Camille Cleroux pleaded guilty in an Ottawa courtroom in June 2012 to killing three women over about 20 years. The first was his wife, Lise Roy, who vanished in 1990 at the age of 27. The second was Jean Rock, the woman he lived with afterward, last seen in 2003 at 32. The third was Paula Leclair, 64, who lived in his apartment building in south Ottawa and who refused, the Crown said, to let him have her apartment. Justice Lynn Ratushny of the Ontario Superior Court accepted his pleas to first-degree murder for Leclair and second-degree murder for Roy and Rock, and he received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Neither of the two earlier women had ever been reported missing. Their relatives believed they had moved away and chosen to cut off contact, and in Jean Rock's case letters in her name kept arriving for years after she had died. The deaths came to light only because of the third. In late May 2010, Paula Leclair's son let himself into her apartment and found a man he did not know living there. Within days Cleroux was charged with her murder, and within weeks police had charged him in the other two deaths.
Cleroux died in federal custody in British Columbia in January 2021, of apparent natural causes, according to Correctional Service Canada.
Correctional Service Canada recorded his full name as Camille Joseph Cleroux. He was 56 when he was first charged in June 2010, 57 during his preliminary hearing and 58 when he pleaded guilty in 2012, according to CTV News. A CTV reporter at his first court appearance described him as about five feet two inches tall, with scruffy white hair and a heavy French accent, and said he was still trying to find a lawyer. The Crown described him in 2012 as a former dishwasher, and Agence France-Presse called him a former diner dishwasher.
He lived for years in south Ottawa. He was believed to have lived in a townhouse in the south end until the early 1990s, CTV reported, and neighbors said he had lived there with his wife, Lise Roy. He later moved with Jean Rock to an apartment building in the same part of the city, CTV reported. In 2010 he was living in a high-rise in the Heron Gate area, where Paula Leclair also lived, according to CBC News.
Lise Roy was Cleroux's first wife, and the only one of the two women in his life who was legally married to him, Ottawa police said after he was charged. She was 27 when she disappeared in 1990, while the couple were living together in the south Ottawa townhouse.
After she disappeared, Cleroux told people a story that she had left him, Agence France-Presse reported from the court hearing in 2012. No one reported her missing. Her family, police said, believed she had moved away and broken off contact by her own choice. Police described her and Jean Rock as "very day-to-day people" who had lived at several addresses in the Ottawa area and had scattered work histories.
In court in 2012, Cleroux admitted that he had killed Lise Roy after a heated argument in 1990, AFP reported. CTV reported that the court heard he had beaten both women to death.
Jean Rock lived with Cleroux after Lise Roy's disappearance. CTV and CBC reports describe her variously as his second wife, his ex-wife and his common-law wife; police said that only Roy had been legally married to him. She was 32 when she was last seen, in 2003.
A friend of hers, who gave reporters only her first name, said in 2012 that she had gone to see Rock in 2003 and that Cleroux answered the door and told her Rock had left him for another man. Rock's family, like Roy's, did not report her missing. They believed, police said, that she had moved away and chosen to stay out of touch.
They had reasons to believe it. For years the family received letters they thought Jean had written. Cleroux had hired someone to write them, the court heard in 2012. According to AFP, he paid a friend to write the letters in a hand like Jean's, saying that she had left him and was living with a trucker named Pierre. CTV reported that two of the letters, dated August 10, 2009, and December 19, 2009, described a pregnancy and the birth of a daughter.
Cleroux admitted in court that he had killed Rock in 2003. Human remains found in Ottawa in 2006 were hers, the court heard; police had been unable to identify them at the time, because no one had reported her missing.
Paula Leclair was 64. She lived in the same south Ottawa high-rise as Cleroux. People who knew her described her to CTV as a warm woman who loved looking after her grandchild and often offered to walk her neighbors' dogs. One neighbor called her "a sweetie" who was always helping people.
Cleroux wanted her apartment. He told police it was bigger and had a better view than his own, AFP reported from the 2012 hearing, and when she refused to give it to him he invited her out for a walk in May 2010 and killed her. The Crown told the court that he killed her "in cold blood" after she refused to let him move in, CTV reported.
Before anyone knew she was dead, Cleroux moved into her apartment and threw out her belongings. He told neighbors that she had won a $50,000 lottery jackpot and gone away on a trip, and that she had given him permission to move in. One neighbor told CTV that he said he had bought her the winning ticket and was angry that she planned to give him only $100 of the prize; the next thing she knew, the neighbor said, he was moving out of his own apartment and throwing her things away. Neighbors' accounts differed on where she was said to have gone: one CTV report has Disney World, another Florida. Police said Leclair had never won the lottery.
Paula Leclair's son became worried in late May 2010 and went into his mother's apartment with a spare key. Her furniture and belongings were gone, and a man he did not know was living there. When Cleroux arrived, he told the son that Leclair had gone on a trip and had left the apartment to him, according to AFP. The son reported her missing to police on a Saturday, and the investigation began on May 29, 2010, CTV reported.
Four days after the report, police charged Cleroux with first-degree murder. Police found remains in south Ottawa that they said they believed were Leclair's; her body was found in June 2010, according to CTV and CBC.
At his first court appearance, the day after he was charged, Cleroux was remanded in custody until a video appearance on June 14. CTV noted that Leclair's death was the city's sixth homicide of the year.
Detectives looked into Cleroux's past and found the two women who had lived with him and then dropped out of sight. Ottawa police announced about three weeks after the first charge that he was also charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Lise Roy and Jean Rock. He was arrested at the Ottawa Carleton Regional Detention Centre, where he was already being held.
Staff Sergeant Randy Wisker told CTV that police had found no record of either woman's movements since she disappeared and had reason to believe both were dead. "It's early days as far as this is concerned," he said, adding that "we have a man that's charged with three homicides." At that point neither woman's body had been found, as far as police said publicly.
Cleroux's preliminary hearing, at which a judge would decide whether there was enough evidence to send him to trial on the three first-degree murder charges, was under way in Ottawa the year after Leclair's death. On October 31 of that year, human remains were found in south Ottawa, and the hearing began the next day, CTV reported. A coroner said the remains had been there for "a number of years." Police would not say at first whether the find was connected to Cleroux.
The remains were sent to a forensic laboratory in Toronto for identification, and police said in November that the work could take months. Police later confirmed that their inquiries that month were connected to Cleroux, but released no more details. The preliminary hearing was adjourned that month while the remains were examined.
DNA results later confirmed that the remains found on Halloween were those of Lise Roy, CTV reported. Cleroux appeared briefly in court that day to set a new date for the hearing.
In March 2012 Cleroux gave up his right to a preliminary hearing and agreed to stand trial on the three counts of first-degree murder, CTV and CBC reported. No trial date had been set.
In April 2012 police looking for evidence for the trial found human remains in south Ottawa. A coroner attended, and the remains were sent to a forensic center in Toronto, with results expected to take months. Police said the find could be linked to Cleroux. A friend of Jean Rock said she and Rock's family badly wanted to know whether the remains were Rock's, and wanted closure.
In June 2012, on a Tuesday morning, Cleroux pleaded guilty in Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa to one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. Justice Lynn Ratushny found him guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Paula Leclair and second-degree murder in the deaths of Lise Roy and Jean Rock. The sentence for first-degree murder in Canada is automatic: life imprisonment, which in his case meant no chance of parole for 25 years, CTV reported. Correctional Service Canada later recorded that he had been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder since June 26, 2012.
The Crown read the facts of the three killings into the record. It described Cleroux as a man in disguise who had planned the deaths of three women, CTV reported. The court heard about the letters to Rock's family, the false story of the lottery win, and his reason for wanting Leclair's apartment.
Justice Ratushny called his motive "stomach churning," AFP reported. She told him that he had planned to "kill these cherished women just to get them out of your way."
The hearing was hard on the families. Jean Rock's father broke down in the courtroom as the facts were read, convulsing and crying out that he wanted to kill Cleroux, and paramedics were called, CTV reported. In his statement to the court, he said he had welcomed Cleroux into the family home and now felt sick, and that if he had seen through him, his daughter would still be alive.
Rock's brother asked how he had not known what kind of man Cleroux was, and said the guilt stayed with him. Relatives, CTV reported, were left asking whether the deaths could have been prevented. Rock's family had believed for years that she was alive but distant, because of the letters.
Cleroux served his sentence in the federal prison system. On January 17, 2021, he died in custody of apparent natural causes while an inmate of Pacific Institution, in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Correctional Service Canada announced on January 19, 2021. At the time of his death he had been serving his life sentence since June 26, 2012. As it does in every death of an inmate, the service said, it would review the circumstances, and the police and the coroner were notified. The release did not give his age.
Spelling of the judge's name. Agence France-Presse spelled it Lynn Ratushny; a CTV report spelled it Ratuschny.
Jean Rock's status. CTV reports call her his second wife, his ex-wife and his common-law wife; police said that only Lise Roy had been legally married to him.
Where Leclair was said to have gone. Neighbors told CTV that Cleroux said she had gone to Disney World; another CTV report has him saying she was on vacation in Florida.
Timing of the letters. A CTV report from the 2012 hearing says Rock had been dead for three years when letters dated 2009 were written, which does not match the court's account that she was killed in 2003.
The sentence in the AFP report. The AFP story printed by IOL says in its opening that he was sentenced to life, and later that he was sentenced to 25 years "according to local media." CTV and Correctional Service Canada report a life sentence, with no parole for 25 years.
The date Rock went missing. A CTV report on his death in 2021 says she went missing in 2013; all other reports say 2003, and he pleaded guilty to her killing in 2012.
The April 2012 remains. Police said only that the human remains found in south Ottawa in April 2012 could be linked to the case, and that forensic results would take months.
1990: Lise Roy, 27, Cleroux's wife, disappears in south Ottawa; no one reports her missing.
2003: Jean Rock, 32, his later partner, is last seen; no one reports her missing.
2006: Human remains, later shown in court to be Rock's, are found in Ottawa and cannot be identified.
August 10 and December 19, 2009: Dates of two letters to Rock's family, written in her name by someone Cleroux hired, describing a pregnancy and a birth.
May 2010: Cleroux kills Paula Leclair, 64, his neighbor, after she refuses to give him her apartment.
May 29, 2010: The police investigation begins after Leclair's son reports her missing.
Early June 2010: Remains believed to be Leclair's are found in south Ottawa; Cleroux is charged with first-degree murder; first court appearance, with a video appearance set for June 14.
About three weeks later: He is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Lise Roy and Jean Rock.
October 31, the year after Leclair's death: Human remains, later identified as Roy's, are found in south Ottawa; his preliminary hearing opens the next day.
That November: The preliminary hearing is adjourned while the remains are examined.
Later: DNA results identify the remains as Lise Roy's.
March 2012: Cleroux waives the preliminary hearing and agrees to stand trial on three counts of first-degree murder.
April 20, 2012: CBC reports that police have found human remains in south Ottawa.
June 2012: He pleads guilty in Ontario Superior Court to first-degree murder (Leclair) and two counts of second-degree murder (Roy, Rock); life sentence, no parole for 25 years. CSC records the sentence as starting June 26, 2012.
January 17, 2021: Dies in custody of apparent natural causes as an inmate of Pacific Institution, Abbotsford, British Columbia.
January 19, 2021: Correctional Service Canada announces the death.