Authorities in Quebec have released new details of the chilling three-hour Halloween night sword attack that left two dead and five others injured.
Police said the bloodshed began when 24-year-old Carl Girouard arrived in the city in his black four-door Saturn at around 10 p.m. after driving nearly 170 miles from his home — wearing medieval clothing and with a samurai sword in the car, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Girouard left the vehicle idling behind Old Quebec’s Anglican Cathedral and walked across the street.
Francois Duchesne, a 56-year-old communications director at Quebec’s national art museum, became the night’s first casualty when he stepped out of his home on du Tresor Street for a late-night jog and was attacked and left to die on the sidewalk.
Cops didn’t receive their first 911 call for about 20 minutes, the outlet said.
“You have to understand that the situation was evolving and changing very quickly,” Quebec public safety spokeswoman Sandra Dion said. “We used the means currently at our disposal to communicate to our citizens.”
Over the next 40 minutes, authorities said, Girouard wounded five other people as he walked north from downtown Quebec, including a couple out for a walk on L’escalier Frontenac and another victim near a year-long Christmas decoration in the heart of the city.
Just before 10:40 p.m., Suzanne Clermont, 61, a hairdresser, was attacked outside her home on des Remparts Street after she stepped out for a cigarette. She died despite the efforts of her neighbor, an emergency room doctor who ran outside with a baseball bat.
At 11:57 p.m., Quebec police tweeted out their first alert, describing the suspect as a costumed man wearing medieval clothing.
One minute later, the department issued an alert for residents to remain indoors.
Shortly before 1 a.m., a police officer on patrol spotted Girouard near the Old Port of Quebec and he was taken into custody — two-thirds of a mile from the scene of Duchesne’s fatal stabbing, the CBC said.
City Police Chief Robert Pigeon said Sunday that Girouard set out “with the intention of doing the most damage possible.”
