Gilbert Pépin, 32, was murdered by the same killer who murdered Jacques Côté on October 31, 1961. Mr. Pépin lived in Drummondville, QC, 110 km (69 miles) northeast of Montréal, where he had worked over the summer in an ice cream plant. The work was seasonal and when he was laid off he was hired as a driver for Diamond Taxi in Victoriaville, about 55 km (35 miles) northeast of Drummondville. Mr. Pépin started working for Diamond Taxi on Monday morning, December 4, 1961. On Monday evening he was approached on the company's taxi stand by a man who evidently arranged a trip to Sainte-Angèle later that night. Sainte-Angèle was the ferry terminal across the St. Lawrence River from Trois-Rivières. Mr. Pépin was seen talking to the man about 8:30 p.m. The man turned out to be his murderer. Around 9:30 p.m. the man went to his brother's house to borrow money. His brother was not home and when the man's sister-in-law refused to loan him $10 he attacked her with a hammer, fracturing her skull. He hit her several times, injuring her hands and arms as she warded off the blows. The brother had recently sold Diamond Taxi to Mr. Pépin's employer and the sister-in-law owned a restaurant next door. She called for a food delivery about 9:15 p.m. but when the restaurant tried to call her back several minutes later she was already on the phone to the police. She was rushed to hospital in critical condition. At 12:25 a.m. Tuesday, December 5 a call came in Diamond Taxi asking for Mr. Pépin to pick someone up at the Saint-Pierre Garage on Notre Dame Avenue Street East. When the young woman call-taker left work at 1:30 a.m. Mr. Pépin had not returned. Shortly before noon on Tuesday school bus driver Antonio Parenteau found Mr. Pépin's body near Saint-Celestin, about 48 km (30 miles) northwest of Victoriaville on the road to Sainte-Angèle. [Next column]

The taxi driver had been shot once in the head with a .22 calibre bullet and was lying in the ditch. His shoes were dry, indicating that he had been dragged there. The killer had robbed him of about $40. After murdering Mr. Pépin the killer drove to Sainte-Angèle and left the taxi at the ferry dock. He was the only passenger on the 3:30 a.m. ferry and registered under an assumed name at a Trois-Rivières hotel. The killer's wife was hospitalized in Trois-Rivières, awaiting the birth of their first child. The killer visited her there and confessed to attacking his sister-in-law and murdering Mr. Pépin. He also telephoned the hospital in Victoriaville to ask if his sister-in-law had died. Police interviewed the killer's wife about 9 p.m. and learned of the confession. They tracked down the 32-year-old killer about two hours later, sitting in a tavern adjacent to his hotel. He offered no resistance. "OK, it's me," he said. "My rifle is up in my hotel room. Be careful, it's loaded." He confessed to murdering both Gilbert Pépin and Jacques Côté. On December 14, 1961 a coroner's jury found the killer criminally responsible for the deaths of the two taxi drivers. However he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial and was ordered imprisoned in the Philippe Pinel Institute, the psychiatric wing of Bordeaux Jail. Eight years later the order was rescinded and he went to trial. In March, 1969, a jury found him not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and he was returned to Bordeaux. In February, 1970 the killer was seen back in Victoriaville. He had been granted supervised leave for 15 days.