They had been married for 53 years. But for five years, Thérèse Brassard-Lévesque had been diminished by Alzheimer’s. Gilles Brassard devoted himself body and soul to his wife during the pandemic. But in desperation, he killed her out of “love” and “compassion”. Their relatives instead place the blame on the negligence of the health system.
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“No one wants to be treated the way my mother-in-law was treated. Gilles took care of it. But society has abandoned us. She did not take every possible means to help my mother-in-law. As a society, we have a lot to learn from the distress and desperate gesture of my father-in-law,” testified Brigitte Fournier, the daughter-in-law of Gilles Brassard.
In an emotional hearing Wednesday at the Laval courthouse, the 81-year-old man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He will thus be sentenced to life in prison. In criminal law, “mercy” killing does not exist and does not reduce a sentence.
The lawyers suggested to Judge Hélène Di Salvo a period of 10 and a half years of ineligibility for parole. Gilles Brassard was in shock upon realizing his fate. “I’m not a murderer or a bad guy. It can’t be that a guy like me is 10 years old…” he said, upset.
On September 30, 2023, Gilles Brassard committed the irreparable. In a room at the Ressource de Lanaudière public establishment, in Terrebonne, he strangled Thérèse Brassard-Lévesque, the woman of his life, with a rope. The Crown prosecutor gave a minute-by-minute account of the murder, filmed from A to Z by a surveillance camera.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The murder occurred in Ressource de Lanaudière in 2023.
Gilles Brassard approaches his wife, who is bedridden. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. “Close your little eyes, and sleep,” said her husband. He attempts to put the rope around his wife’s neck, but removes the object when she protests. At his new attempt, his wife blurted out, “Stop it.”
Gilles Brassard places a doll on the bedside table and turns on the music. This is his fourth attempt. When he ties a knot in the rope, his wife shouts, “Hey, ayoye!” “. He lies on top of her to control her, while she struggles. After several minutes, he let go of the rope and swallowed several bottles of medicine. An employee will find him in time.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Gilles Brassard
“I am not a murderer”
Gilles Brassard explains that he decided to send his wife “to a better world”, after years of seeing his beloved suffer and their family languish. She no longer recognized her own sons, he said.
“I am not a murderer, I did this gesture out of love and great compassion, quite simply. No violence, no malice in my action,” Gilles Brassard defended himself on Wednesday.
Five years earlier, Thérèse Brassard Lévesque was struck down by Alzheimer’s disease. She was no longer herself. Then the pandemic arrived. An ordeal. The septuagenarian took care of his wife zealously, despite the absence of help. “She was very aggressive. When I washed it, it was hell. I was scratched,” said the accused.
“I saw my father go to the end of his strength to keep my mother with him. He was in a lot of pain. She hit him and called him all the names,” said his son, Pascal Brassard, who assures that his father was “never” violent with his wife.
At the end of his rope, Gilles Brassard had to resolve to place his wife. For many weeks in the hospital, then at the Étincelle residence. But the care given to Thérèse Brassard-Lévesque was sometimes mediocre. According to her daughter-in-law, Brigitte Fournier, she was poorly fed and was not bathed for weeks.
“She had the same clothes day and night. Her nails were black. [Gilles] paid someone to take care of his feet,” said Brigitte Fournier.
According to her, the company has let down Gilles Brassard and Thérèse Brassard-Lévesque. “What better can we do for people living with this terrible disease? It is we who must find solutions instead of punishing an exemplary man,” pleaded his daughter-in-law.
“My grandpa is a victim of the health system which was unable to provide him with the help he needed, even though he had launched several appeals for help,” said Laurie Brassard, granddaughter of the accused. She recalls that her grandfather sacrificed his health to take care of his wife, alone, during the pandemic.
Pascal Brassard maintains that his mother was a “very proud woman” who always said she never wanted to end up in a CHSLD. His father made a gesture “filled with compassion”, he insists.
“The first thing he said to me afterwards was: ‘I wanted to take away your sadness’. That day there was only love and no hate. He wanted to free my mother and leave with her,” confided Pascal Brassard.
To justify the period of ineligibility for parole slightly longer than the minimum of 10 years, the Crown prosecutor, Ms.e Geneviève Aumond noted several aggravating factors, including the fact that the victim was a vulnerable person and the partner of the accused.
“It’s in the context of COVID. It was trying for everyone,” underlined the defense lawyer, Ms.e Elfriede Duclervil.
Judge Di Salvo has already announced that she will endorse the joint suggestion next week.
This case is strongly reminiscent of the story of Michel Cadotte, a Montrealer sentenced in 2019 to two years, less a day, in prison for killing his wife suffering from Alzheimer’s by suffocating her with a pillow. He had been convicted of manslaughter, not murder, by a jury. He too had taken care of his wife for years.
