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Marc Lépine (October 26, 1964 – December 6, 1989) was a 25-year-old man from the Province of Quebec, Canada. He killed 14 women and wounded 14 others- ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, in "the Montreal Massacre," also known as "the École Polytechnique Massacre".

Biography

Childhood and upbringing

Lépine was born Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi, the son of Algerian immigrant Rachid Liass Gharbi and Canadian Monique Lépine, in Montreal. He spent much of his early childhood in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, where his father was working as a successful mutual fund salesman. The family moved back to Montreal permanently in 1968, shortly before a stock market crash led to the loss of much of the family's assets. Gamil's father had contempt for women and believed that they were only intended to serve men. He was verbally and physically abusive to his wife and children, once beating his son so hard on the face that the marks were visible a week later. He discouraged tenderness between mother and child, as he considered it spoiling.

When Gamil was 7 his parents separated and were subsequently divorced in 1976. He lived with his mother and younger sister Nadia, seeing little of their father, of whom they were afraid. Rachid Gharbi subsequently ceased contact with his children and moved abroad.

In 1973, Monique Lépine returned to work as a nurse, and began further courses to advance her career. During this time the children lived with family and friends, seeing their mother at the weekends. The family spent a year in family psychotherapy in 1975 because of difficulties expressing and receiving love and affection.

Adolescence

In 1976, Monique Lépine became director of nursing at a Montreal hospital, and the family bought and moved to house in the middle-class Montreal suburb of Pierrefonds. Gamil attended junior high and high school where he was described as a quiet student who obtained middle to above average marks. He developed a close friendship with another boy, but did not mix much with other students. Gamil spent some summers as a youth learning to hunt with his uncles. and also enjoyed designing and building electronic gadgets. He took considerable responsibility at home, including doing cleaning and repairs while his mother worked. He began insisting on being called Marc Lépine, giving his hatred of his father as the reason for wishing to take his mother's name.

He applied to join the Canadian Armed Forces in 1981 at the age of 17, and was rejected. He reported in his suicide letter that it was because he was "anti-social". An official statement from the military after the massacre stated that he had been "interviewed, assessed and determined to be unsuitable"..

Adulthood

Gharbi legally changed his name to Marc Lépine in 1982 at the age of 18, and the family moved to St-Laurent, closer to his mother's work and to his new CEGEP (college). He quickly lost touch with his schoolfriend after the move. This period marks the beginning of the seven years which he described in his suicide note "brought me no joy".

Lépine began a two year pre-university course in pure sciences at CEGEP Saint-Laurent, failing some courses in the first semester but improving his grades considerably in the second. After a year he switched from the university-destined science program into electronics technology, a three-year technical program geared more for immediate employment. His teachers remembered him as being a model student, quiet, hardworking and generally doing well in his classes, particularly those related to electrotechnology. However, in February 1986, during the last term of the program, he suddenly and without explanation stopped attending his classes, as a result failing to complete his CEGEP diploma.

Lépine took a job in the kitchens at the hospital where his mother was director of nursing. He was seen as nervous and hyperactive by his colleagues He moved out of his mother's home into his own apartment and in the fall of 1986, he applied to study engineering at the École Polytechnique at the Université de Montréal. He was admitted on the condition that he complete two compulsory courses, including one in solution chemistry.

In the fall of 1987 he left his job at the hospital and took three courses at CEGEP obtaining good marks in all his courses. In March 1988 he began a course in computer programming at a private college in downtown Montreal, funding his studies with government student loans. Two months later he moved downtown to an apartment near his place of study and his mother's new condo.

In the winter of 1989 Lépine took a CEGEP night-course in solution chemistry, a prerequisite course for the École Polytechnique. In March 1989 he abandoned the course in computer programming, but did well in the CEGEP course, obtaining 100% in his final exam of the course.

Lépine had difficulties with relationships with women, being shy and ill at ease with them, and had no known girlfriends. He tended to boss women around and show off his knowledge in front of them. He spoke out to others about his dislike of feminists, career women and women in traditionally male occupations, such as the police force.

Massacre

In August 1989, Lépine picked up an application for a firearms-acquisition certificate and received his permit in mid-October. On November 21, 1989, Lépine purchased a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle at a local sporting goods store. During the period October to December 1989, Lépine was seen at least seven times at the École Polytechnique. He brought his mother a birthday present four days before the shooting, though it was several weeks before her birthday. He had always been very punctual paying his rent, but did not do so in December 1989.
On December 6, 1989, Lépine walked into the École Polytechnique de Montréal. There, he entered a second-floor classroom where he separated the men and women and then ordered the approximately fifty men to leave. Claiming that he was fighting feminism, he shot the nine women who remained, killing six and injuring the rest. After this, Lépine moved to other areas of the building, including the cafeteria, corridors and another classroom. A total of fourteen women (twelve engineering students, one nursing student, and one university employee) were killed, and four men and ten women injured before Lépine turned the gun on himself.

A three-page letter (see below) was found in the pocket of his jacket. The letter was never officially made public, but was leaked in November 1990 to Francine Pelletier, and published in the newspaper La Presse. In his suicide letter, Lépine claimed political motives, blaming feminists for ruining his life. He considered himself rational and expressed admiration for Denis Lortie, who had mounted a political attack on the Quebec National Assembly in 1984, killing three Quebec government employees. The letter also contained a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine apparently wished to kill because of their feminism.

Marc Lépine is buried in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal, just a few blocks from where he committed the massacre.

Murder victims

• Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
• Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
• Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
• Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
• Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
• Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
• Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
• Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
• Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
• Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
• Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.

Lépine's Suicide Statement

The following is a translation of the suicide letter written by Lépine on the day of the shooting. The original French letter is also available.

Forgive the mistakes, I had 15 minutes to write this. See also Annex.

Would you note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker. For seven years life has brought me no joy and being totally blase, I have decided to put an end to those viragos.

I tried in my youth to enter the Forces as a student-officer, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal and precede Lortie in a raid. They refused me because antisocial (sic). I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite my theory of not handing in work and the lack of studying before exams.

Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men.

Thus it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games removed the Men-Women distinction, there would be Women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontline during the world wars. How can you explain then that women were not authorized to go to the frontline??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50 per cent of the ranks of history, though they never existed. A real Casus Belli.

Sorry for this too brief letter.

Marc Lepine

The letter is followed by the 19 name list, with a note at the bottom:

"Nearly died today. The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive.
Alea Jacta Est."

Memorial

Canadians mark the day of the killings with a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

See also

• Valery Fabrikant, perpetrator of the Concordia University massacre
• Kimveer Gill, perpetrator of the Dawson College shooting
• Denis Lortie, role model of Marc Lépine's - political activist who mounted an attack on the Quebec National Assembly

References

1. ^ Sourour, Teresa K., (1991) Report of Coroner's Investigation Retrieved on 2006-12-28.
2. Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong (1999). "Unbearable Witness: towards a Politics of Listening". Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 11 (1): 112–149.
3. ^ Weston, Greg (1990-02-07). "The making of a massacre: The Marc Lepine story Part I". The Ottawa Citizen. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
4. ^ Staff and Canadian Press (1989-12-11). "Thousands of mourners wait in silence to pay final respects to slain women". quoted in "The Montreal Massacre: A Story of Membership Categorization Analysis" Eglin,P. and Hester, S (2003). Globe and Mail. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. Came, Barry (1989-12-18). "Montreal Massacre: Railing Against Feminists". Maclean's Magazine. Retrieved 2007-01-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
6. ^ CTV.ca News Staff (2006-09-25). "Mother of Marc Lepine finally breaks her silence". CTV. Retrieved 2007-01-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. ^ McDonnell, Rod (1989-12-09). "Killer's father beat him as a child; A brutal man who didn't seem to have any control of his emotions". The Gazette, Montreal. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
8. ^ Malarek, Victor (1989-12-09). "Killer Fraternized with Men in Army Fatigues". quoted in "The Montreal Massacre: A Story of Membership Categorization Analysis" Eglin,P. and Hester, S (2003). Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2007-01-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. ^ Weston, Greg (1990-02-08). "The making of a massacre: The Marc Lepine story Part II". The Ottawa Citizen. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
10. ^ Colpron, Suzanne (1989-12-09). "Marc Lépine était un premier de classe". La Presse. Retrieved 2007-01-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. Roux, Martine (1999-12-18). "Pour comprendre Marc Lépine" (in French). La Presse. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. Norris, Alexander (1990-01-16). "Lepine was emotionally repressed, pal says". The Gazette, Montreal. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
13. Weston, Greg (2006-09-14). "Why? We may never know". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 2006-12-31. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. "Gunman massacres 14 women" (video stream). Archives. CBC. 6 December 1989. Retrieved 2006-12-29.
15. Pelchat, Martin (24 November 1990). "Lépine avait des motifs "politiques"" (in French). La Presse.
16. "A Difficult Story to Tell". The Story of the fifth estate. CBC News. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
17. Malette, L. and Chalouh, M. The Montreal Massacre, Gynergy Books, 1991.

External links

• CBC Archives on the Montreal Massacre
• Article about Lépine on Crimelibrary.com
• Coroner's report

• Canadian mass murderers
• Spree shootings
• Spree killers
• Crime in Montreal
• History of Quebec
• Université de Montréal
• People from Montreal
• Murder-suicide
• 1964 births
• 1989 deaths