by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

What the hell were they thinking? Hotheads, nitwits, corrupted souls and insane freaks continued to dominate the regrettable events in Quebec. The faint of heart might well be advised to turn this page - the faster the better - but for the fearless few who can look truth in the eye, here's a round-up of some of the lesser-known dramas that unfolded on our underworld stage in 2003.

Coffee crimes rampant
After a meeting with her parole officer in Thetford Mines, Brigitte Roy, 41, got a taste for some Dunkin' Donuts on the way home. While her husband bought a box of tasty treats, she stealthily grabbed the contents of the tip bowl. By the time cops caught up with her she had already spent much of the money. Only $5.26 remained of her $25 haul. In April, Charles Beaudin, 40, robbed the same Tim Horton's in Sept-Îles twice in four hours. On the second occasion his taxi driver got suspicious when he came out with a cash drawer in one hand and a knife in the other. The hack alerted the cops. In February, two men stole 144 packages of Taster's Choice coffee from a Lachine supermarket. One loaded it into a dark-coloured Neon while the wheelman sat at the ready. A security guard nabbed the 22-year-old loader but the driver sped off with 36 packages of coffee, worth $215.

The roof is a stage and we are but actors
Griffith Brewer, 80, of NDG, was visited by a self-proclaimed City of Montreal inspector who told him he had to repair his roof immediately or have his home condemned. Brewer signed a contract and a team went to his roof and shoved some gravel around for a while. Although Brewer is a retired actor, he didn't immediately recognize the ruse until another fake city bureaucrat demanded an additional $3,000 in taxes for the job. Arrests were made.

Unwelcome kid in line for big payday
In November, a 16-year-old girl announced that she was suing the cops for $450,000. The Montreal girl had been charged with assault and trespassing at her school, Père Marquette High, in November 2000. The then-14 year old was released but charged with the same thing when she returned the next day. She was ordered to stay at least 100 metres away from the learning institute but alleges that she was detained for 17 days prior to her trial. Eventually a Youth Court judge cleared her of all charges and described the arrest as illegal.

Sadly, not all naked snow runners are loveable oddballs
Martin Veilleux, 32, had previously acquainted himself with our fine local constabulary due to his unfortunate habit of making death threats. This March, he earned their attentions once more by running around naked in the St-Hubert snow, bumping a pedestrian and breaking a home window. The conspicuous behaviour led cops to bring him home where they found Raymond Gallant, 48, murdered. Gallant had met Veilleux at Alcoholics Anonymous two months earlier and had let him stay with him, doubtlessly to his eternal regret.

It's good to cut the green grass of home
Germain Gagné, 48, who earned 42 years in prison in a 1979 bank hostage drama in Quebec City, was helpfully cutting grass at the Drummondville prison in October. The grass grows slow but the escapees apparently run fast at that time of year. Gagné later used hedge clippers to force a couple to drive him to Montreal. He remains at large.

Like a weed, love blossoms in strange places
Martin Benjamin, 35, earned his villainous rep at age 18 when he escaped from the Pinel Institute for the criminally insane and picked up a waiter, robbed and kidnapped him and then murdered a neighbour at St-Christophe and Ontario. But Benjamin, older and wiser, found true love through letters behind bars. This year he was entertaining his girlfriend in the love trailer behind his Drummondville prison. After firing up a couple of joints, he saw fit to stab his sweetheart and then tried to kill himself in the tub. The girlfriend survived the attack.

Call in sick to your hanging
Normand "Pluche" Bélanger, 53, still isn't dead. The biker was compassionately exempted last year from the megatrial where he was to face 11 homicide charges and charges of controlling the province's supply of Ecstasy. But he was excused because doctors said he had a year at most to live. Bélanger was said to be suffering from diabetes, hypertension, cirrhosis of the liver and a disease the judge didn't want revealed. He had also suffered two heart attacks. So he was permitted to spend his dying days in the basement of his wife's home, whose new boyfriend was living upstairs. In happier times, the former couple was known to keep a quarter of a million dollars of cool cash in their fridge. But maybe these are fairly happy times too: this year Bélanger was spotted at a video shop and a downtown spaghetti restaurant, walking around in apparently chipper form. After interminable delays, which saw the biker megatrial sit for only five days out of 11 weeks this spring, hearings were finally ready to recommence in June. But then biker René Charlebois was granted the right to miss court because he was suffering from a toothache. Jurors reportedly rolled their eyes and gnashed their teeth. He eventually pleaded guilty in September.

When your boss plots your murder, do you still work as hard?
A police informant revealed that the Hells Angels had planned to kill their own lawyers, Gilles Daudelin and Pierre Panaccio. The informant revealed this as Panaccio sat in the courtroom defending biker Richard Mayrand. Panaccio sat dumbfounded for a moment before rising to strenuously object to the testimony.

If you must fight, do it on the ground, far from any hard objects
On August 23, Martin Varga, 36, was at the Gaspésien bar on Bélanger and Lacordaire when he showed some interest in taking over the pool table being used by David Landry, 73. They quarrelled. Varga followed the old-timer out and hit him. The old guy's head hit the cement and he died.

Also in August, Jean-Philippe Loiselle, 21, returned home to hear his girlfriend whine about how his neighbour had complained about their dog's barking. Loiselle didn't much like this so he confronted the older man, Richard Robitaille, 51. The two went out to the balcony… you know where we're going with this. They fought, both fell, and the older man died of his injuries. Loisel is charged with manslaughter.

Michel Gaudet, 54, enraged Jean Lepage, 38, while driving at the LeGardeur bridge in Repentighy. The two pulled over. Gaudet got out and ran after Lepage, and grabbed at him through the car window. Lepage then sped off, running over his assailant, who then died. Lepage was absolved of charges.

Reinstatement chances… not so good
Former RCMP cop Gérard Thériault's bad luck streak continues. The cop had lost his job after being accused of sexually molesting a three-year-old boy. He was acquitted when it turned out the police investigator was having regular sexual interludes with the plaintiff. As a new job, Thériault started managing bar Belle-Vue on Ontario, but this didn't help his campaign to regain his job with the Mounties as the joint was a biker hangout where drugs were freely available.

Kidnapping 101: tie up your victim
Drug dealers unhappy with a drug deal gone sour blamed Martin Pelletier, 26, of Terrebonne. They got him into their truck and drove him out to the country in June. They left a guy in charge to watch over him but nobody tied Pelletier up. Pelletier soon found a baseball bat and killed his guard. He escaped and went to the police station to report his kidnapping. He faces charges for the death of Gabriel Chaussé, 21.

A woman's confounding confession
Yves Leclerc, 68, a chubby old-timer, died an apparently natural death from a fall at his home in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu. His body was cremated and happy memories of his life were shared. But out of the blue, in September, his wife Isabelle Dorion, 35, told police she had murdered him. Officials were bamboozled as there was no way of doing an autopsy on the cremated man. The coroner blamed the failure to do an autopsy on budget cuts. Nobody seemed immediately certain if the woman's confession was legit or a product of an overactive imagination.

Dangerous but not offensive… or is it offensive but not dangerous?
Richard Bouillon, 49, was your cookie-cutter incarcerated sexual assault guy whose m.o. included a slick doctor-impersonation-thing. While in jail awaiting trial for a cornucopia of sexual crimes he pulled off between 1973 and 1989, he was surprised to learn that prosecutors wanted him reclassified as a dangerous offender. The somewhat rare manoeuvre would allow authorities to legally keep him in prison approximately forever. His lawyer suggested police had a vendetta for Bouillon because they couldn't nail him for the 1999 murder of his Julie Surprenant, 16, so they were trying to give him a life sentence without trial. Prosecutors couldn't persuade the judge to go along with the plan, but Bouillon will still be eating prison food for the immediate future.

Boyish heartthrob leads girls to fight to the death
Stacey Diabo, 20, of Kahnewake, was irate when she learnt that Alexis Delisle, 18, had bedded her beau. So Diabo rounded up two friends and paid her rival a visit. Much yelling and ruckus ensued between the trio. Diabo slipped in and confronted Delisle alone. Sadly, only one would leave the room alive, and it wasn't Diabo. Last year, her teenage brother Shane also died in tragic and weird circumstances - in an accident in NDG, when the soccer net he had been playing on tipped over and crushed him.

VLT fever - it's not all good!
Martin Saint-Jacques, 25, of Sorel, worked full time as a construction worker and delivered pizzas on weekends. But he used his entire salary to feed video lottery terminals. One sad night last summer, he played in a tavern for hours and then robbed and stabbed the barmaid - who later recovered. He then went home and killed himself. According to the coroner, it was Quebec's 109th gambling-related suicide since 1999.

Sometimes a straitjacket is an appropriate fashion choice
A psych patient deemed well enough to return home was later found chopping up his girlfriend's body with a circular saw. Leonard Ishmael, 50, had previously beaten raps on the basis of insanity and was released from a Gatineau psychiatric hospital in September. Almost immediately after that, his 52-year-old girlfriend was reported missing. His son told cops his father had confessed to killing her. So the police put two and two together and visited the man. Ishmael was said to be quite drunk while committing the gruesome act.

Biker stoolie to sing no more
Aimé "Ace" Simard, 35, a biker hitman turned police informant, was murdered in a Saskatchewan prison, leading justice pundits to speculate about holes in our methods of protecting informants. His appearances on the witness stand to rat out erstwhile biker colleagues had both ended up in acquittals.

Biker cunt in pizza showdown
The East Side Mario's restaurant in Sherbrooke is a cop hangout. Local police consider it to be, anyway. So when some well-oiled coppers showed up celebrating the end of a colleague's suspension, they were irate to see two bikers munching away. One cop gave a biker the Shawinigan handshake and a shove. There was no major damage done although complaints were made all around including one by a woman offended when a cop addressed her as a "biker cunt."

Drummondville has an orchestra?
François Barbeau, 50, a violinist for the Drummondville Symphony Orchestra, was charged with multiple counts of sexually molesting girls under 12 years old. He had been nabbed for something similar in 1995. The orchestra subsequently implied that they would be auditioning violinists.

Speaking in their defence
Criminal defence lawyer Alain Dubois was savagely beaten at home in May by thieves who grabbed $10,000 from his safe. Security video at his Longueuil apartment led to the arrest of Christina Greer, 22, and two accomplices. A few weeks later the lawyer's beloved special model BMW '91 was stolen.

Kiddy diddlers take all forms
Roger Martin, 53 of Sherbrooke, was accused of sexually assaulting young girls in February. The wheelchair-bound man allegedly liked fondling the children as they sat on his lap looking at his computer.

In April, a priest from New Jersey sheepishly pled guilty to hiring an underaged male hooker in our Gay Village. Eugene Heyndricks, 61, was reassigned to another job elsewhere in the Garden State.

Your face is your fortune
Alain Desgagné, 37, was busy renovating a balcony near Valleyfield with two other guys. After work they all got to drinking and eating and drinking and drinking. At 10 p.m. Desgagné killed one of them because "I didn't like his face," as he told investigators before he was sentenced to 10 years.

Reliable killers are hard to find
Isabelle Berthiaume got a suspended sentence for paying a 16 year old $1,000 to kill her ex-husband. The kid didn't do it but thought it wise to try to extort her for more money. The woman confessed and blamed the drug Paxil. The husband was physically unharmed.