Man who killed his wife and brother-in-law in Pierrefonds is denied parole

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A man who killed his estranged wife and brother inside an apartment in Pierrefonds nearly three decades ago has been denied parole a second time, in part because Canadian authorities fear they would release a dangerous man to a country. it will do little to monitor it.

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In February 1993, Serge Maurice Ewonde, a native of Cameroon, abducted his wife, Mylene Marceau, at knife point and forced her into his car. He took her back to his old home, where he sexually assaulted her.

Marceau filed a complaint with the police and Ewonde was charged. But, on May 13, 1993, after being granted bail weeks earlier, he located Marceau at his brother’s apartment on Sources Blvd. He broke into the apartment and shot Marceau de Marceau’s brother Benoît. 22 years old, while he slept.

Ewonde then forced 24-year-old Mylene Marceau into a bedroom and shot her too. She had been living with her brother to protect herself, but Ewonde managed to kill both of them. The killer then tried to clean up the crime scene and made his way home to the South Shore. He packed all the belongings he could and got on a bus heading to the United States border. He was detained after US border agents noticed that he was carrying a false passport.

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Two days after killing Marceau and his brother, Ewonde found himself in the Montreal courthouse, where he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. On April 14, 1994, a jury found him guilty of both charges. In 1996, he was found guilty of sexually assaulting Marceau and was sentenced to a 57-month prison term that he could serve at the same time as the life sentences he automatically received for the murders.

Despite being eligible for parole since 2018, Ewonde, now 61, has been rejected by the Canadian Parole Board twice, including in a decision made Tuesday after a hearing at a federal penitentiary in Ontario. .

The victims’ mother presented a letter to the parole board before the hearing and reminded Ewonde that he destroyed her life.

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“Can you imagine the confusion of a mother who had her two children’s futures stolen from her and the huge void these two gratuitous murders created,” the mother wrote.

Ewonde was born in Cameroon, studied in Europe, and came to Canada as an adult, where he met and married Marceau. He never became a Canadian citizen and that is part of the reason the parole board turned him down for release.

The Canada Border Services Agency has ordered Ewonde deported and he cannot be granted bail if he decides to challenge his removal. If he was released from a penitentiary, he would be taken directly to Cameroon. According to a summary of the parole board’s decision, Ewonde plans to reside there while working with a brother and managing his father’s estate.

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The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) received a letter of support from Ewonde’s brother, but Canadian authorities are concerned about his release to Cameroon.

“You and CSC have noted that the political and police systems in Cameroon are corrupt and there is no plan to monitor them there,” the board noted as part of its reason for denying parole.

“(T) he board is evaluating his risk on parole, in a different country, where he will not be under special conditions or any kind of supervision or evaluation of his progress or his need for an additional structure to manage his risk of recidivism. As indicated (in the decision), it has not shown that it is capable of implementing risk prevention strategies in a less formal and structured environment than a medium security prison ”.

The decision also notes that Ewonde has been a problem for years for guards at the prisons where he served time in the past. They caught him with homemade alcohol, drugs, and a gun was found in one of his cells.

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