Rampage (25 page)

Chapter 5

The Utilitarian

The utilitarian spree killer is a natural-born criminal and wouldn’t have it any other way. Arrogant and self-entitled, he eschews the stability of marriage or a career in favour of the excitement of living his life outside the law. Often he is an angry young man, whose murder spree begins when he uses violent means to solve a situation that causes frustration to his inflated ego. Once he knows that a felony offence will be linked to him, he flees the hand of justice, murdering and robbing anyone who has the misfortune to cross his path. Accordingly, his first victim may be an acquaintance or family member, while subsequent victims are strangers whom he seeks to use for his own gain. The utilitarian spree killer usually kills to eliminate witnesses, thus the majority of his murders are quick and impersonal — a few quick blasts from a firearm. At times he will take a situation more personally, stabbing, bludgeoning, or strangling his victims, though these occurrences are rarer. Suicidal behaviour is atypical of the utilitarian spree killer because he is not ashamed of his criminality; rather, he embraces it as a virtue. He may even enjoy the media attention when he is finally brought to justice. The case of
Peter John Peters
examined in the first chapter constitutes a spree murder who occasionally incorporated sexual assault. We will now take a look at two additional Canadian examples: the killer hitchhiker
Gregory McMaster
, and
Jesse Imeson
.

Kay Feely      

Gregory McMaster

“I wanted someone held accountable.”

Victims:
4 killed

Duration of rampage:
July 27 to August 2, 1978 (spree killing)

Locations:
Quebec, Canada; Ontario, Canada; Manitoba, Canada; Minnesota, U.S.

Weapon:
Sawed-off .22 -calibre rifle

Killer on the Road

In late July 1978, American tourist Gregory McMaster travelled through Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, seeing more of our home and native land in six days than most Canadians will in a lifetime. Tragically, the twenty-one-year-old thug left a legacy of pain along the way. A native of New Haven, Connecticut, McMaster was a substance abuser awaiting sentencing in the United States for assault, weapons offences, and burglary. Not pleased at the thought of going to prison, he decided to skip bond and flee across the border with his girlfriend, Lori-Ann Sidbury. Somewhere in eastern Canada, Lori-Ann absconded with most of their money, leaving McMaster alone and furious. When his clunky Toyota broke down, McMaster’s rage finally consumed him. With only a thumb and a sawed-off .22 rifle at his disposal, he took to the highways, hitching rides from helpful strangers. But things were moving too slowly for McMaster. On July 27, he stepped onto the shoulder of the Trans-Canada Highway, sweating as the blazing summer sun blanched the farm fields of rural Quebec. Soon after, a red Chevrolet Blazer pulled up in a cloud of dust, and McMaster hopped inside. The driver, seventeen-year-old Louis Bertrand, was a gentle giant who resided in nearby Drummondville. According to one source, the two men went for drinks at a Drummondville bar. Within hours, McMaster showed his gratitude by shooting Bertrand eleven times and hiding him by the roadside.

Stealing Bertrand’s truck, McMaster frantically drove west to Ontario. Thirty kilometres southeast of North Bay, he stopped to give a lift to fellow hitchhiker Marcel Girard. The nineteen-year-old had been visiting relatives in nearby Bonfield, and intended to head to North Bay before returning to the house he shared with several friends in the Toronto area. Unfortunately, McMaster had other plans for him. After pumping five bullets into his unsuspecting victim, he robbed him of a paltry sum and dumped Girard’s body in a wooded area outside North Bay. Continuing west across the province to Sprague, Manitoba, he used the same m.o. to murder and rob twenty-one-year-old Marc Darvogne, a tourist from Montrouge, France.

Half an hour past midnight on August 2, 1978, McMaster ran the Blazer through the orange plastic cones marking the border crossing into the United States. Startled awake, an immigration officer notified the local law enforcement, and Roseau County Deputy Sheriff Richard Magnuson was dispatched to intercept the vehicle. Border jumping at the Sprague–Roseau crossing occurred an average of twenty-five times a year, so Magnuson’s task was considered a routine and relatively low-risk procedure.

Just under five kilometres north of Roseau on Highway 310, McMaster spotted Magnuson’s cruiser in pursuit and pulled onto the shoulder. He hid the .22 behind a large road map and stepped out of the Blazer clutching it as if confused. The twenty-year-old Magnuson, who had only been on the force for two months, exited his vehicle and proceeded toward McMaster on foot. Before the rookie cop knew what was happening, ten shots ripped through the map and into his body. Perforated by bullets, Magnuson fell onto the road and began crawling back to the squad car to radio for help. Fortunately, the young policeman had already radioed in before pulling McMaster over, providing the Blazer’s licence plate number.

When Deputy Jim Wright arrived, he found Magnuson by the door of the cruiser, drenched in blood and nearing death. Sheriff Paul Knochenmus and Deputy Curt Hauger soon joined them. Hauger informed the others that while racing to the crime scene he had spotted suspicious tail lights on a side road. Heading back to the area, Hauger caught sight of a red Chevrolet Blazer bearing the licence plate number that Deputy Magnuson had radioed in. He contacted his colleagues, and a road block was erected to prevent the vehicle’s passage. As the Blazer approached, it swerved off-road into a ditch to circumvent the blockade. A member of the sheriff’s department shot out the front tire, and the vehicle came to a halt. Accepting defeat, Gregory McMaster threw the sawed-off rifle and a gun belt he had stolen from Deputy Magnuson out of the open window. He was arrested and taken into custody, where he confessed his crimes to Sheriff Knochenmus, even drawing a map indicating where he had left the bodies of his Canadian victims. Despite receiving blood donations from most of the police force and members of the local community, Deputy Richard Magnuson eventually died at 4:30 p.m. He was supposed to wed his college sweetheart, Julie, in the autumn. Two days later, Louis Bertrand’s decomposing body was discovered in a ditch forty-eight kilometres outside Drummondville.

Convicted of murdering Magnuson and sentenced to life imprisonment, Gregory McMaster did fifteen years hard time in Minnesota before being extradited to Canada in 1993. Shortly after arriving, he filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging the way his handcuffs were being applied. In 1997, he pled guilty to the second-degree murder of Marc Darvogne, and to manslaughter in the cases of Louis Bertrand and Marcel Girard, earning a “life” sentence in Canada with eligibility for parole in ten years. McMaster successfully sued Corrections Canada in 2007, earning $6,000 compensation because he had not been given his yearly running shoes and had been “forced” by a prison official to wear incorrectly sized footwear as a substitute. As a result, the 270-pound McMaster had slipped and injured his knee while pounding a heavy bag. Imprisoned, McMaster seems to have transformed his propensity for physical aggression into continued legal assaults on the correctional system.

Kay Feely      

Jesse Imeson

“What’s to know? Shots were fired. People died.”

Victims:
3 killed

Duration of rampage:
July 18 to 31, 2007 (spree killing)

Locations:
Windsor, Ontario; Mount Carmel, Ontario

Weapons:
Ligature strangulation with belt; .22 -calibre rifle

The Full Jesse

The Tap was one of Windsor, Ontario’s few gay bars, boasting a stage where male dancers shed their clothes nightly, gyrating around a pole to DJ Carlos Rivera’s pulsating beat. On the evening of Tuesday, July 17, 2007, Jesse Norman Imeson — a tall, dark, and handsome twenty-two-year-old — stepped into the establishment for the first time, accompanied by his friend Nick Cesljar. An alcoholic and a cocaine addict, Imeson was excited at the prospect of making big money as an exotic dancer. Though Nick had warned him against the idea, Imeson believed that he would earn more money stripping for a gay crowd because he thought gays were perverts. After twenty minutes, he convinced Nick to drive him to his sister’s house to pick up a CD by the electronic music artist Moby, which Imeson wanted to dance to. Nick dropped him off at the club around 9:30 p.m. and went elsewhere.

Back inside The Tap, Imeson approached manager Eddie An to inquire about exotic dancing. Eddie provided him with an application form, which Imeson was unable to complete as he had forgotten his identification. Assuring An that he would return to complete it tomorrow, Imeson spent the next few hours hanging around the bar drinking. He soon struck up a conversation with twenty-five-year-old El Salvador émigré Carlos Rivera — a bartender and DJ involved in auditioning dancers. A student of architecture at St. Clair College, Carlos had been hired earlier in the summer when Eddie An had purchased the establishment and changed the name from The Happy Tap. Most of the staff and clientele at The Tap regarded Rivera as a sweet and hardworking man who loved being involved in Windsor’s gay scene. Though Imeson was not known to be homosexual, several customers would later claim to have observed him trying to pick up Rivera. At one point in the night, Imeson hopped on the stage for a little amateur pole-dancing. He did not strip, and his performance lasted mere minutes. Shortly before 1:00 a.m. on July 18, Nick Cesljar received a call from an unknown number. It was Jesse Imeson — he had borrowed somebody else’s cellphone and wondered if Nick wanted to get some cocaine and party. He lied that he had made $80 stripping. Already at home in McGregor, Nick refused, and wished him a goodnight.