Around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 16, 1979, a call came in to Taxis Modernes requesting a cab at the south end of Pierre Le Gardeur bridge. This bridge across Rivière-des-Prairies connects the district of Charlemagne with Pointe-aux-Trembles, the northern tip of Montréal Island. The caller was a 20-year-old man who had hitchhiked across the bridge from his home in Charlemagne but he needed a taxi to take him further down the island to Ville d'Anjou where he worked as a freight elevator operator in a warehouse. The man's car had been inoperable since August and he owed $3,000 on a bank loan. Jean Deraspe, 28, was dispatched to pick up the caller. He was married and a young father. Before Mr. Deraspe reached the bridge Taxis Modernes driver Robert Bertin happened by. When the caller darted out of a phone booth and flagged him down, Mr. Bertin explained that another taxi was already dispatched and would be there shortly to pick him up. When they got to his destination, the man told Mr. Deraspe that he did not have enough money to cover the $9.00 fare and offered to pay him later, leaving his driver's license and insurance papers as collateral. Mr. Deraspe refused whereupon the killer slashed his neck with a hunting knife, inflicting a deep, seven-inch wound that severed his jugular vein. He then robbed the driver of $30 and ran off. Mr. Deraspe was able to call for help before he lost consciousness. The company's telephone operator, Francine Soucy, heard him say "Quick! I need the police!" and then a few seconds later, "I need an ambulance! My throat's slashed!" He bled to death before help arrived. The killer used a false name when calling for a taxi but police had a good description of him from Mr. Bertin. Mr. Deraspe's final location also pointed to the killer's destination. He was arrested three days after Mr. Deraspe's murder. The killer confessed to the murder but said he did not know why he attacked Mr. Deraspe. He told police that he discarded the knife along a railway track while running away from the murder scene. Two dozen police officers scoured the area and found the knife after a lengthy search. The killer's father later identified it in court. Mr. Deraspe's murder created so much shock and anger among his family and Montréal taxi drivers that extra guards were assigned to the coroner's inquest. The killer's dispassionate account of how he killed Mr. Deraspe provoked even more outrage. Two taxi drivers had to be restrained from assaulting the killer at the courtroom door and others hurled abuse and threats at him. The killer's use of a false name actually helped to incriminate him as the man who called Taxis Modernes. Months earlier, when his car was still running, he was in the habit of gassing up at a particular service station. A former pump attendant testified that the killer used the same false name. [Next column]

Pierre Le Gardeur Bridge, September 16, 1974; photo by Rhéal Benny (Source: Archives de Montréal, [Dossier] D122 - Pont Le Gardeur et pont du C.N.-Pointe-aux-Trembles/Ile Bourdon, VM94-B122-003) Between the coroner's inquest and his murder trial the killer changed his story. He now claimed that he saw a bag containing what looked like drugs on the floor of the taxi, and when Mr. Deraspe saw him notice this he pulled a knife. The killer struggled with Mr. Deraspe and killed him in self defence. Needless to say, no weapon or drugs were found in Mr. Deraspe's blood-soaked taxi. The killer was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for fifteen years. The jury had recommended a minimum of at least ten years. In arriving at this sentence Judge Louis Paradis said he took into account the killer's young age and absence of criminal record. However, he also noted a psychiatrist's report that the killer had been "terrorized" by his father from childhood. This treatment inculcated a mixture of fear and admiration that caused him to take on his father's exaggerated aggressiveness. There could be no question of his rehabilitation in the short term, and until that happened he would be an "extreme danger" to others. Judge Paradis also stated that "taxi drivers are easy targets and very vulnerable, and the deterrent effect needs to be sufficiently great to make anyone think twice who would contemplate repeating such an act." The killer appealed his sentence on the grounds that Judge Paradis had not instructed the jury sufficiently on points of law relating to self-defence. In March, 1982, the Québec Superior Court dismissed his appeal and confirmed his sentence.