The Serial Killer Compendium

By this time, police had arrived and had assembled outside. Several went to cover the exits, lest the gunman slip away, but it took nearly twenty minutes before they decided to enter. They were not certain where he was and did not wish to endanger anyone. Calls went to a dispatcher for more ambulances, and those wounded students who could walk on their own went to meet them at the roadblocks.

Lepine then walked up an escalator to the third floor where he shot and wounded one female and two male students in the corridor. He entered another classroom and told the three students giving a presentation to 'get out,' shooting and wounding Maryse Leclair, who was standing on the low platform at the front of the classroom. He fired on students in the front row and then killed two women who were trying to escape the room; other students dove under their desks. Lepine fired towards some of the female students, wounding three of them and killing another.

He changed the magazine in his weapon and moved to the front of the class, shooting in all directions. At this point, the wounded Leclair asked for help. Maryse Leclair was down, but still alive. She pleaded for assistance, which attracted the gunman back to her. Those who survived this bloodbath recounted for newspapers what he did next. The strange young man sat down next to the wounded woman, quietly pulled a knife from the sheath strapped to his body, and used it to stab her in the heart. She screamed in surprise and pain. This violent act shocked those who were watching. The man had no mercy, but there was nothing anyone could do. He pulled the knife out and then plunged it in twice more until the girl laid silent, blood gushing from her wounds.

The gunman said, “Ah, shit.” He turned the rifle’s barrel toward his own face, pressed the muzzle against his forehead, and pulled the trigger. The rifle exploded, blowing off part of his skull and he fell to the floor. No one moved. The place smelled of hot metal, gunpowder, and fresh blood. Nevertheless, clearly it was over.

About sixty bullets remained in the boxes he carried with him. He had killed fourteen women in total (twelve engineering students, one nursing student, and one employee of the university) and injured fourteen other people, including four men.

As police came in, Montreal Police Director of Public Relations Pierre Leclair entered the building and went from one floor to another to assess the situation. Through a window in the third-floor corridor, he saw a young woman lying on a platform, on her back. He stopped. He could not believe what he was seeing. It was his daughter. Rushing to her, he realized that she was among those who had been killed; more horribly, she had been stabbed as well as shot.

It would take a while to piece together why Lepine had caused so much slaughter, but he had stated enough about his intent for students to tell reporters that his rampage had been anti-feminist. He had wanted to shoot only women.

A three-page letter was found in the pocket of his jacket. The letter was never officially made public, but was leaked in November of 1990 to Francine Pelletier, and published in the newspaper, La Presse. In his suicide letter, Lepine cited political motives, blaming feminists for ruining his life. He considered himself rational and expressed admiration for Denis Lortie, who had mounted an attack on the Quebec National Assembly in 1984 for political reasons, killing three Quebec government employees. The letter also contained a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lepine apparently wished to kill because of their feminism. Another letter, written to a friend, promised the explanation to the massacre lay by following clues left in Lepine's apartment. The hunt led only to a suitcase of computer games and hardware.

The following is a translation of the suicide letter written by Lepine on the day of the shooting:

“Forgive the mistakes, I had 15 minutes to write this. Would you note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker. For seven years life has brought me no joy and being totally blase, I have decided to put an end to those viragos. I tried in my youth to enter the Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal and precede Lortie in a raid. They refused me because antisocial (sic). I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite my theory of not handing in work and the lack of studying before exams. Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men. Thus it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games removed the Men-Women distinction, there would be Women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic they [do not][71] neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontline during the world wars. How can you explain that since women were not authorized to go to the frontline??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed. A real Casus Belli. Sorry for this too brief letter.” Marc Lepine

The following is a list of those senselessly killed in cold blood on December 6, 1989. God bless them:

Genevieve Bergeron, 21, was a second year scholarship student in Civil Engineering.

Helene Colgan, 23, was in her final year of Mechanical Engineering and planned to take her Master's degree.

Nathalie Croteau, 23, was in her final year of Mechanical Engineering.

Barbara Daigneault, 22, was in her final year of Mechanical Engineering and held a teaching assistantship.

Anne-Marie Edward, 21, was a first year student in Chemical Engineering.

Maud Haviernick, 29, was a second year student in Engineering Materials, a branch of Metallurgy, and a graduate in Environmental Design.

Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31, was a second year Engineering student specializing in Engineering Materials.

Maryse Laganiere, 25, worked in the budget department of the Polytechnique.

Maryse Leclair, 23, was a fourth year student in Engineering Materials.

Anne-Marie Lemay, 27, was a fourth year student in Mechanical Engineering.

Sonia Pelletier, 28, was to graduate the next day in Mechanical Engineering. She was awarded a degree posthumously.