'Monster of the Miramichi' continues to instill fear 25 years after recapture

Allan Legere departs from court in Burton, N.B. as he waits for jurors in his murder trial to return a verdict on Nov. 2, 1991. (The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan)

Monday marks 25 years since the recapture of the Monster of the Miramichi, a notorious serial killer whose name continues to instill fear in residents in the Miramichi area.

In 1986, Allan Legere was one of three people convicted for murdering John Glendenning, a shopkeeper in Black River Bridge.

Three years later, Legere was brought to the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton to be treated for an ear infection.

Legere went to the washroom where he managed to pick the lock on his handcuffs with a homemade key. He then eluded his guards and escaped the facility.

Legere was on the loose for seven months and, during that time, he murdered Annie Flam, sisters Donna and Linda Daughney, and Father James Smith.

The manhunt for Legere came to an end in November 1989 when he surrendered to police near Nelson, N.B.

Miramichi resident George MacDonald vividly remembers the months Legere was on the loose and recalls that residents were installing ‘Legere lights’ for their own safety.

“It’s a light on a pole. They put them in people’s backyards because…no one wanted to be in the dark all the time. They wanted their homes lit up a bit,” says MacDonald.

Aline Doucette was living in Baie-Sainte-Anne, about an hour from Miramichi, at the time. She says residents throughout northern New Brunswick were living in fear.

“We didn’t know where he would be, where he was going to go next, so everybody was scared,” says Doucette.

Legere, now 66, has been declared a dangerous offender and will spend the rest of his life in the super-maximum-security Special Handling Unit at Ste.-Anne-des-Plaines near Montreal.

But MacDonald says Legere’s presence will always be felt in his community.

“It’s going to be part of the Miramichi forever, unfortunately.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Jonathan MacInnis