Rampage (27 page)

Around 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 31, hundreds of kilometres east in Portage-du Fort, Quebec, Dale Lewis was watering his absentee neighbour Bob Simpson’s plants, when he heard the blare of a television from inside the cottage. Alarmed, he peered through the blinds in the back window and saw a shadowy figure quickly skirt behind a supporting pillar. Wisely, Lewis hurried next door to Douglas Young’s residence, and told him to dial 911. Before the authorities could arrive, Douglas spotted the intruder fleeing into the woods on foot. The SQ and OPP promptly arrived on the scene, and a manhunt ensued. At 9:00 p.m., a police dog led officers to Imeson’s hiding place. Though clutching the same loaded .22 he had used to murder William and Helene Regier, when faced with armed opponents, Imeson threw down his weapon and surrendered. Like many of his UFC heroes, he had been caught in an inescapable stranglehold, and had submitted. Unlike the athletes he so admired, Imeson lacked the discipline to do anything exceptional with his time on this planet, turning to drugs and crime for a quick fix. Despite his manly veneer, he had been effectively “tapping out” his whole life.

Imeson was taken into custody and removed to Campbell’s Bay provincial police detachment. The following day, complaining of stomach pain, he was escorted to Shawville hospital. While there, he remarked to a police officer that he would be facing a twenty- to twenty-five year sentence, and that his life was finished. However, he showed no remorse, even admitting to the officer, “The gay guy — if I had to do it again, I would do it.” Later that evening, the shackled prisoner was transported by airplane back to Windsor and confined to a cell at the city police station. Imeson confessed to detectives that he had been hiding out in the Regiers’ barn for days, entering the house through an unlocked garage side door to look for food and clothing. Once inside, he began packing these items into a stolen suitcase, when he was startled by William Regier, who he did not believe was home. When asked about what had happened next, Imeson replied, “What’s to know? Shots were fired. People died.” Considering that the Regiers’ GMC Sierra was parked at their home, the victims had been bound before execution, and the window was broken, it is obvious that Imeson’s account was just one more in the litany of lies colouring his sad existence.

Having left fingerprint, shoe-print, and DNA evidence, there was little chance that Jesse Norman Imeson would be found not guilty of the murders, so he opted for a plea bargain. On October 27, 2008, in a Goderich courtroom, Imeson pled guilty to the second-degree murders of Carlos Rivera and the Regiers. Denouncing Imeson’s crimes as “savage,” Justice Ronald Haines gave his condolences to the victims’ families, before sentencing Imeson to life without the possibility of parole for twenty-five years — the maximum sentence possible under Canadian law. Though Imeson had occasionally seemed anxious during the proceedings, when assistant Crown Attorney Jennifer Holmes described him receiving oral sex from Rivera, he began to smirk and shift in his chair. As she went on to speak about him strangling Rivera with the belt, Imeson nodded his head and said, “That’s right.” Clearly he was proud of murdering Carlos Rivera. In the years since Imeson’s killing spree, at least three gay bars in Windsor, including The Tap, have closed.

Chapter 6

The Exterminator

Rare among spree killers, the Exterminator is an individual consumed by hatred, opting to eradicate members of a specific societal group or profession whom he deems unfit to live. In many ways, the Exterminator is the equivalent of Holmes and DeBurger’s Missionary serial murderer (for a Canadian example, see my
Cold North Killers
), with the exception that once the Exterminator begins killing, he never cools off. Toronto repairman
Marcello Palma
was an Exterminator of the same prostitutes and transsexuals whose bodies he coveted. In probably the most controversial spree killing in recent history,
Stephen Marshall
of Cape Breton travelled around Maine using the state’s online sex offender registry to locate victims. Was he an avenging angel, or a devil in disguise?

Kay Feely      

Marcello Palma

The Victoria Day Shooter

”I popped her … [Later] I did the other two.”

Victims:
3 killed

Duration of rampage:
May 21–22, 1996 (spree killing)

Location:
Toronto, Ontario

Weapon:
.357 revolver

Night of Fear

Brenda Ludgate hadn’t always been a prostitute standing in the rain. Before the drugs crept in she was the cherished daughter of a loving middle-class family. Now those memories brought only pain, but that could be solved — chemically. All she needed to do was turn a few tricks. At 11:10 p.m. on May 21, 1996, a red truck with a strange light on top pulled up to the curb where Brenda was working. This was her chance! Stepping toward the passenger-side door, she bent down to speak with the driver. The gunshot broke the night like thunder. In a nearby high-rise apartment, a woman doing her best to enjoy the stormy Victoria Day weekend with friends thought she heard arguing outside followed by a loud bang. She looked out the window just in time to see the red truck speeding away, leaving the twisted body of Brenda Ludgate staring back at her from a pool of blood. Arriving on the scene shortly after, Inspector James Ramer cursed his luck. A rainy crime scene was a homicide detective’s worst nightmare. Already crucial evidence was being washed away from the body in a torrent of rain-diluted blood. It was going to be a long, wet night. He had no idea.

Nineteen-year-old transvestite Sean Keegan ran away from his home east of Toronto because he didn’t fit in. Though he took advantage of the various shelters scattered about the city, he had few ways of making money and turned to prostitution to get by. Like Brenda Ludgate, he wasn’t kicking off his high heels for a relaxing Victoria Day weekend either. When the red van with the curious light rolled to a stop beside him, he would have shared Brenda’s sense of relief. A short time after, his lifeless body was discovered in a stairwell by two security guards. He had been shot through the head.

Meanwhile, back at the Ludgate crime scene, the eyewitness was unable to identify the vehicle’s make or model. James Ramer was grasping at straws when he heard the news of the second killing on the radio. Dawn would bring a new revelation. As the morning light spread across the dank, dripping city, it revealed the body of thirty-one-year-old Thomas Wilkinson lying in a muddy laneway. A prostitute and transsexual, Wilkinson had also been shot in the head, dropping his umbrella at his side.

Despite the poor weather, police were able to collect bullets from some of the crime scenes. At the site of the Wilkinson slaying they also discovered a man’s boot print of undisclosed size.

A Portrait of Normalcy

Almost a week passed with no suspect emerging in the case. Autopsies conducted on the three murdered sex workers revealed they had all been shot at close range with a .357 revolver. With few other leads, investigators decided to concentrate on the strange truck spotted at the Ludgate crime scene. In an attempt to jog the eyewitness’s memory, a hypnotist and police sketch artist were brought in to work with her. Although she could not recall the licence plate, they did produce a much clearer picture of the vehicle: a narrow-bodied red truck with a pink light vaguely reminiscent of a taxi cab’s on top. Speaking with other prostitutes in the area, police learned that the truck had been sighted many times trawling the streets. Then on May 26, they finally got the break they were looking for. Police received a telephone call from a lawyer claiming to represent a man who had important information on the red truck. Eventually the man agreed to speak with the authorities, candidly revealing that just after midnight on May 22 his friend Marcello Palma called unexpectedly at his house. Soaked with rain and seemingly apprehensive, the thirty-year-old Palma asked if he could leave a bag containing a knife, handgun, and ammunition in his care. He agreed, but later, deciding he wanted nothing to do with it, left the bag and weapons with Palma’s brother. As if that wasn’t enough, the witness also revealed that Palma had made several alterations to his truck in the days following the murder. Perhaps most surprising was the revelation that their suspect was not only a successful business man, but happily married.

Convinced that Marcello Palma and “The Victoria Day Shooter” were one and the same, investigators descended on Palma’s air conditioning business, where they believed he was hiding. Though his truck was parked outside, after two days of surveillance there was still no sign of him. It was as if the city had swallowed him whole. With few other options, on May 29 they issued a Canada-wide warrant for Marcello Palma’s arrest. The next day they received a tip that Palma had been spotted in Montreal but had vanished soon after.

Obtaining search warrants for the suspect’s home, workplace, and parents’ residence, the police soon uncovered various firearms, including a snub-nosed .357 revolver which had been altered so that bullets couldn’t be linked to the gun. A search of his truck revealed a slip of paper with the phone number of the building where Keegan’s body had been discovered, along with drops of blood under the passenger seat. The front cab had recently been cleaned. Investigators also found the phone number of a transvestite sex worker who Palma had contacted sometime before. If there was a shadow of a doubt, it was fading fast.

As police continued to search across the country for the elusive gunman, on June 1 they received word that Palma’s credit card had been used to check into an expensive Halifax hotel. They immediately contacted the authorities in Halifax, advising them that Palma was likely armed and dangerous. Three uniformed police officers arrived at the waterfront hotel and quietly began to clear guests from the other rooms on Palma’s floor. A chambermaid claiming to have spoken with him revealed that he had seemed agitated. When the floor had been evacuated, the policemen burst into Palma’s room only to discover it empty. As they waited inside for their suspect, they heard somebody pass close by the door. Soon after, the phone rang, but when they answered there was only the sound of heavy breathing before the caller hung up. A second call turned out to be the desk clerk. Palma had just been seen leaving the building, heading in the direction of the boardwalk. At 6:45 p.m., police began to comb the area. Eventually they spotted Palma sitting on the edge of the wharf, and took him into custody. Among his possessions they found ammunition and the key to a bed and breakfast across town. Inside this second room, Detective Phil McDonald located a .357 rifle hidden in the mattress — evidently in preparation for a final stand-off with the police. Palma had also been reading several books on psychological abnormalities, including Dr. Robert Hare’s landmark
Without Conscience
. Two days later, he was transferred to Toronto to eventually stand trial.

DNA testing revealed that the blood in the truck belonged to Brenda Ludgate. Faced with overwhelming evidence, in April 1999 Palma pleaded “not guilty by reason of insanity.” During the course of his trial he was arrogant, showing no remorse for having senselessly ended three lives. Taking the stand, Palma’s wife and his mistress testified that he was something of a Jekyll and Hyde, frequently erupting in unprovoked rages and threatening suicide. At one point he had even pointed a gun at his wife’s head. It was also revealed that five years before the murders, Palma had sought psychiatric help for a violent hatred of prostitutes and transsexuals. Though this “control freak” claimed to loathe them, he also frequented them regularly, a contradiction that could only be resolved with bloodshed. Palma was found guilty on three counts of murder and imprisoned for life in a maximum security penitentiary with the possibility of parole in twenty-five years. He claimed to have selected Victoria Day for his murder spree because he thought the gun shots would be mistaken for fireworks.