Convicted Killer’s Limp Allegedly Links Him To Recent Park Ex Robbery

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A violent criminal’s complaint to his probation officer about how his injured foot became infected while awaiting surgery helped police as they investigated an armored car robbery carried out at Parc-Extension a few months ago.

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Eugene Fengstad, 67, was on parole when he became a suspect in an armored car heist carried out by two men in October. He is serving a life sentence that he received in 1996 for killing a man in a bar and for shooting a Brinks guard in 1989.

Late at night on Oct. 18, Garda employees were in the process of moving bags of money into the truck at a bank on Jean-Talon St, near Querbes Ave., when the two robbers approached them. The guards were sprayed with pepper spray and at least one shot was fired, although none of the victims were injured.

Shortly before the robbery, Fengstad informed his probation officer that he had injured his foot, it had become infected, and he was awaiting surgery. On November 4, after the robbery, Montreal police detectives met with Fengstad’s probation officer and asked if he had a limp. Fengstad was arrested later the same day after the probation officer confirmed that Fengstad had difficulty walking.

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Details about the investigation are mentioned in the summary of the parole board’s decision made on January 7 to revoke Fengstad’s parole. He decided not to attend his parole hearing, possibly after realizing that the charges he now faces for the Oct. 18 robbery would not impress the board.

A week before Fengstad’s arrest, Montreal police arrested his alleged accomplice, 45-year-old Ghislain Bouffard. Both men face eight charges in total, including one alleging they stole a 9mm pistol from one of the Garda employees who were attacked during the robbery.

Fengstad was granted full parole in 2017, having spent more than two decades behind bars. He eventually found work at a community radio station and later as a flag-bearer, either on construction sites or on railway lines. In the months leading up to the robbery, Fengstad “demonstrated transparency and collaboration with his CMT case management team (the people who help offenders prepare for release and while on parole) and respected all of their special conditions.”

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“Your CMT is of the opinion that the risk you present has increased and is now assessed as high, considering the alleged recidivism. They also draw a parallel with said recidivism and one of his previous crimes perpetrated in 1989 against a security guard, among which they note several similarities, “the board said in its decision.

It was a reference to how, on December 18, 1989, Fengstad shot a Brinks guard in Vancouver during a robbery he carried out with an accomplice inside a shopping mall. The guard was shot in the throat and survived. Fengstad and the accomplice made off with $300,000.

The board’s decision also describes how, in early June 1989, Fengstad fatally stabbed a man named Douglas James Carefoot inside an Edmonton tavern during a fight over a glass of beer. He was ultimately convicted of involuntary manslaughter in that case.

The case against Fengstad and Bouffard returns to court in Montreal on January 25.

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