Nighttime podcast recap: The Monster of the Miramichi

Warning: This story contains explicit details that may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is advised.

In this episode of the Nighttime podcast, host Jordan Bonaparte is joined by Rick Maclean (editor of Miramichi Leader, and author of Terror’s End: Allan Legere on Trial and Terror: Murder and Panic in New Brunswick) who provides his account of the many twists and turns that unfold in the story of Allan Legere, the Monster of the Miramichi.

Allan Joseph Legere was born in Chatham, New Brunswick on February 13, 1948.

On the evening of of June 21, 1986, Legere and his accomplices, Todd Matchett and Scott Curtis, broke into a grocery store belonging to John and Mary Glendenning just after they had closed up for the night.  After repeatedly beating the Glendennings, the trio fled the scene. Mary regained consciousness and discovered her husband had been beaten to death; she crawled up the stairs to the phone and dialed 911.

Police tracked down the three and arrested them. Matchett pleaded guilty to murdering John Glendenning and brutally beating his wife, Mary; Curtis and Legere were convicted at trial in January 1987.

On 3 May 1989, Allan Legere escaped from custody on a visit to the hospital. After hijacking a car, Legere vanished into the woods.

Within three weeks of his escape, sisters-in-Law Annie and Nina Flam were attacked. On May 29, 1989, firefighters received reports of a fire at Flam’s Grocery. Upon arrival, firefighters discovered Nina Flam barely alive. Legere tied her up, beat her and sexually assaulted her before tucking her in bed and setting the room on fire. Annie Flam did not survive, and when forensic officers examined the body, they concluded she had been subjected to a similar attack.

A few months later, on October 13, 1989, Donna and Linda Daughney, two sisters living together, were attacked and found inside their home in an upstairs bedroom. Both had been beaten, sexually assaulted and then badly burnt by the flames of the fire Legere set prior to leaving their home.

A month later on 16 November 1989, Allan Legere carried out his final attack. Father James Smith was found on the floor of his office near his safe. The Pastor had been subjected to torture as his body displayed numerous horrific injuries.

One week after the murder of Father Smith, on November 24, 1989, Legere was recaptured following a failed carjacking.

His trial featured the first Canadian use of DNA profiling to convict him, and in November 1991, Legere was convicted of the murders committed while he had been at large.

In 2015, he was transferred to the maximum-security Edmonton Institution in Alberta.

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