Albert Guay

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Joseph-Albert Guay (most commonly known as Albert Guay) (1917 – January 12, 1951) was a resident of Quebec City who was responsible for the in-flight bombing of a passenger aeroplane on September 9, 1949, killing all on board including his wife Rita (née Morel).

The incident and subsequent trials of Guay and his accomplices were notorious in Quebec and received very wide newspaper coverage.

1 The flight
2 Plot and aftermath
3 The incident in fiction
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The flight

The plane was a Canadian Pacific Airlines DC-3 aircraft (registry CF-CUA S/N: 4518) flying from Montreal to Baie-Comeau with a stopover at L'Ancienne-Lorette, a suburb of Quebec City; it was at Quebec City that Rita Morel (Mrs. Guay) and the bomb came on board.

The bomb was made of dynamite and an alarm clock and stashed in the forward baggage compartment. It exploded near a small locality named Sault-au-Cochon (sometimes incorrectly given as "Sault-aux-Cochons") near Saint-Joachim in the Charlevoix region, causing the plane to crash and killing all 4 crew and 19 passengers. The flight was delayed five minutes at takeoff; this apparently thwarted Guay's desire to have the explosion take place over the Saint Lawrence River, which would have made forensic examination of the crash impossible with the technology of the day. Apart from Rita Morel, the victims included four children and three American executives from the Kennecott Copper Corporation including the company president.

The airline involved is sometimes stated to be "Quebec Airways", but this was simply a name used for some Canadian Pacific Airlines flights in Quebec. Apparently the flight did not have a flight number (although the French-language Wikipedia article states it was flight 108, other sources including airline disaster databases do not confirm this).

Some claim that the Albert Guay bombing was the first in-flight airplane bombing incident in history, but this is incorrect; the first known in-flight bombing of a passenger aircraft took place sixteen years earlier, in 1933. An incident (apparently with a similar motive) had taken place in the Philippines in May of 1949[1], a fact which was duly noted in contemporary Quebec press accounts. A later incident, the bombing of United Airlines Flight 629 on November 1, 1955 (by a man wishing to kill his mother for insurance), was apparently inspired by the Albert Guay affair.

[edit] Plot and aftermath

Albert Guay described himself as a jeweller and watchmaker, although at his trial it was suggested that he was more of a watch and jewellery salesman. His marriage to Rita Morel was stormy and he became enamoured of 19-year-old waitress Marie-Ange Robitaille. In those days Quebec was strictly Catholic and divorce was almost impossible. Guay first considered poison but later decided on the airplane bombing. The day of the flight he took out a $CAD10,000 insurance policy on his wife, a considerable sum at that time, which he attempted to collect three days later. There was also a prior $5000 policy dating from 1942.

He asked clockmaker Généreux Ruest to manufacture a bomb using dynamite, batteries and an alarm clock. The dynamite had been purchased at a hardware store by Ruest's sister Marguerite Pitre (also called Ruest-Pitre, wife of Arthur Pitre), supposedly to be used in clearing a field. Pitre also delivered the package containing the bomb to the plane, for mail delivery. She had also been the one who had arranged secret meetings between Guay and his mistress Robitaille. She made a failed suicide attempt in the days following the crash.

Ruest and Pitre both later maintained their innocence. Pitre claimed that Guay had told her that the package she was transporting contained a statue. Ruest also claimed that he thought the bomb was to be used to clear tree stumps from a field.

Guay was arrested two weeks after the crash and put on trial in February 1950; he was tried and convicted and sentenced to hang, and was executed on January 12, 1951 at the age of 33. His last words were Au moins, je meurs célèbre (At least I die famous).

After his conviction Guay issued a statement saying that Ruest and Pitre acted knowingly to help him. As a result, Ruest was arrested on June 6, 1950 and tried in November of that year and convicted, and was hanged on July 25, 1952, aged 54. Suffering from osseous tuberculosis, he had to be taken to the gallows in a wheelchair. Marguerite Pitre was also arrested on June 14, 1950 and tried separately beginning March 6, 1951 and convicted, and she was hanged on January 9, 1953; she was the thirteenth and last woman to be hanged in Canada.

Dollard Dansereau, author of Causes célèbres du Québec, studied the case and concluded that Ruest may not have known of Guay's intentions when the latter asked him to make the bomb; he also concluded that Pitre may have been innocent. Some speculated that Guay's motive in denouncing his accomplices was to buy time to delay his own execution, believing that he would be called to testify at their trials. In the event, he testified at Ruest's trial but was hanged soon after and thus did not testify at Pitre's trial.

[edit] The incident in fiction

The incident and subsequent trial and hanging of Guay and his accomplices was notorious in Quebec and served as the inspiration for Le crime d'Ovide Plouffe, a 1982 novel by Roger Lemelin and 1984 film of the same name by Denys Arcand. In 1949 Lemelin had been a friend and neighbor of Guay, as well as being the Quebec correspondent for Time magazine.