FREDERIC SERRE
The 1019 Report
A 45-year-old man who savagely killed his mother and a neighbour, and severely injured another woman during a mental breakdown inside a condominium building in Vaudreuil-Dorion last year still poses a threat to the public, but isn’t responsible for the killings, a Quebec Court judge ruled last week, adding that the killer suffers from schizophrenia, which causes him to be unpredictable and violent.
When Fabio Puglisi “is mentally unstable, he becomes unpredictable and capable of violence,” said Judge Alexandre Bien-Aimé, as he read his verdict on May 12 inside a courtroom at the Valleyfield courthouse. “In this case, this unpredictability led to tragic and irreversible consequences.”
Bien-Aimé then ruled that Puglisi cannot be responsible for fatally stabbing his mother, Elisabetta Puglisi-Caucci, 68, and neighbour, Manon Blanchard, a 53-year-old retired Armed Forces officer, on the afternoon of Feb. 15, 2024. Evidence presented in court revealed Puglisi stabbed his mother more than a dozen times inside the sixth-floor unit they shared before attacking Blanchard in the hallway after she knocked at their door to inquire about the noise. As he fled the Vela condo complex on Émile Bouchard Street, Puglisi stabbed 70-year-old Nighat Imtiaz as she was leaving her condo using a walker.
Bien-Aimé described the attack on Imtiaz as savage after viewing surveillance camera video footage of the attack, which was presented in court.
“Nighat Imtiaz survived due to pure luck,” said Bien-Aimé.
Puglisi has a long history of mental illness and assaults. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2012 after being charged with assaulting a complete stranger. He was also charged with assaulting a woman and held in a psychiatric institution for several weeks. While being monitored by a CLSC, it was learned that Puglisi had stopped taking his medication while still living with his mother.
On the day of the killings, Bien-Aimé said, Puglisi had lost touch with reality, claiming to talk to god and the devil.
Bien-Aimé said that despite being held at the Philippe Pinel Institute for the past year, Puglisi still poses a threat to the public and must be declared a high-risk offender, which means he will never be released. Puglisi will return to court next month for another assessment.
In the days following the murders, which stirred reactions of shock in the community, Vaudreuil-Dorion Mayor Guy Pilon expressed outrage at the brutal nature of the attack.
In a blistering and impassioned letter sent to Premier François Legault and then-Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant, Pilon urged the provincial officials to take greater action to protect citizens from similar attacks by those suffering from mental illness.
“On Feb. 15, this city that I love so much made headlines all over the media,” Pilon stated in his letter. “A vocabulary that I never thought would be associated with our community was deployed: carnage in Vaudreuil-Dorion, violent attack, sordid assault. Right now, my constituents are worried. Near the building where the tragedy took place are several retirement homes. In the high-rise building where the attacks took place, there were children, couples and people living alone. Many had already crossed paths with the accused. As you can imagine, these citizens were worried. Some of them turned to me to find out what the city was going to do to prevent this type of tragedy from happening again. You will understand that the answer cannot come from the municipal administration.”
“Could this extremely sad human tragedy have been avoided?” Pilon asked in his letter. “I’m not a legislator and my knowledge of mental-health issues is very limited,” he continued, adding that he hopes the government takes swift action to prevent a similar tragedy.