CANADA • Laurie PHANEUF, 13 and Emanuelle PHANEUF (mother) / Accused: François Tartamella ~ Longueuil QC

Longueuil homicide: Friends report spousal jealousy as two slain
Mother, daughter killed; man held for questioning
November 05, 2011


Friends of the 13-year-old victim in Friday's double homicide
in Longueuil have started a Facebook memorial page.

MONTREAL – The spouse of a woman found slain with her teenage daughter in Longueuil on Friday had been having fits of jealousy for the past month, according to a friend of the victim.

The couple were in the process of separating and due in court on Tuesday for a custody hearing, Stéphanie Blanchette said.

She identified the dead woman as Émanuelle Phaneuf, in her early 30s.

The dead girl, Laurie, would have turned 14 on Saturday.

Longueuil police arrested a 34-year-old man at the scene and was being questioned Friday night. His identity was not disclosed.

Blanchette said Phaneuf recently took a vacation in Cuba, and when her spouse saw the Facebook photos, he threatened to remove the furniture from their Beauharnois St. apartment where they lived with two toddlers and Laurie, her daughter from a previous relationship.

Phaneuf went to a Longueuil police station about a week ago to complain about his threat, Blanchette added.

“But he hadn’t done anything yet, so there was nothing they could do.”

Phaneuf and Lauriee were found dead in the apartment around 6:30 a.m. Friday. Police would not say how they died or comment on reports the victims were stabbed.

Several people called 911 to report they’d heard screams.

Two boys, ages 1 and 3, were found unharmed in the apartment.

They were taken to a hospital to be treated for possible emotional shock.

Phaneuf, who worked as a secretary at the Lavallée Dental Centre in Longueuil, had been with the boys’ father for 3½ or four years, Blanchette said.

Phaneuf’s spouse was unemployed after recently quitting his job at a cookie factory, she added.

When he saw the photos of Phaneuf having fun in Cuba in early October “he called her a slut and a bitch … but he didn’t, to my knowledge, threaten to hurt her physically.”

He printed the photos and hid them in her things, Blanchette said.

“He was so mad that she went (to Cuba) without him. There were pictures of her with guys with their hands on her hip” but Blanchette said Phaneuf was not seeing any other man.

“He was really jealous. He threatened to take away all the furniture while she was gone to work.”
Neighbours were shocked to hear of the deaths on the tree-lined block with three-storey apartment buildings, condominiums and a strip mall.

“I can’t get over it,” said Jacqueline Parent, a resident in a neighbouring building for 18 years. “This is a quiet neighbourhood. The people are good. We don’t have gangs.”

An older woman, whose relationship to the family was not disclosed, sobbed for half-an-hour on the sidewalk and in a friend’s arms after arriving at the scene.

“Did you hear me? The children are all right,” a man trying to console her told her.

A team of social workers and psychologists was called in to École secondaire Jacques Rousseau, where Laurie Phaneuf was a Grade 7 student.

“This kind of thing can be very hard on friends and teachers and even for those who didn’t know her personally,” said Catherine Giroux, a spokesperson for the Commission scolaire Marie Victorin.

The possibility Phaneuf’s attacker did not threaten her physically in the weeks leading up to the killings did not surprise an expert in conjugal violence.

“Partners who are controlling and dominant don’t need violence if they control their partner psychologically,” said Louise Riendeau, a coordinator at the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale.

“This shows why police officers can do more, even at the point when there is no physical violence yet,” like when Phaneuf visited Longueuil police recently, she added.

“They can ask better questions that go deeper, and they can refer the woman to some other resources like a women’s shelter.”

Montreal police changed their methods after Marie Altagracia Dorval, 28, was found stabbed to death in her Montreal North home on Oct. 17, 2010.

Six days earlier, she’d filed a domestic-violence complaint against her estranged spouse, but police didn’t follow up on the complaint until it was too late.

With an estimated 10,000 domestic violence complaints annually in Montreal – many of them repeat calls from the same household – Montreal police fine-tuned their protocol for dealing with conjugal violence cases.

Longueuil police on Friday were too busy dealing with the major crime scene to provide specifics about their process for conjugal violence complaints.

“We haven’t changed anything,” Longueuil police Constable Gaétan Durocher said. “We take it case by case and we always go if there’s an emergency.”

The killings brought the city’s number of homicides this year to four, twice as many as all of last year.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Teen+woman+found+dead+Longueuil+questioned/5657103/story.html

Man, 34, charged in Longueuil homicide
November 05, 2011



François Tartamella, 34, was charged Saturday with two counts of first degree murder in the killings on Friday in Longueuil of Emanuelle Phaneuf, in her early 30s, and her 13-year-old daughter Laurie Phaneuf.

Tartamella was charged via video link from jail and he will be detained at least until Monday when he is to be brought to the Longueuil Courthouse for a formal preliminary hearing, Longueuil police Capt. Bernard Belisle said.

The mother and daughter were found dead about 6:30 a.m. Friday in their apartment on Beauharnois St. in Longueuil. Tartamella was arrested at the scene.

Phaneuf and Tartamella’s two boys, ages one and three, were found unharmed at the scene.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/charged+Longueuil+double+homicide/5664612/story.html



Emmanuelle Phaneuf & François Tartamella

Ex-boyfriend charged in Longueuil murders
November 07, 2011


A makeshift memorial has been set up in front of the Phaneufs’ Longueuil apartment. (Radio-Canada)

A 34-year-old man has been officially charged with the second-degree murders of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter.

The bodies of Emmanuelle Phaneuf and her 13-year-old daughter, Laurie, were discovered in their Longueuil apartment Friday morning.


Emanuelle Phaneuf and her daughter, Laurie.

François Tartamella was taken into custody that day and formally charged Monday.

Tartamella, who appeared at the hearing in a wheelchair, did not enter a plea in connection with the murder charges.

He did not ask for bail.

He's due back in court in a month.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/11/07/mtl-homicidecharge.html