Nearly two decades after Robert Tanguay was killed in cold blood, a jury has found the man who orchestrated his slaying guilty of first-degree murder.
The jury in the trial of John Boulachanis was in its fourth day of deliberation Saturday at the Gouin courthouse when it came in with its decision late in the day.
The jury had begun hearing evidence on Oct. 6 and heard from two of the accomplices in the murder who said Boulachanis organized everything and shot Tanguay in August 1997 after having him lured to a sandpit in Rigaud. He was buried in a hole in the sand that had been prepared before he even arrived.
It appeared Boulachanis was having an affair with Tanguay’s spouse and wanted to get rid of him. But he had told at least one of the accomplices he believed Tanguay was a police informant and had been ratting them out on the stolen car ring all four men were involved in.
Tanguay’s remains were only discovered in September 2001 and, by then, Boulachanis had fled Canada, knowing full well the Sûreté du Québec considered him one of the suspects in Tanguay’s disappearance. He was a fugitive for years — living in Greece, Ontario and the U.S. — before the SQ, police in Ontario and the U.S. Marshals Service put together a trail of fake identities that led them to find Boulachanis operating as a pilot in Florida in 2011.
The case appeared to be open and shut based on the volume of the evidence. But the jury still required four days to reach its decision. On Thursday, they asked the presiding judge, Justice Michael Stober, a series of questions that suggested there was possibly a debate on whether they should convict him of first or second-degree murder. In the end they chose first-degree murder, the most serious criminal charge in Canada’s Criminal Code.
The conviction comes with an automatic life sentence and Boulachanis will not be eligible for full parole until he has served at least 25 years behinds bars.
