Born to Kill - Allan Legere

1989 the residents of canada's miramichi became the target of a vengeful killer he was out to hurt a lot of people in this area he was almost like the boogeyman it was like we were chasing the ghost it was like he could see us somehow and we couldn't see him he's struck with brutal ferocity they find one body and then they find another body and then they look around and they see there's blood everywhere but what was the root of his inner fury i felt he was capable of anything he just exuded evil and was he born to kill this person would have to be an animal a person without any conscience [Applause] um [Music] so in the late 1980s the mirror machine new brunswick was renowned for its natural beauty as well as the welcoming warmth of its residents the is mostly a rural area very friendly area even we get new police officers here they comment their arms get worn out from having to wave so often because the people are so friendly you know it was just an ordinary community it has beautiful sights it had the famous fishing rivers known all over the world very quiet little town people didn't lock their doors and most kids went outside to play but in october 1989 this peaceful child-friendly community was engulfed by fear there is no trick-or-treating in newcastle tonight because this halloween is like no other [Music] a masked killer had forced the residents off the streets you can't go out at night by yourself and like i never used to be scared to be home by myself and now i'm scared the nighttime prowler had invaded people's homes and brutally ended the lives of three local women at night people wanted to protect their family gun sales went way up despite a huge manhunt the killer had evaded capture for over six months the moon in the atmosphere was something that i've never seen before he had the whole mirror machine area and total fear [Music] with seemingly no end to the bloodshed petrified locals in chatham head would turn to the church and the comforting words of father james smith father smith was very well regarded in the community very well known for his uh his kindness he's a roman catholic priest in roman catholic community he lived in the rectory right next to the church the church was right next to my grandmother's house he was a significant figure in that community [Music] however concerns would be raised one november night when the local priest failed to show up for a prayer meeting the parishioners went over to the rectory to see where he was and they looked in the windows to see if they could see anything they saw his body on the floor saw scenes of a struggle and lots of violence in the house [Music] officer mason johnson would be called to the scene as he entered the rectory the full extent of the attack was plain to see i arrived at the scene and he was lying there and he was tortured his neck was cut his chest was cut jaw was broken they found just an exceptional degree of violence and they found father smith badly beaten and he had expired an autopsy would later reveal an even more shocking aspect to the killer's attack he had jumped on father smith and separated the ribs from their sternum to attack a clergyman in the middle of a small community like this and for someone to come into his home and subject him to absolute violence and torture i think any investigator really believes that this thing has gone over the ledge and really there's no turning back now for whoever this is responsible for this many of these people will barricade themselves in their homes tonight praying for the nightmare to end as police took on board the fourth murder to hit the mirror machine in just six months the sadistic nature of the crimes left them in no doubt what they were dealing with this person would have to be an animal this person would have to be a person without any conscience and one name stood out above all others a 41 year old prisoner on the run local man alan legere you mentioned alan was here everybody in the members she knew the name allen was here he was violent and sometimes it could be utterly unpredictable [Music] it's fair to assume that if anything bad happened almost year was part of it where people said he was part of it and three years previously the notorious legere had been involved in a similarly brutal attack inflicted on elderly stall keepers john and mary glenn denning [Music] the culprits had gone into the home and beaten them as part of a robbery this was a robbery obviously that had gone bad [Music] legere and his two accomplices had remained in the couple's home for a number of hours tragically the brutal onslaught led to the death of john glenn denning whilst his wife was left with horrific injuries if you could have seen her face and the beating that she took i've never seen a woman display as much courage she went through a torture and a sexual assault she was basically on her deathbed when she was brought to the hospital although three men had been implicated thirty-eight-year-old alan lajeer was identified as the ringleader with two young accomplices these young fellas weren't known for the violence that legere was known for it's not the kind of thing that 18 and 19 year olds would do even if they were after money it went beyond what any kind of like small time criminal would be doing this year was seen as the instigator the leader probably the planner an older criminal working two younger criminals alan legere was sentenced to life in prison once inside he appeared to be willing to conform very quickly al-nazir became a model prisoner once he got inside prison no moss no fuss no trouble but despite his placid demeanor alan legere was not intending to spend the rest of his days behind bars he observed the place but most of all what he did was build a rapport with the guards he was seating the ground he was looking for an opportunity where he could try to make a dash for it in may 1989 legere put his master plan into action he took urine and he lay down he put the urine in his left ear and his ear would get infected so he eventually had to see a specialist now to see a specialist he knows he has to leave the institution prison guards would accompany the notorious killer to a hospital in moncton he had it all planned he had the antenna from his television snapped off hidden inside a cavity in his body he had a makeshift key he had a jacket that he was carrying to hide where his handcuffs were he was able to loosen his feet shackles and his handcuffs but they did look like they were still on when the jai arrived at the hospital he created an opportunity to separate himself from the accompanying guards he says i've got to use the bathroom he could convince them to let their guard down so that they would give him just that inch of leeway of course when they get in the washroom you've only 10 seconds to take his handcuffs off having freed himself legere then extracted the television antennae from his body he came out of the washroom waving the tv aerial at the two guards like it was a weapon they don't have guns all they've got is a bit of tear gas and a canister and by the time they realize what's happening he's headed out the door and they're trying to spray the back of his head with the tear gas it was all planned as legere attempted to flee the scene he hastily made his way through the hospital car park the first car he came to belonged to outpatient peggy olive well it all happened so quickly because he just opened the door and pushed me over he said he was being held for murder and the fact that he was holding something to my throat and i thought this is the end of my life and everything sort of flashed through my mind despite the situation he doesn't seem to be running on adrenaline he's running at a very calm pace that's not what a normal person would be able to do with legere at the wheel peggy would see more than one side to the convicted killer during her terrifying he'd be a ordeal guy like threatening and then he'd be try to be the nice guy so his personalities were changing constantly i felt he was capable of anything despite her concerns the carjacking would end without bloodshed when he did let me go he said oh and i won't harm your car either there was a feeling he just exuded evil it was this terrifying feeling you had even now i can recall how i felt he gets her out of the vehicle he takes the vehicle he drives to a section of moncton that he knows he dumps the vehicle despite a heightened state of alert the fugitive would vanish into thin air as the manhunt continued many including miramichi police officer bob bruce were convinced he would not return to his homeland we felt that he was so well known in this area that it would be almost like uh why come back to some place where i'm going to be arrested right away [Music] the assumption was what do small town hoods do when they escape from prison they disappear little did we know that wasn't what was going to happen in may 1989 convicted killer alan legere was on the run following a brazen escape from a moncton hospital although his whereabouts were unknown his homeland of the miramishi had been subjected to a campaign of murder fueling rumors that the fugitive may have returned to the area [Music] 41 years previously in 1948 alan legere had been born in chatham head a troubled neighborhood on the banks of the miramishi river you didn't bike through there walk through there there was a rough area to go to it was poor there were homes there where it would have been very difficult to find enough to eat it wasn't unusual for people to struggle to get enough to just keep their house warm in the winter as a single mother louise legere rented out rooms in the family house to make ends meet one of her lodges would father her fourth child alan before skipping town [Music] he grew up without any kind of father influence or father figure to look up to alan's relationship with his mother was difficult she was someone who wasn't terribly selective with her partners and she would bring them into the home and the walls probably weren't terribly well insulated you'd be fully aware of the fact that she brought somebody into the house i don't think that legere was a big fan of what his mother was doing it was not something that he was proud of adolescent boys need to see their mothers as asexual it is very very difficult for an adolescent boy to see their mother having sex even with their father but when an adolescent boy sees his mother in a very sexual way it's enormously destabilizing in their psychosexual development as alan legere progressed through his early childhood signs of inappropriate behavior would start to surface he had to share a bedroom with his sister and one of his i think strongest influences in his early life was watching his sister dress and undress he had these sexual urges from an early age and used to watch her undress outside the family home legere would divide opinion at school some people really liked him and thought he had a lot of potential as an artist and then there's others that thought he was just a horrible thug who was always involved in fights people who he liked felt that he was bright and had potential people that he didn't like they were afraid of him legere's troubled childhood would ultimately be forged by a family tragedy when his elder brother was run over whilst walking over a local bridge as his mother grieved she would launch an extraordinary attack on her increasingly wayward younger son alan his mother just told him point blank [Music] i wish it was you and not your brother al nazir's mother resented him and it wasn't only his family that was growing tired of his troublesome behavior he wouldn't have been getting a lot of positive reinforcement inside the community i think it all just served weight on him [Music] you can see where the scars would be thirty-two years later in 1989 alan legere was a convicted killer on the run having escaped custody during a hospital visit in moncton as he continued to evade capture fears were growing that the fugitive may return home to the mirror machine intent on revenge many community people thought that legere had a need to get back and pay people back for his conviction feeling that he wasn't treated properly they said we want you to get your family and put them somewhere but they wouldn't leave home they said no you're staying here we're staying despite concerns three weeks would pass without incident but then officer mole was called to a house fire in the community of chatham so in 1989 this vacant lot on the left-hand side there would be a small grocery store and on the second floor would have been annie flam's residence annie had run the local store for a number of years annie flam was well known in the community sort of local kids would go there and buy candy at the store she was everybody's grandmother the popular 75 year old was known to be close to her sister-in-law niner who lived in the adjoining house annie flam and i know were just pillars of the community everybody loved them the house fire was devastating but despite the ferocity of the flames niner flam had managed to survive [Music] the entire house had been destroyed by fire and it was uh really a miracle that that nina herself had escaped the fire however majority of her body she was covered in second and third degree burns despite her injuries niner was able to reveal to police that the fire was not accidental they knew from talking briefly with nina flam that they had a very serious assault that had taken place a masked intruder had initially demanded money but had then subjected the elderly women to a prolonged attack before setting the building ablaze nina flam he had tied her to the bed strangled her she had feigned death so he left her for dead and she was able to get her restraints off her feet her bed was totally engulfed at that point and the room was in flames [Music] as investigators headed to the burnt out first floor they feared the worst for niners sister-in-law annie flam [Music] her remains were found in her bed with the covers tucked in didn't look as if she had gotten into bed voluntarily it rolled over and all they could normally would do to go to bed she was had been tucked in by someone she had been beautifully assaulted before before the fire the subsequent autopsy revealed that she had been beaten her jaw was broken [Music] the 75 year old had also been sexually assaulted before her death [Music] she expired on her own vomit because of the trauma of the injury she did not die from smoke inhalation it would actually be assault no rhyme no reason we could figure out why anybody would go in we could figure out maybe interrupt them but not to commit the violence against them that was so apparent he's targeting elderly victims because they're weak and they have very little ability to resist that shows just how weak and inadequate he feels internally the profile of the elderly victims and signs of theft at the scene for the hallmarks of the glenn denning murder committed by alan legere three years previously we knew that he had escaped but we had no evidence to say that he had actually come back to our area however investigators would be forced to re-evaluate when victim niner flam recalled a particular detail from her terrifying ordeal her attacker had worn a chain around his midriff a belly chain or a waist chain is uh it's consistent with a prisoner in the back of i think all of our minds legere was the prime suspect but without a single sighting authorities had little to go on as they desperately searched for leads they were unaware that the bloodshed in the mirror machine had only just begun [Music] in may 1989 the mirror machine suffered the brutal murder of 75 year old storekeeper annie flam with escaped killer alan legere rumored to be in the area fears were growing that the sadistic killing may have been the start of a random revenge campaign against the local community a lot of people thought well did i ever make him mad he might come looking for me he was out to hurt a lot of people in this area i have one son and three daughters and they were very intimidated a heightened state of alert the local terrain would hamper attempts to track him down i think the challenge for law enforcement in this area is that there's very dense woodland around the uh the communities themselves the surrounding area is all something like this so all our searches took us to areas that were very difficult to search although there were still no sightings of legere many believed the convicted killer was stalking the neighborhood under the cover of darkness [Music] part of the community sense of what legere was was that he was almost like the boogeyman people had to be careful what they said because they never knew if he was listening or not i could just feel lazier behind every bush there's a there's legere or just looking into the forest you think is he there somewhere watching like a specter ghost he's out there in the woods it was along that time frame when we were also starting to get some power complaints and one disturbed break-in offered up evidence that would be hard to ignore gentleman came home saw someone run into his yard he chased him however he was able to escape the next day the owner of the home went out and found a pair of eyeglasses [Music] we recovered them they were prescription glasses and they matched up to the same prescription glasses that was here had been issued in prison [Music] decades earlier alan had been renowned as a wayward teenager in the mirror machine area but despite his rebellious image legere felt his diminutive stature was holding him back he was small he was skinny and a neighborhood like that one if you were a bit lippy and talked too much somebody would give you a slap upside the head there was only one way to avoid that which was to be big enough they didn't dare do that to you bodybuilding would fast become one of alan legere's lifetime passions he went to the gym pretty well every day he was very muscular in his upper body and he would walk around with a t-shirt on or a little undershirt or no shirt he had the particular way of walking chest out that bodybuilder walk and he made sure people knew who he was he wants to demonstrate to others how powerful he is but he also wants to demonstrate to himself that he's not the weak inadequate inferior person that he really knows internally that he is behind the scenes legere also took great pleasure in his own brand of petty crime he prided himself of being able to go into a house or a trailer with the people at home and steal what he wanted there were stories of people waking up and he was standing over them in the bed basically just looking at them those who didn't wake would soon find out alan legere had paid them a visit he'd always leave something behind to let the homeowner know that he had been there they'd take out quoting and leave on the bed on top of the people that were sleeping he even cut the underwear off a female minister he was quite proud of being able to do things like that he enjoyed feeling control and power because he didn't have much else he didn't have the breaks in life that the richie's as he used to call them had although legere would live away from the area in moncton the focus of his crimes would remain on the mirror machine as his break-ins escalated police would find him hard to pin down as he went to extreme measures to cover his tracks he would take a hardcover book put it in the living room on the carpet reach underneath and light the pages on fire so that would work as a downdraft like almost like a stove and he could take an hour and a half to drive from here to moncton before the fire department got a call that the house was burning and if they checked him in moncton two hours later they're saying but he's here seven years later alan legere was a convicted killer on the run although he hadn't been sighted police suspected legere had returned home on a revenge campaign and was potentially involved in the chatham murder of 75 year old annie flam [Music] people did not want to talk about alan lazier they were scared if they said something to me that they were going to get targeted did not want their name to appear in print ever you could have a sighting of a prower two nights back to back and then there'd be a time frame of two weeks that there'd be absolutely nothing it was almost like a game for him he became a master at a woodiness for over six months the mirror machine would suffer just minor crimes but that would all change on the night of the 13th of october 1989 in the community of newcastle someone was walking by and saw flames coming from the home of london dharmadani linda 41 and donna 45 were both popular members of their close-knit community the donnie sisters who were an unmarried pair of sisters that lived in the former town of newcastle having investigated the arson attack and brutal murder carried out at the flam residence officer mole would try to remain objective as he approached the scene they notified us that they had had a fire that there had been casualties you don't want to jump straight to the fact that this is another homicide case tied to the one in chatham [Music] however when the investigator entered the building the horrific scene that lay before him left little doubt that the twisted killer had struck again [Music] i went inside just a degree of violence throughout the house was just incredible they find one body and then they find another body and then they look around and they see you know there's blood everywhere the fire police say was deliberately set to hide evidence of a grisly double murder [Music] the attacker had gone into the house had brutally beaten both of those girls had sexually assaulted them badly badly beaten broken bones [Music] the cause of death was strangulation and blunt trauma caused by severe blows to the to their head [Music] i saw both donnie's sisters photographs wow scary that somebody could do that to someone this is the man everyone is afraid of finding on the doorstep [Music] you just wonder how could somebody be so aggressive and brutal to other people way beyond what is necessary to kill the person he wants to destroy things he wants to destroy people someone had a house or an attachment to the house destroy it [Music] the dna analysis identified alan this year that it was his genetic material that was left at both of those crime scenes and with no specific vendettas against the victims it appeared that anyone in the mirror machi was a potential target it was that moment with that report i think that we began the dissent into what would be full-scale panic alan lagier is to be considered one of the most dangerous unwanted criminals in canada everyone knew that alan legere was out hunting after doug they were scared of prowess so your normal street blades which are pretty well on every second corner people are actually hiring streetlights in front of their home behind their homes so that their home would be totally illuminated in the darkness the white squad nickname was year race after allen was here i used to put sticks in my windows so you had to break glass to get in my house a couple of times police officers showed up on my lawn with dogs and they said the dog trailed him right to my back door a massive manhunt would focus its search at night but legere's knowledge of the area made him an elusive adversary these wooded areas are sort of like alan lazier's playground he was very familiar with him this is the areas where he grew up in we would come to a fence like this where we would have to climb over it he always seemed to know where the holes were in the fence lane so he could go through it on a rare occasion when officer bruce came close to capturing the fugitive he discovered they were dealing with an armed assailant it was one of the darkest nights i can ever remember working with pitch black and we were actually at a run down these tracks we must have got fairly close because we heard a gunshot and at the same time saw muzzle flash and we immediately dove off this track bed into the ditches on both sides or to to avoid being shot at after the first shot was fired it was just duck and continue running the second one was duck and don't get back up because we could not see anything to hit to even shoot at it was like we were chasing the ghost it was like he could see us somehow and we couldn't see him as the killer disappeared into the night many felt he was in complete control i think there was a sense in the community that alan lashear was rubbing his hands in glee that he had us where he wanted us as the search continued those who had lived alongside legere in his adult years would recall more than one side to the former mirror mushi resident the personality that seemed to draw people in i've talked to many many people over the years that met him and say my god was he ever nice he helped with the dishes and he was just the nicest guy in the world he was a little bit dangerous a little bit exciting he married he had kids it looked like he was going to somehow find his way into sort of at least the lower middle class and yet he couldn't seem to hold that together he wanted to be perceived as someone strong and powerful and competent and he tried to even convince himself of that but his feelings of inferiority were just too overpowering for him and so he constantly tried to compensate increasingly out of work alan legere would look to make his mark in other ways [Music] i think if you're a reasonably bright person who's stuck in the wrong side of the tracks and you're looking for a way to sort of right that wrong if you become known as fearsome that gives you the right to swagger into a room and i think alan desperately wanted it and he'd found an avenue that allowed him to become the person inside the community that he felt he always should have been he definitely wanted the community to know who he was he had very piercing eyes and when he talked to you he liked to get right up close which would intimidate you into stepping back a step he was unpredictable in a way that people didn't understand and once he went off there were no limits there were no bounds legere's animosity would become increasingly extreme as he targeted other elements of the mirror mushi community he expressed his disdain for the catholic church and then he would go on about the gold the wealth of the catholic church and then he would scare me he would win quote versus satanic verses oh it chills up my back three years later in december 1989 father james smith would become the fourth victim of a sadistic killing spree having linked legere to three of the murders police were convinced the fugitive had perpetrated the latest crime we were sure at this particular point that when the priest was killed there was no doubt that alanger was responsible it just seemed like this was the ultimate crime to really punish the community for whatever reason [Music] after the killing of father smith there was a recognition that we were the hunting ground that he was hunting us and as before alan legere had disappeared without trace and was free to kill again in 1989 escaped fugitive alan legere was the prime suspect in the murders of four miramishi residents [Music] having evaded capture for more than six months the elusive killer had just fled the scene of father smith's murder and was known to have boarded a train to quebec when it was searched by police the police did walk up to him and they were told to look for a tattoo of an eagle on one of the shoulders they'd ask and few mind rolling up his sleeve and in that supernatural calm that he seemed to be able to call upon in situations like this he pulled up his sleeve there was no eagle on his arm they had the wrong arm having foiled authorities once more the fugitive had freedom in his sights he made it to montreal and he managed to pawn off some jewelry that he had stolen from the dhoni sisters you know he had money now so where was he gonna go but despite the obvious risks legere then made an extraordinary u-turn most people you think in his situation would just keep going try to get out of the country but why would you want to even just think of going back to the mirror machine but talon's year doesn't think like other people he hijacked the trucker and headed east which is back towards the mirror of miramichi and so everybody was made aware we could have roadblocks set up with the rcmp it was one of the roblox that actually condom although legere had eventually been cornered he was holding the truck driver captive at gunpoint there was a discussion that he would fight to the death and i said no he's a coward he's going to give himself up al nazir comes out of the truck and basically says yeah it's me you got me he surrendered quietly meekly no moss no fuss legere only wants to display his violence and aggression where he knows he can win he'll do it with an elderly woman or someone who's weak and disabled in some way then he'll show how violent he is but with armed police officers no he'll just give up and end it right there [Music] news of legere's arrest would offer huge relief to the miramushi community it was like a dream come true finally he's in custody there was really there was jubilation after he was taken to custody [Music] part way through the day i heard church bells ringing and i realized that the church bells were ringing not because it was noon but because alan had been captured it was a huge relief it was a huge relief to me like that's the happiest story i ever wrote in my life two years later alan legere would be found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder [Music] the witness statement provided by survivor niner flam would play a major role in his conviction [Music] anyone listening to her testimony really felt for the situation that she was in not only that night in that room but what she suffered since and how she's had to deal with it as life finally returned to normal for the residents of the mirror machine many were left wondering why one of their own had waged such a brutal war on their community mr legere always thought people were able to get prosecutors police officers the average person that's just the way he was he lived a fairly disadvantaged life as a young person in the community saw what other people had and in committing these crimes i think he saw it as an opportunity to kind of get even but was it just alan legere's challenged upbringing that sparked his murderous campaign or was he born to kill el nino was born a psychopath i think it was a mental disorder he was born with and he doesn't have any conscience now we do something wrong we've got a conscience but helen was your show no caring and no remorse i wouldn't say he was necessarily a born killer but he certainly had these predispositions and they emerged and he just felt so weak inside that he just was living his whole life to compensate for it and to let people think that he was something other than what he really is lots of people grow up with hard knocks in their lives and people go through horrible things when they're young but they don't go out and kill people so he had to have it in him from birth to kill because there's how else would you explain it [Music] decades later alan reign of terror is now an horrific chapter from the past but the community of the miramishi is yet to erase this brutal killer from its memory obviously the family members of our victims their relatives the community itself has scarred a lot of turmoil and they'll never forget but as a community we will survive and hopefully be better from it al nazir makes news every time his name is mentioned he still frightens people it's raw they're convinced decades after he did it the first time that if he gets out he would do it again and those who knew him well are convinced that the convicted killer has only one thing on his mind he called me from the pen he wanted to speak to me he wanted his television back so i said does that television been searched the way it should have been well we think so i said you better search it again because there's a reason he wants his tv back so they looked into the tv again and they found a couple more handcuff keys he started then planning his next escape i'm sure he's thinking about it right now i'm sure he doesn't pass a minute of his day without thinking about getting back to that community and how he can do it [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 44min 15sec (2655 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020