A 51-year-old man is facing murder charges after the deaths of three women in what police say was a deadly rampage in the Quebec city of Shawinigan.

Sylvain Duquette was arrested at a Shawinigan gas station after deadly encounters at two nearby residences in the town 150 kilometres west of Quebec City that left three women, including the wife of his deceased brother, dead. Duquette’s father, was also injured at one of the homes.

Early Wednesday evening, at around 7 p.m., Duquette allegedly killed Jocelyne Pellerin, his stepmother, and tried to murder his 80-year-old father, Claude Duquette, at a home in Saint-Mathieu-du-Parc, just outside of the Shawinigan city limits.

Radio-Canada reported Pellerin was tied up before being shot and that the alleged killer’s father was sprayed with gasoline, but managed to escape.

In the second incident, two women, Denise Hallé and Jeannette Lauzon Toupin, were murdered at a residence located a short drive from the site of the first killing. That home was also set on fire.

The suspect was arrested at a Shawinigan gas station later in the night. In a Thursday court appearance, he was formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder for each of the slain women. He is also charged with kidnapping and attempted murder in the attack on his father as well as a charge of arson.







Last week, on March 30, Duquette posted a screed on his Facebook page in which he shared his bitter feelings about his sister-in-law, Hallé, and his father, Claude Duquette.

The accused killer wrote that he was being evicted to make room for visitors in the house where he had been living along with the wife of his brother, who died of cancer in December. Duquette wrote that he had wanted to stay until June.

“I find it repugnant to see these ingrates to put their friends ahead of family,” Duquette remarked in his Facebook post.

He also wrote that his father mistreated his deceased mother and his three siblings.

“He ruined her life … as well as ours by despising us and treating us like furniture or family-assistance cheques that he cashed to build his own personal fortune,” Duquette wrote.

March 29 was the four year anniversary of the death of Duquette’s mother, according to the woman’s 2013 death notice.

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Pellerin, the woman killed at the second residence, is the second wife of Duquette’s father.

Also in the Facebook message, Duquette wrote: “Why do some fathers despise their children and use them as slaves, promising the sea and the land without ever keeping their promises ... You shouldn’t do that because it could have a lifetime of repercussions on those children and one day they may take revenge for the harm that has been done.”

The man was arrested around midnight at a gas station. Photographs of the arrest showed a silver Dodge vehicle with a red gas can sitting on the ground. Radio-Canada reported that police also found weapons in the vehicle, including a gun and a knife.

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