Marc Lépine's Gendercide: The Montreal Massacre
Letter of Intent
Lépine had penned a letter that same day, in French, which filled three pages. He had placed it into his jacket pocket so it would be found quickly. The Gazette printed it, and other sources republished it.
He began by apologizing for mistakes, as he'd only had 15 minutes to compose it. He also insisted that his suicide that day was not for economic reasons, although the small apartment where he lived on de Bordeaux Street in the working class section of Montreal, and the fact that he could not hold even a menial job for long, belied that. He said that he had waited to do the deed until after he had used up his savings—and in fact he had spent more than $750 to purchase the weapon and ammunition two weeks earlier. Then he gave his reasons for the rampage.
"Because I decided to send Ad Patres [to the fathers] the feminists who have always ruined my life," he wrote. "For seven years my life has brought me no joy, and being utterly weary of the world, I have decided to stop those shrews dead in their tracks... The feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women...while trying to grab those of men... They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can."
Essentially, he was depressed and frustrated. His anger was not only a reaction to social changes over which he had no control, but also had delusional qualities. "The other day I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the front during the world wars," he wrote. "How can you explain then that the women were not authorized to go to the front??? Are we going to hear about Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves, who, of course, will occupy 50 percent of total forces in history, despite the fact that they never existed. A real Casus Belli [cause for war]."
He ended by misquoting Caesar, "Alea Jacta Est." According to Mass Murderers, he meant to say "lacta alea est," meaning "the die is cast."
Outside, the police found the car he had rented for the day to complete his mission. Clearly he had decided to kill himself.
It came out later that in his suicide note, Lépine had included an "Annex," a list of the names of 19 "radical feminists" mentioned in newspapers, from police women to politicians, but had decided that he had no time to execute them all. He had even included their phone numbers, indicative of his detailed awareness of them. But in the end, in an act of mass murder, he had decided to make one clear statement, a symbolic attack on women everywhere, represented in those females trying to get ahead in occupations meant, Lépine believed, only for males.
In the note he also mentioned Corporal Denis Lortie, who had killed three people in Canadafive years earlier. That was a "political act," Lépine said, that he himself might have done, and one he applauded.