| Richard "Le Chat" Blass |
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| Richard Blass was born in 1945 in the Rosemont sector of Montreal. He would earn the well deserved nickname of "Le Chat" because of his ability to escape death. Like a cat, he seemed to have nine lives. From a young age, Blass earned a reputation for violence. After he lost a boxing match to amateur boxer Michel Gouin, Blass attacked him with a knife. He was arrested and pled guilty to assault. he spent a day in jail. The more Blass became involved in crime, the more he began to hate |
| the Mafia. The Italians had a complete lock down of Montreal's rackets in the 1960s and Blass grew tired of having only their scraps and, with a small band of loyal followers, led a revolt against them. He especially held grudges against Frank Cotroni and the Di Maulo brothers, Jos and Vincenzo, who all began receiving death threats on their telephones. On May 7, 1968, Blass and Robert Allard, his right-hand man, planned to ambush Frank Cotroni outside his home. A police officer saw them suspiciously cruising the streets and gave chase. They managed to lose the cop car but abandoned their plot for the night. Frustrated that his plot against Cotroni had failed, Blass and his gang turned their anger against the first Italian they could find. Giuseppe Colizza, a 20 year old with no connection to crime, was shot five times in the head on May 27, 1968. Then it was Francesco Grado's turn. Grado, a reputed loanshark, was found dead inside his car on Rousselot street. He had been riddled with bullets. On June 9, another innocent was violently ambushed by Blass' gang. Giuseppe Di Marco, a law abiding citizen with no prior arrests, was shot several times as he sat in his automobile. He survived but was left paralyed. Then the Mafia struck back. Blass was drinking in a bar on August 24, 1968, when two Italian assassins entered the establishment. Blass saw the pending danger and dashed from the bar. He scurried down the street as the hitmen gave chase, firing at their target. Blass would to lose them in a crowd. Blass barely escaped death a couple of weeks later when the motel he was staying at, Le Manoir de Plaisance in Saint-Hyppolyte, burned down. Two men and a woman died in the fire but Blass got out in time. A coroner concluded that the fire had been set intentionally. He was a marked man. Less than a month later, in October 1968, a third murder attempt took place. Blass and and an associate, Claude Ménard, drove into a Saint-Michel garage when they were ambushed by gunmen. Ménard probably saved their lives by smashing the car through the door and speeding down the street. Blass was taken to the emergency room of the Jean-Talon Hospital where he was treated for his three gun wounds, one in the head and two in the back. He survived and, in a action that earned him alot of respect in Montreal's underworld, refused to identify his attackers. But he did vow revenge. Two months after being released from the hospital, in January 1969, Blass was arrested after a botched bank robbery in Sherbrooke in which he fired at police as he fled through the streets of the city. He is sentenced to four consecutive 10 year prison terms. On October 16, 1969, as Blass and other prisoners were being transported from Bordeaux prison to the court house, a spectacular escape took place. Blass and eight fellow inmates overwhelmed the guards and escaped. After a brief manhunt, all the cons are captured. Blass is apprehended after a anonymous caller gave police the address of the apartment where the fugitive was hiding with his wife. Blass made another prison break on October 23, 1974. Blass smashed the glass that seperated visitors from prisoners. In a well organized escape, a female visitor provided Blass and four others with firearms. The men forced their way outside and fled. Once again a fugitive, Blass set his sights on vengence. He walked into the Gargantua tavern in Montreal on October 30 and shot to death Raymond Laurin and Roger Lévesque. The two men had been his partners in the 1970 Sherbrooke bank robbery and Blass had been bitter that they had not been jailed. Blass returned to the Gargantua bar on January 21, 1975 with hoodlum Fernand Beaudet to kill the witnesses of the murders of Laurin and Lévesque. In a deplorable act, the men locked ten men and three women in a storage closet, blocked the door with a jukebox, and set fire to the building. All thirteen people die horribly. Police finally tracked Blass down three days later, on January 23. He and 28 year old Lucienne Smitth had taken refuge in a chalet in Val David in the Laurentians. They surrounded the cottage and demanded that he give up. "Le Chat" refused. Two policemen busted down the door at 4:30 am on January 24 and exchanged gunfire with the fugitive. Blass is hit 23 times and died. He was only 28. |