Claude Wilson, 56, was well known in Saint-Jérôme and the surrounding area. He had been a municipal councillor from 1971 to 1982, was a server in a restaurant and ran a bakery with his brother. Marcel St. Louis, president of Taxi Saint-Jérôme, called him "the best driver in the gang." Mr. Wilson was married with three grown children, two of whom were also taxi drivers in Saint-Jérôme. Early in the evening of Friday, December 9, 1988 Mr. Wilson was dispatched to pick up a caller at a convenience store at the corner of Melançon and Ouimet streets. That was the last anyone heard from him. Concern mounted as the night wore on. Other Taxi Saint-Jérôme drivers cruised the streets looking for him. At about 10 a.m. Saturday morning Mr. Wilson's body was found in Sainte-Sophie, about 18 km (10 miles) northeast of Saint-Jérôme. He was lying next to a ditch along the road to Saint-Hippolyte. Part of the taxi's toplight was next to his body. The taxi was found later that day in the emergency entrance parking lot of the Saint-Jérôme hospital. Mr. Wilson had picked up an 18-year-old fare at the convenience store. The man was well known to police. When they got to Sainte-Sophie, the man ordered Mr. Wilson out of his car, robbed him of $350 and then fired at least four shots with a .44 calibre pistol. Mr. Wilson was hit in the head and abdomen. The killer then drove back to Saint-Jérôme, leaving Mr. Wilson at the roadside. That night the temperature dropped to minus 30 Celsius. A witness at the convenience store provided a description of the killer and police circulated an artist's sketch. The man was arrested the next day. The killer was one of nine chldren whose father had made several suicide attempts, including one on the evening of the murder. The killer himself had once attempted suicide and told police that he had intended to kill himself rather than Mr. Wilson when he called for a taxi. In sentencing the the killer to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for ten years, Judge Jacques Ducros took note of "the sad story" of the killer's life, as well as his "low intellectual level, precarious moral values and limited education."

Corner of Melançon and Ouimet, Saint-Jérôme, Québec, in September, 2012. ( Source: Google Street View) Judge Ducros said that the killer's probable rehabilitation was the most important factor for the court to take into account. He would not impose any limit on parole eligibility beyond ten years, leaving that up to the discretion of parole board. Mr. Wilson's family expressed their unhappiness with the sentence as they left the courtroom.