Suspect pleads to murder charges

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

Twenty-two-year-old Pierrefonds resident Charles André Laberge was formally charged with second-degree murder Monday afternoon at the Montreal courthouse after a weekend incident in Ile Bizard that left a 37-year-old man dead.

The victim was identified Monday as Ile Bizard resident Francis Proulx.

Laberge pled not guilty to the charge.

Montreal police spokesman Const. Anie Lemieux said Proulx died in hospital after being stabbed a number of times during a confrontation in the parking lot of an Ile Bizard church in the early hours of last Saturday.

The church is located at the corner of Cherrier and de L’Eglise streets.

“The victim was taken to the hospital and he died in the hospital,” Lemieux confirmed, adding police have not been able to find a link between the two men.

“From what we can see, the two men didn’t know each other,” she said.

“This seemed to be one of those incidents that just go horribly wrong,” she said, adding police have not yet found a motive for the attack beyond the confrontation.

Police arrested two men, Laberge and a 19-year-old Pierrefonds man, hours after the incident, but released the 19-year-old without charging him Sunday afternoon.

The 22-year-old pled not guilty to second-degree murder charges Monday.ﯻ