Shortly before 10 p.m. Mr. Bergeron picked up a 20-year-old man at the corner of St. Catherines Street and St. Lawrence Boulevard. The man was awaiting trial for the murder of 16-year-old Roger Arneault on June 28, 1976. Mr. Arneault and a friend were at Place Des Nations in Man and His World, the crumbling site of Montréal's 1967 World's Fair, when they were confronted by four men who demanded Mr. Arneault's leather jacket. When Mr. Arneault refused he and his friend were beaten up and stabbed. Mr. Arneault died of his wounds. The man Mr. Bergeron picked up had not taken part in the actual attack on Mr. Arneault but acted as a lookout. He was released on his own recogizance on February 10, 1977 to await his trial. The man was carrying a paper bag which, unbeknownst to Mr. Bergeron, contained a loaded .22-calibre semi-automatic pistol. The man had purchased the gun earlier that day and loaded it with ammunition that he later bought at the downtown Eaton's sporting goods department. The man asked Mr. Bergeron to drive to St. Bruno on Montréal's South Shore. The man had lived in St. Bruno and still had friends there. Mr. Bergeron was suspicious enough of his fare to ask for $20 in advance which the man paid. When they arrived in St. Bruno the man noticed that a police car was following them. He was well known to the St. Bruno police and, hoping to evade them, ordered Mr. Bergeron to drive down a side street. When the police car also turned down the side street the taxi suddenly sped away, jumped a curb, and came to rest in a vacant lot adjacent to a wooded area. The patrol officers heard at least one shot and saw an armed man run from the taxi into the woods. When the officers looked in the taxi they found Mr. Bergeron's body slumped in the front seat. He had been shot four times in the head and twice in the abdomen. The St. Bruno police called in the Sureté du Québec who sent more than 50 patrol cars to the scene along with helicopters and tracking dogs. The police scoured the area around Mount Bruno, checking houses, back yards and wooded areas, but with no success. Meanwhile Mr. Bergeron's killer eluded the dragnet and hitch-hiked back to downtown Montréal where he spent the evening at a club with friends. Police caught up with him later the same week. At his preliminary hearing the killer claimed that after they turned down the side street Mr. Bergeron became nervous and wanted to know what was in the paper bag. When he grabbed for the bag the killer pulled out the gun and shot him. The killer claimed that Mr. Bergeron deliberately sped away and wouldn't let him out of the cab. "He was trying to kill me.... If he had gotten the gun he would have shot me... It was either him or me." The killer said his intent was to sell the gun at a profit in St. Bruno, but this did not explain why it was loaded. On November 30 the killer pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was given the automatic sentence of life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole before 15 years. The killer was also convicted of second degree murder in the case of Roger Arneault. The jury recommended that he serve ten years before being eligible for parole, but Justice B.J. Greenberg increased this to 18 years, saying that clemency shown the accused in the past had produced no results and "the court must assume its responsibilities toward society." The killer had been in trouble with the law since he was twelve and had 20 convictions before he killed Mr. Bergeron. [Next column]	The intersection of St. Catherines Street and St. Lawrence Boulevard was the core of Montreal's freewheeling vice district for decades until the late 1950s when it began to succumb to urban renewal and tougher law enforcement. Nevertheless it was still notorious in 1977 as a hangout for criminals. Nowadays the Red Light District is a respectable Montréal tourist destination and surviving venues are featured on a walking tour. (Source: Walk Montreal: The Red Light District) Under the law at that time the killer's participation even as a lookout made him guilty of murder. The prison sentences for the two murder convictions were made concurrent. The 21-year-old man who actually stabbed Mr. Arneault to death was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 25 years. Also charged were the 21-year-old brother of Mr. Bergeron's killer and a 17-year-old juvenile. Less than 16 years after his murder convictions, in 1992, Mr. Bergeron's killer was paroled. He disappeared shortly afterward and remained at large until January 1994, when he was stabbed by a woman in a Vancouver hotel. Mr. Bergeron was 62 at the time of his death and drove for Diamond Taxi. One of the cab drivers who attended his funeral was René Brisebois, 46, who had suffered two assaults in the previous year. "When I saw Bergeron in the coffin I got scared, really scared, for the first time since I have been driving a taxi. I kept thinking to myself how that could be me one day." As a result Mr. Brisebois became the first Montréal taxi owner to have a bullet-proof shield installed in his cab. He drove it to New York and used his savings and rent money borrowed from his wife to have the $300 shield installed. "I feel more relaxed," said Mr. Brisebois. "I'm not afraid of being jumped from behind." He said there were no complaints from customers and some said they liked the privacy of riding in a shielded cab. A Kung Fu student offered to double the fare if he couldn't break the partition by punching it. "It was the easiest three bucks I ever made," said Mr. Brisebois.