the stolen car in a ditch near the intersection of Highway 10 and Highway 30 in Brossard, near the Dix30 shopping centre.
Longueuil police officers located a suspect in the mall parking lot and arrested him after a brief foot chase. He was taken to a Montreal police operations centre for questioning.
Const. Denis Lacoursière said the two dead people did not know each other.
The suspect could appear in court as early as tomorrow to be officially charged.
