OTTAWA – Camille Cléroux bludgeoned two of his wives to death with a rock and killed his neighbour because she wouldn’t give him her apartment before burying all three women in shallow graves, an Ottawa court heard Tuesday.
Cléroux, 58, admitted to killing ex-wives Lise Roy and Jean Rock and neighbour Paula Leclair, 64, over a two decade period beginning in 1990.
Cléroux pleaded to first-degree murder in the killing of Leclair. He pleaded to two counts of second-degree murder in relation to the other two women.
Roy’s body was found buried in the yard of the couple’s former Heatherington Road home while Leclair was found in a wooded area near the old Ottawa train yards near Walkley Road in June 2010. She had lived in the same apartment building as Cléroux.
Court heard how Paula Leclair’s son grew worried when he had not seen or heard from his mother in May 2010. He used a spare key to open the door and found her belongings and furniture missing. There were boxes everywhere.
At that point, Cléroux arrived at the apartment. He told Leclair’s son that she had gone on a trip and had left the apartment to Cléroux, court heard. Leclair’s son went to police who started an investigation that unravelled “a plot to conceal the murder of Paula Leclair,” court heard.
Cléroux told police that he did not like his own apartment and wanted to move in to Leclair’s because it “had a better view,” court heard. It also was bigger and had more room for his stuff.
When Leclair refused to share her apartment with her neighbour, Cléroux invited her for a walk on May 20, 2010 in Fairlea woods where he killed her in “cold blood” and buried her in a shallow grave he had dug ahead of time.
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It wasn’t his first murder.
Court heard Cléroux married Lise Roy in 1987. Roy already had a daughter when the couple had a son. In 1990, he killed her with a rock after a heated argument and buried her in the backyard of their home in unit 153 of 1535 Heatherington Road, leaving the two young children without a mother. Court heard that Cléroux “concocted a story” that Roy had assaulted him and left by bus to Montreal. All evidence of her existence ended in April 1990, aside from occasional stories told by Cléroux that he had seen Roy.
A neighbour later saw Cléroux hauling heavy garbage bags across Heatherington Road to a wooded area. Cléroux was an eccentric and the neighbour thought little of it.
It wasn’t until Oct. 31, 2011 – the same day witnesses were to start testifying about Roy’s disappearance in Cléroux’s preliminary hearing when city work crews found leg and other bones buried in the back yard of Cléroux’s former home. The bones were wrapped in butcher’s paper and appeared to have been moved to the garden from another spot.
Rock went missing in 2003. Court heard Cléroux buried her in a wooded area in Fairlea Park, but twice dug up her bones. The first time was when he noticed construction in 2004 on what is now Kiwanis Court. He moved Rock’s remains to another area of the park, but dug her up a second time in 2006 when he saw animals had disturbed them.
He eventually put the bones in a mesh onion bag and pushed them in a shopping cart from the spot they were buried near Albion Road to the Bronson bridge over the Rideau Canal. He weighed the bones down with rocks and dropped them into the water.
The bones were discovered in October 2006, but never identified until 2012, when Cléroux told them about it.
Though Rock had not been seen since a doctor’s appointment on Aug. 8, 2003, she was not reported missing because family members received handwritten letters signed by Rock two or three times a year between 2004 and 2010. Court heard that Cléroux paid a friend who had similar handwriting as Rock to write letters for $10 a piece. The letters explained that she had left Cléroux and was now living with a trucker named Pierre. Over the years, the letters announced the birth of three children, including photos.
Cléroux sat with his arms crossed in the prisoner’s box as Cavanagh described his crimes. A tight white sweatshirt clung to Cléroux’s pot belly while his long white beard and grey hair were unkempt.
Moments after the Crown had finished describing the letters, Rock’s father, who had been sitting in the front row, went into a seizure. As he was being helped out of the courtroom by family members, John Rock could be overheard saying “he’s an animal” and “how could he do that? Three women.”
Prior to the seizure, John Rock seemed agitated and kept walking in and out of the courtroom, often muttering under his breath about Cléroux.
Paramedics arrived to tend to him, but John Rock was eventually able to walk out of the courtroom.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Victim impact statements are expected to be read Monday afternoon.
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