Wrong Side of the Law (24 page)

On June 18, Groleau, Gagnon, and Jones were secretly spirited out of Bordeaux Jail to be turned over to American authorities. It was a sudden move that caught the prisoners and their lawyers by surprise. Before they left the jail, Groleau was heard to remark, “Rivard is sending us down there, and he’s going to pay for this one way or another.”

The three men were put in handcuffs and leg irons. Eleven RCMP officers armed with rifles and shotguns took them by automobile convoy to the United States Air Force base at Plattsburg, New York. There, under heavy guard, they boarded a Coast Guard Globemaster aircraft for a flight to Texas. That night they slept in the small jail in Laredo.

Rivard’s fellow escapee had been caught, and three of his partners in crime had been extradited. His name was in the papers and on the TV and radio news everyday as the Dorion hearings continued. But still the “Gallic pimpernel” remained elusive. Until July 16!

On June 11, a team of masked bandits struck the railway station in the tiny community of Larder Lake in northern Ontario, not far from the Quebec border. They seized five bars of gold bullion worth $164,000 that were being shipped from the Kerr Addison mine to the mint in Ottawa. The thieves then made a dramatic escape in a stolen light aircraft. The plane was eventually found 137 miles north of Montreal, but police believed it had made a stop near the city to unload the gold.

The OPP investigation soon focused on two men with long criminal records, Sebastian Boucher and Armand “Freddie” Cadieux. By the second week of July, Quebec Police and the RCMP had traced the pair to the community of Woodlands, a suburb of Chateauguay on the south shore of Lac St. Louis (the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers), about twenty miles from Montreal. An employee in a store there identified a photo of Boucher as that of a man who had recently been in the shop. People had also seen a jeep which police believed belonged to Cadieux. The store clerk had seen another man with Boucher, and his description was similar to Rivard’s. Of course, scores of Rivard “sightings” had been reported, but this man had been seen driving a 1956 Studebaker. Other tips had connected Rivard to such a car.

There were a lot of summer cottages around Woodlands, and investigators suspected the fugitives were using one of them, but they didn’t know which. They couldn’t just start banging on doors, as that might alert the quarry and give them a chance to flee — or make a stand in a blazing gun battle. So they quietly staked the area out.

Several officers disguised themselves as road crews for the municipal public works department. One policeman posed as a gardener, and another pretended to be a fishing guide, going from cottage to cottage in search of clients. All kept careful watch.

On Wednesday, July 14, the police spies noticed that one large cottage was in a relatively isolated location. Its owner, May Birch, lived in a nearby house. She told the police she had rented the cottage to a man the previous Monday. He had a young woman and an eight-year-old boy with him. She’d seen little of the man since then, and hadn’t seen the woman and boy at all. Cars had come and gone, but she hadn’t paid them much attention. However, the police learned that the people in the cottage shooed away anybody who wandered near. They decided the place was worth a closer look.

The officers who watched the cottage from concealment didn’t have to wait very long before they spotted the man every cop in Canada and the United States was looking for: Lucien Rivard! They were the first law enforcement officers to knowingly lay eyes on the now-famous criminal since he had escaped from Bordeaux Jail. Rivard had dyed his grey hair black and was bearded, and he had put on about forty pounds, but there was no mistaking him.

Now that they had Rivard in their sights, the police couldn’t afford any mistakes. Undercover officers kept watch on the cottage while senior police officials drew up a plan of action. The few people in the Woodlands area who were aware of the police presence, such as May Birch, hadn’t the slightest idea that the police had located three major criminals in their midst.

The operation to capture Rivard, Boucher, and Cadieux was carefully planned and then carried out with military precision. It involved the RCMP, the Quebec Provincial Police, the Montreal Police Department, and one officer from the Ontario Provincial Police; a total of almost fifty men. At 1:00 p.m. on Friday, July 16, a call went out to the homes of RCMP, QPP, and Montreal police officers. They were told to report to Montreal police headquarters immediately, in civilian clothes. When they arrived, a constable took them to an upstairs room. Nobody was allowed near a telephone.

At 2:00 p.m. the officers were loaded into cars, four or five to a vehicle. Four cars carried German Shepherd police dogs. The officers weren’t told anything about the operation until they reached Chateauguay. Only then did they learn that they were about to close in on Lucien Rivard. The police were armed with pistols, rifles, and machine guns, but senior officers gave strict orders that no one was to shoot except to protect their lives.

Artist’s sketch of the cottage where Lucien Rivard was captured, ending one of the biggest manhunts in Canadian history.
Toronto Star.

Roadblocks were set up to seal off the neighbourhood. A cordon of officers spaced twenty feet apart surrounded the cottage. The police dogs sat obediently silent, awaiting commands. Eight men made up the party that would actually carry out the raid. The occupants of the cottage were unaware of any unusual activity outside.

Shortly before 5:00 p.m., May Birch was entertaining a few visitors in her home when a party of police officers suddenly burst in. They told the startled people to sit quietly while they searched the house. When the officers were satisfied that none of the suspects were on the premises, they kept Mrs. Birch and her guests inside. Two hundred yards away, hidden from view of the house by a stand of trees, their colleagues were getting ready to move on the cottage.

At about the same time, a car towing a boat trailer pulled up at the Woodlands Yacht Club where an eighteen-year-old employee named Robin Burns was on duty. One of the men in the car asked if they could launch their motor boat there. They looked like a party of fishermen, and Burns thought they wanted to use the club’s facilities for free. Then they showed him their RCMP badges. Burns later said he had never seen men get a boat into the water so fast. The police launch churned out onto the lake and took up a position, ready to cut off any attempt by the fugitives to escape by water. By this time, an RCMP light aircraft was circling overhead, in radio contact with the police on the ground.

When all was in readiness, the eight-man team rushed to the cottage. Four stayed outside to cover all exits. The other four burst through the front door with guns drawn. The first man they saw was Lucien Rivard. He immediately cried, “No, no! Don’t shoot!”

Canada’s most wanted man was taken completely by surprise. He was on his way to the kitchen, and wearing only a bathing suit when his long run from the law abruptly ended. “Flabbergasted” was the word a police official used to describe Rivard at the moment of his re-capture. “He looked dismayed … after all, he hadn’t sent us any invitations.”

Boucher and Cadieux were also in the cottage, and they surrendered without any resistance. However, the radio message that went out to all of the police teams in the field was, “Rivard has been captured. Rivard has been captured. Return to rendezvous point.”

The police in May Birch’s house were grinning like schoolboys when they told the bewildered people they had just caught Lucien Rivard. Mrs. Birch was shocked to learn that she had rented her cottage to notorious criminals. “I guess it’s just one of those things,” she later told reporters who barraged her with questions. “I used to call the cottage Honeymoon Haven, but now I’m going to call it Rivard’s Retreat.”

The yacht club was over a mile from the cottage, so Robin Burns didn’t know about the raid that had just taken place. He was surprised when the RCMP launch returned after less than half an hour. He asked the constables what they were doing. One of them said, “We’ll tell you a little secret. We’ve got good news. We just captured Lucien Rivard.”

“I rushed over to the cottage,” Burns said later, “and looked over the fence. Then I saw Rivard. He was in the back seat of a car, wedged like a piece of baloney between two powerful Mounties.”

Rivard was allowed to dress himself in a business suit before he was taken from the cottage in handcuffs. The police found no guns or ammunition on the premises. Rivard, Boucher, and Cadieux were taken to the Quebec Provincial Police headquarters on McGill Street in Montreal. Rivard was back in a cell, 136 days after his escape. When the sergeant who booked him in asked for his last residential address, Rivard smiled and said, “800 Gouin Boulevard.” That was the address of the Bordeaux Jail.

Police spokesmen credited the success of the operation to the cooperation of the federal, provincial, and municipal police departments, and to the presence of a large number of officers. “We went in force and in that way prevented a siege. There was no siege, no violence, no injuries, nothing … it was smooth sailing.”

They wouldn’t say if a tip from an informer had led them to the cottage. “If there were such a source, the police would take care that the finger is never pointed at him. His life would not be worth much otherwise.”

The news of Rivard’s capture flashed across the country, and early sensational reports were riddled with errors. One said the cottage had an arsenal of guns and ammunition. Wild rumours circulated as people in the streets and in bars and cafes spoke of nothing but Rivard’s capture. One story had him fleeing across the St. Lawrence River in a fast boat, only to be overtaken by the RCMP. In another yarn, he slipped out of the cottage and was pursued through the woods by man hunters and dogs.

The three thousand residents of Woodlands were coming to grips with the dramatic event that had placed their community in the national spotlight. May Birch grew annoyed with the endless parade of curious “tourists” who wanted to see “Rivard’s Retreat.” To discourage them, she had a supply of large firecrackers that sounded like gunshots when they exploded.

Philip Goodyear, whose family was one of the oldest in the community and owned the land surrounding May Birch’s property, wasn’t at all pleased with all the publicity. “I’m not very happy about Rivard being captured in Woodlands,” he complained. “How would you feel if they found him in your backyard?”

Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who was an experienced pilot, was flying an RCAF Vertol helicopter from Antigonish, Nova Scotia, to Halifax, when his office received the news and informed him by radio. Pearson was jocular in a pair of messages he sent to Senator John Connoly. “Rivard caught at 4:45 confirmed,” said the first communique. “Call an election at once.” The second said, “There is no confirmation that he has already asked for bail.”

Overview of the area where Rivard was captured. While reports had him as far away as Spain, Rivard was about twenty miles from Montreal.
Toronto Star.

After landing, Pearson issued a formal statement. “Very good news. I would like to congratulate the police authorities concerned. The law can now take its course and justice be served.”

Understandably, Marie Rivard didn’t share the prime minister’s elation. She went to the grey stone building where her husband was being held, but was not allowed to visit him. A throng of newsmen rushed her, but all she said was, “I have nothing to say. Go away.” Within a few days, Marie was permitted to see Rivard in what the press described as “a very touching reunion.”

The police — indeed, all of Canada — were eager to know where Rivard had been hiding during his months of “freedom.” They revealed that they’d had reports on him being in at least half a dozen countries, from Peru to Japan, sometimes in two or three different countries at the same time. When detectives questioned him, Rivard said, “I guess you really want to know where I’ve been. I guess it’s been bugging you. So, I’ll tell you. I’ve been on holidays. Naturally,” he said with a chuckle, “I spent most of my time in la belle province.”