A murderous connection

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An eerie sense of unpleasant nostalgia swept through Montreal's gay community earlier this week, when convict Michael McGray, already imprisoned on a murder charge in Nova Scotia, pleaded guilty to two murder charges that date back to 1991. The murders, both of gay men whom McGray had picked up at bars in the Village, were brutal in nature and strikingly similar in circumstance.

Though mainstream media reports described improved relations between police and gay activists, Michael Hendricks, one of several who served as a liaison between the gay community and the MUC, says the McGray confessions indicate gross incompetence on the part of police.

In the wake of the two murders McGray has now confessed to, Hendricks and other activists were urging police to consider a serial killer theory. But for months police insisted that gay activists were paranoid to suggest that some of the anti-gay murders that then plagued Montreal were in any way connected.

As well, gay activists suggested police check all those prisoners who were out on weekend passes during the times of the murders. If police had followed through, they would have found that both the '91 murders were committed when McGray was on a weekend pass, then serving time for a vicious assault.

"There is no doubt about it," Hendricks told the Mirror this week. "The police could have prevented the rest of McGray's killing streak if they'd checked those on weekend passes as we'd suggested they should."

MUC police were contacted but didn't have comment for the Mirror by press time. :

--Matthew Hays

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