Gérald Gallant

Gérald Gallant (born 5 May 1950) is a Canadian contract killer who admitted to committing 28 murders and 12 attempted murders between 1978 and 2003. Gallant typically killed in public by gunshots to the head, neck or chest, which became his trademark. His victims were mostly members of Quebec-based criminal gangs. Gallant was reportedly one of Canada's most prolific known killers.

Early life The fourth of five children, Gallant was born in the Chicoutimi borough of Saguenay, Quebec and dropped out of school with a fifth-grade education. His father was a meek man who worked as a foreman at the Alcan aluminum smelter in Arvida, and his mother was a domineering woman who physically and psychologically abused Gallant. Gallant's mother was unfaithful to his father and, as a child, Gallant witnessed her infidelities with other men. He later described her as the person he "respects the least in (his) life." Gallant struggled with a stutter, which made him the object of mockery from his family, and suffered from a heart condition and rheumatism in one leg. When asked during a Sûreté du Québec polygraph test on 6 December 2008 what the most traumatic experience of his life was, Gallant responded: "My childhood". According to tests he was given while in custody at the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary in 1978, Gallant's intelligence quotient was estimated at 88; the prison's orienteer Jean Olczyk wrote that he "has an intellectual potential below average". Other tests that Gallant underwent in detention showed that he possessed "above-average dexterity and digital coordination" in addition to being "accurate, focused and meticulous".

An insecure and withdrawn teenager, Gallant became involved in petty crime in order to "feel accepted" by others. He joined a local gang, the Cossacks, with whom he began breaking and entering at grocery and convenience stores in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, stealing cigarettes and selling them onto a contact. Gallant also held various jobs, at a hotel in Chicoutimi, a Steinberg supermarket and as a peat installer. Although the minimum age for drivers' licenses in Quebec was 21 at the time, Gallant forged the birth date on his baptistery and fraudulently gained a driving licence at 18. He smuggled narcotics at Cowansville for Desfossés, who controlled the prison's drug trade. Other gangsters who Gallant met at the penitentiary and who he later worked for or with were Denis Corriveau, who he described as a "great friend", Jean-Claude Gagné, and Raymond Bouchard, the West End Gang's lieutenant in the Quebec City area. He was paroled in September 1978 and lived in a mobile home in Port-Cartier with his wife Grassette and son, earning $260 per week as a tyre fitter. Gallant later admitted that he "pretended to be in love" with Grassette and stayed with her in order to avoid suspicion from probation authorities, although she described him as a "very good father" who "provided a lot of care and affection" according to a parole report. On 28 December 1978, Gallant committed his first murder when he helped a fellow former inmate, with whom he had served time at Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary, kill dancers' bar employee Gilles Legris, who had allegedly assaulted a female, in Port-Cartier. Legris was beaten to death with iron bars and his body was thrown from a dam in Sept-Îles. Gallant was taken under the wing of Desfossés, for whom he led a hashish trafficking ring and performed his first contract killing on 30 January 1980. Gallant was paid $45,000 by the police for the information he provided. Hubert, a hairdresser from Cap-de-la-Madeleine who Gallant referred to as his "Siamese twin", would later assist Gallant in eight murders. Lefrançois had refused to pay Gallant an outstanding $12,000 fee for the contract killing of Haince, who was executed two years earlier. Although Desfossés did not order the hit, he provided a driver, Réjean-Claude Juneau, for the murder. An autopsy of Côté found that he had been shot approximately thirty times with a 12 mm caliber rifle and at least three times with a .455 caliber revolver. The following year, Gallant assassinated West End Gang associate Richard "Ricky" McGurnaghan at the Olympic Tavern in Pointe-Saint-Charles in exchange for $12,000 from Desfossés after McGurnaghan was involved in a physical confrontation with Ross. In the spring of 1992, he suffered a heart attack and required bypass surgery. Although Gallant initially considered his career as a hitman finished due to his ill health, he eventually recovered and he committed four murders between March and August 1993. He became known as an extremely meticulous and confident killer, often spending several days monitoring his targets before determining the least risky place to attack, and always planning an escape route in order to flee without being apprehended. Gallant drove his Chrysler to and from numerous murders, using only stolen license plates, which were placed over his own using "big jumbo paper clips". He typically used .357 Magnum or .38 Special calibre firearms, which he discarded at the scene. According to the investigator Claude St-Cyr, much of Gallant's modus operandi was devised from a book he read about a New York City Mafia hitman. Following the killing of Bruno "Cowboy" Van Lerberghe, a member of the Hells Angels' Quebec City chapter who Gallant shot at a restaurant on 17 December 1996, Gallant was offered full membership in the Rock Machine, an invitation he declined. The murder of Leclerc was carried out on behalf of Raymond Bouchard of the West End Gang. Gérard Hubert accompanied Gallant during the hit, disguised as a woman. Gallant and Gérard Hubert received $20,000 from Marcel Demers for his assassination. Gallant held Demers responsible for the mistake as Demers had provided him with the license plate of Bergeron's vehicle rather than that of Robert's, and he collected a $20,000 fee from the Rock Machine for the botched assassination. Gallant later expressed remorse for her shooting. Duchaîne's brother, Bertrand, has survived two murder attempts by Gallant, in 1990 and 1993, and Gallant was informed by West End Gang member Raymond Bouchard, with who Gallant was involved in 16 murder contracts, that Duchaîne wanted to kill Gallant as well as his boss, Desfossés. With the assistance of Duchaîne's uncle, West End Gang associate Jean-Claude Gagné, Duchaîne was lured to Bouchard's garage in Beauport and shot dead by Gallant. His corpse was then taken to a garage in Sainte-Hélène-de-Breakeyville owned by Denis Corriveau, who dismembered the body. Duchaîne's remains were then incinerated, and the ashes were disposed of "in an empty gallon of paint", which Gallant and Corriveau filled with tar. He had accumulated $400,000 by selling high-end watches on the black market, and had scammed jewelry stores out of approximately $250,000 by using forged credit cards. In March 2009, he accepted a plea deal from Canadian authorities and pleaded guilty to 27 murders and 12 attempted murders. He received 48 life sentences with no eligibility for parole until 2033. All eleven co-conspirators, including the crime bosses Desfossés, Fred Faucher and Marcel Demers, pleaded guilty to their roles Gallant's killings.

Legacy The journalist Michel Auger said of Gallant: "He was the killer next door who looked like a parish priest, who was careful what he ate and got a lot of exercise... He was a guy with a lot of technique and a good memory. He could spend hours doing surveillance on his victims, but he made mistakes". The book was adapted by director Luc Picard and screenwriter Sylvain Guy for the 2021 film Confessions of a Hitman, starring Picard as Gallant.

List of murders committed by Gallant Name Date Notes Gilles Legris 28 December 1978 Legris was beaten to death with iron bars by Gallant and another man in Port-Cartier over a dispute involving a woman. Salvatore Luzi 28 May 1990 Luzi, who co-owned a Montreal strip club along with West End Gang leader Allan Ross, was shot in Lorraine in a contract given by Raymond Desfossés, allegedly on behalf of Ross. Jean-Marc Savard 1 March 2000 Savard was killed by Gallant in Charlesbourg. Robert Savard 7 July 2000 Hells Angels associate Savard was shot dead in a restaurant in Montréal-Nord as he dined with fellow loanshark Norm Descôteaux. Descôteaux and waitress Hélène Brunet were wounded by gunfire. Gérard Hubert was Gallant's accomplice. Yvon Daigneault 30 May 2001 Bar manager Daigneault was shot several times while working in Sainte-Adèle when he was mistaken for West End Gang associate Claude Faber. Michel Paquette was also wounded in the shooting. Raymond Desfossés had ordered the killing of Faber. Christian Duchaîne 12 March 2003 Duchaîne was lured to a garage in Beauport and shot by Gallant after he reportedly threatened the lives of Gallant and Raymond Desfossés. His corpse was then dismembered by Denis Corriveau and incinerated. Raymond Bouchard and Jean-Claude Gagné were accomplices.