Jocelyne Houle revisited – Flashing Fire will Follow part 3 / WKT3 #4
The 1977 suspicious deaths of gogo dancers Francine Loiselle and Suzanne Delorme Morrow. A revisit of the Jocelyne Houle case also from 1977.
Gogo Dancers: Suspicious Deaths
La Presse / September 28, 1977
The Surete du Quebec have revealed the identities of two young women whose bodies were found in the woods of Saint-Calixte north of Montreal.
They are Francine Loiselle, 21 years old with no known address, and Suzanne Morrow, 18 years old from Laval. The two victims earned their living as gogo dancers when they were reported missing.
Acording to the police, the bodies, where they were found, were there since the month of June, 1977.
Autopsies performed at the medical legal laboratory of Quebec on rue Parthenais in Montreal, were not able to determine the exact cause of death, due to the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies. Other tests will be performed at the laboratory.
Un Troisieme Cadavre est retrouve a Rawdon
La Presse / September 29, 1977
The Surete du Quebec were trying to solve the enigma surrounding the death of two teenage girls, now they must also solve a murder, the victim being a 45-year-old man whose body was found on Tuesday morning, next to Route 125 in the Township Rawdon.
According to information obtained, the victim, we cannot at this instant disclose his identity, but he is known to the police. He was shot before being abandoned dead in the ditch. This was probably a settling of accounts.
The police in this affair know the associates and hangouts of the victim in the hours before his death. Yesterday, they had not yet recovered the vehicle that the victim was seen in before his death.
As for the death of teenage girls whose bodies were found in a forest in the region last weekend, SQ investigators concluded a suicide pact.
The two victims in this affair were identified as Francine Loiselle, 21 years old, and Suzanne Morrow, 18 years old, who both worked as dancers for some time in the Saint Jerome region.
Due to the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies of the two young women, pathologists at the medical legal institute are still not able to determine the exact cause of death. What is known for certain, however, they were not shot, and they had been there for several months.
In any case, the identification of the two victims dispelled the doubts of several citizens who believed that one of the victims could be one of the many young girls who had been missing for a few months in Laval and in the region.”
Other information: They were found in the woods bordering “Rang 4ieme in Saint Calixte”. The bodies were found in “un etate squelettique” = Skeletal state, “cote a cote”, 600 to 800 feet from the road.
Francine lived on rue Duroches in Parc Extension, Montreal. Francine Loiselle’s parents lived in an apartment at 1560 Labelle in Longueuil.
Suzanne Morrow lived with her parents at 175 De Galais, Laval des Rapides. This runs parallel to Route 15.
Jocelyne Houle
24-year-old Jocelyn Houle was a nursing student from Chicoutimi, Quebec. The 5’2″, 100 lbs young woman traveled to Montreal with a group of fellow students to study respiratory therapy for three weeks at The Institute of Cardiology in the city’s Rosemont district.
During her stay Houle was living at a boarding house, The Jeanne Mance Institute at 6675 44e avenue. Wednesday evening, April 14th Houle decides to join seven of her fellow students for a night on the town. They have dinner at The Barnsider which was at 2250 rue Guy:
After dinner they decide to go to the Old Munich at Saint Denis and Dorchester (now boule Rene Levesque). They arrive at 11:30 pm. They drink, they dance, they stay until closing.
They leave the club together around 1:30 am with the intention of moving the party up the street to La Caleche du Sexe at328 Saint Catherine East, just west of Saint Denis. Jocelyne Houle, who was walking apart from the group with two men, never arrives with her friends.
When they arrive at La Caleche the friends discover Houle isn’t there. They go back to the The Old Munich, but Jocelyne isn’t there either. They then decide that Houle must have gone back to the boarding house. Later when they get home, Houle isn’t at the boarding house. Houle is absent from her classes at the Institute of Cardiology on Thursday and Friday April 14 and 15th. She doesn’t return to her parent’s home in Chicoutimi at the end of the week.
On Sunday, April 17th Houle’s body is discovered about an hour north of Montreal near Saint Calixte. She is found off a gravel road, Rang 5 about 8 feet in from the road lying face down in a few inches of water. Houle is found half-naked and badly beaten about the face and head. Her purse is lying next to her.
The body is taken to Montreal and the autopsy to performed by Andre Lauzon at the SQ Parthenais headquarters. The autopsy confirms that Houle was beaten to death. She had a fractured jaw, and many facial injuries caused by “kicks or punches”. Houle had been raped, possibly my several persons. Houle was still wearing some of her clothing, including her bra, which was torn. Investigators conclude that Houle was not killed at the Saint Calixte location, only dumped there.
