Quebec man dies, leading to disabled brother’s death – possibly by starvation

Quebec provincial police officers investigating the deaths of two brothers, including one suffering from Down syndrome, said Monday that the two died of natural causes after the caretaker died and left his brother unable to care for himself.

Police said they were called to a home in St.-Jude, 75 kilometres northeast of Montreal, Sunday night after a man discovered the bodies of his two brothers when he stopped by their home.

The death of Jean-Guy Roy, 59, who was looking after Richard, 46, left the latter "unable to take care of himself" and unable to feed himself, said Richard Gagne of the provincial police. "(Richard) passed away a little later on," but added it will be for the autopsies, in the coming days, to determine the time of the deaths.

When Richard’s mother died a few years ago, Jean-Guy – a man of limited education and few financial means – was left to care for his disabled younger brother, said a neighbour Monday.

Jean-Guy, who rarely went out and had few contacts with neighbours, started reaching out to him for help, recalled Eric Sirois, who lived two doors down the Roy family home.

"He would come to me to help him read letters or instructions," he said. "That’s when I found out he couldn’t read or write and that’s when I started knowing him."

Sirois said he last saw Jean-Guy about three weeks ago when he needed help assembling something he had purchased on television.

Police confirmed the deaths and involved criminal investigators in the case but by Monday afternoon a doctor confirmed the deaths were of natural causes. The bodies were found in an advanced state of decomposition, police said, and may have been in the home for several days.

While Sirois said he wasn’t aware of specific health problems haunting Jean-Guy, Sirois said he noticed his body shaking increasingly over the years – lately with such violence the chain-smoker was not able to light his own cigarette.

"He lived not more than 40 feet from my house but he would sometimes arrive out of breath, you would think he had hiked uphill for three kilometres," he said. "He left me with the impression his health was getting worse."

Sirois said that the two brothers lived with limited means, probably relying on welfare to survive and any assistance Jean-Guy would get from the government for supporting his brother.

But Sirois said Jean-Guy lived in fear authorities would eventually consider the poor state of their home and consider him "unfit to care for his brother."

He lived under constant fear they would "take him away from me," Sirois recalled the elder brother as saying.

The two, he said, both needed each other, one for general care and basic necessities, the other to fight loneliness. Especially, Sirois added, considering the brothers spoke only to the owner of the local convenience store and occasionally squabbled with their immediate neighbour.

Sirois said he was amazed by the bond uniting the two brothers.

Jean-Guy "loved and would do anything" for Richard, Sirois said.

This is the latest tragedy to strike the community of St. Jude after a family of four died in a landslide in May.

With files from the Montreal Gazette