Nicolas Côté guilty of murder | He massacres and dismembers his friend’s alleged attacker

(Longueuil) A CEGEP student who exchanged sexual text messages with his friend’s alleged attacker to “stupid” and “provoke” him ended up massacring him with a hammer and knives. After dismembering the body, Nicolas Côté tried to throw it into the river with his girlfriend. Life in prison now awaits him.

Impassive in the box, the 20-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday, at the Longueuil courthouse, to counts of second-degree murder and contempt of the corpse of Luc Lafontaine. He will automatically be sentenced to life in prison. His period of ineligibility for parole remains to be determined.

The circumstances of this murder are out of the ordinary. This is because Nicolas Côté barely knew Luc Lafontaine. He had never even seen him before killing him on October 22, 2022, in La Prairie.

Two weeks before the murder, a friend confided to Nicolas Côté that he had been sexually assaulted by Luc Lafontaine, when he was a teenager. The friend, who cannot be identified, describes “Luc” as a “sex freak who likes guys”. Note that the friend had formally refused to file a complaint at the time of the events.

Nicolas Côté obtains Luc Lafontaine’s number and begins a correspondence. For two weeks, they exchanged around a hundred messages, all of a sexual nature. Nicolas Côté even goes so far as to send a photo of a penis found on the internet, when the victim sends him a photo of his own.

His goal, according to him, was to “fool” Luc Lafontaine and make him “waste his time”. What was it really? Did he want to avenge his friend? Or, take inspiration from these “pedophile hunters” who improvise as vigilantes? His real motivations remain unclear.

In the meantime, the friend had ordered Nicolas Côté to stop writing to Luc Lafontaine.

On the fateful day, Nicolas Côté went to the victim’s house. The common goal is explicit in the messages. To the police, the killer will come and say that his objective, in going to the meeting, was to “fool, bait and ultimately provoke (the victim) and to confront him with the actions taken towards (his friend) and ‘other young men’.

When Nicolas Côté arrives, Luc Lafontaine invites him to sit near him and touches his penis. The CEGEP student appears reluctant. Still according to the accused’s account, Luc Lafontaine offers to give him “fellatio” and touches him again. It was then that Nicolas Côté, “overwhelmed by anger”, pushed the victim, grabbed a hammer from a chest of drawers and hit the victim in the head five times.

The killer then grabbed a knife from the kitchen and returned to finish off Luc Lafontaine, who was still alive. He stabs him 25 times. The pathologist did not detect any defense wounds. Obviously still in control, the 19-year-old student dismembers the body in a very professional manner, cleans the scene for hours, breaks the victim’s phone and gets rid of the evidence. He even sends text messages to the victim after the murder to deflect suspicion.

Questioned the next day, Nicolas Côté told the police that he had never gone to this meeting. He is released and put under surveillance. With the help of his new friend Zoé Boutin, Nicolas Côté installs a canoe on the roof of his car and goes to a boat descent in Saint-Basile-Le-Grand. On site, the couple took out the bags containing the victim’s limbs. They are arrested at this time.

Zoé Boutin, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of indignity to a corpse last December. She is due to receive her sentence next June.

Judge Lyne Décarie ordered the preparation of a pre-sentence report to try to find out more about Nicolas Côté. The file will return next May.

M^e Suzanne Hébert and M^e Julie Sidara-Charron represents the public prosecutor. Me Rémi Quintal defends the accused.