More on the custodial dad who murdered his two kids; how did dad with "criminal record" get custody? (Warwick, Quebec, Canada)

This article gives us a little more information on custodial dad JOCELYN MARCOUX, who burned his two kids to death rather than share them with their mother.

Notice that the parents had initially agreed to "shared custody," but this apparently didn't work for either one of them. Of course, the killer father wanted total control. The killer control freaks always do. And perhaps Mom sensed, without necessarily having it well-articulated here, that her ex was a dangerous raving loony (And if she did have that sense, his later actions proved that she was entirely correct). Note the vague reference to the "psychosocial experts." (Who, by the way, did absolutely nothing to save these children in all the long years of litigation. And who proved to be absolutely useless in identifying Daddy's homicidal ideation tendencies, much less intervening to protect the children who had been consigned to his care.)

And notice that Daddy is not only a raving loony, but a raving loony with a CRIMINAL RECORD, though that is little explored here, beyond the "intimidation" charge. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it turns out this father had an extensive history of domestic violence and/or child abuse, some of which may have been on the official record, but most of it which was probably not.

We also see here what total bullsh** Daddy's pro-fathers' rights "manifesto"--with all its excessive exclamation points--really was. He was so oppressed and misunderstood by the courts? Ridiculous. The fact that the courts let this nutcase with a criminal record have possession of these kids for so many years in fact DEMONSTRATES HOW FATHER FRIENDLY THE COURTS REALLY ARE. We have a delusional idiot who interprets a custody motion FILED during the middle of a school year as abuse, but who fervently believes that murdering your kids by burning them to death is Justified By The Holy Fathers' Rights Cause.

And the court not only let this killer have access, but custody. A guy who had never even been married to the mother of these murdered children.

Just who was being favored and coddled here? Hint: It wasn't the protective mom.

Of course, we still see no effort here to explore or identify who Daddy's "supporters" were for his nutty manifesto, or whether the Canadian fathers' rights groups were directly involved in encouraging this father's paranoia, delusions, and violent tendencies. Indirectly they most certainly were, as all of Daddy's ravings are straight out of the fathers' rights handbook.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Father+Facebook+manifesto+preceded+fire+that+killed+Warwick/6910081/story.html

Father's Facebook manifesto preceded fire that killed 3 in Warwick Man feared he would lose custody of children

By Sue Montgomery, Jan Ravensbergen and Allison Hanes, The Gazette July 11, 2012

WARWICK – Jocelyn Marcoux was due in court in Quebec City on Tuesday morning to face off against his former spouse in the latest round of their decade-long battle over custody of their children.

But sometime overnight, he posted an angry diatribe on Facebook railing against Quebec’s family court system, then apparently killed the couple’s two children and took his own life.

The charred bodies of Marcoux, 47, and his two children, son Lindsey Brillant-Marcoux, believed to be 13, and daughter Karen Brillant-Marcoux, believed to be 9, were found in the smouldering ruins of a fire behind his modest bungalow in Warwick, about 150 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

Firefighters called to the blaze on Richardson St. made the grisly discovery after neighbours heard explosions and saw flames about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday.

While police from the Sûreté du Québec began the grim task of gathering evidence at the scene of the suspicious fire, Marcoux’s impassioned tract was discovered on Facebook.

“For fathers, it’s official: If you don’t take justice into your own hands, you’ll never have justice,” he wrote in a lengthy posting on his Facebook page, in which his profile picture showed him embracing his children.

In an equally public expression of anguish, the children’s mother, Nadine Brillant, responded on Facebook. “My ex has killed my children,” she wrote in a post that she later erased. “I am crushed.”

An hour earlier, Brilliant had posted that she’d learned on TV about a fire on the street where her ex-husband and her children lived – and hoped everything was okay. She later noted that the police were coming to visit her.

Lawyers for Brillant and Marcoux, who initially split in 2002, confirmed the pair were due in court Tuesday morning in Quebec City for another custody hearing to decide the fate of the children.

“All we can say is that we were in court this morning before a judge, ready to proceed,” said Marie-Josée Brodeur, whose law firm represented Marcoux.

She declined to comment further, as did a lawyer for Brillant reached by The Gazette.

The fact that such a private family matter erupted so tragically and publicly seemed to strike a chord with Quebecers.

People drove in from nearby Victoriaville and Asbestos to join onlookers outside the home on the leafy street with big yards.

Eighty-four-year-old Thérèse Tardif, who raised three sons, struggled to come to terms with how a father could kill his own children – if, in fact, that is what happened.

“Someone has to be so discouraged, so at the end of his rope, to do that,” she said, clutching her hand to her heart. “Something like this can’t just suddenly happen overnight.

“It’s so sad.”

Tardif drove in with her husband from Victoriaville to pay her respects to the dead children. “Things have changed so much since we raised our children,” she lamented.

Florent Poulin, the neighbour across the street, said the couple had lived in the house together for several years until one day they noticed the wife had left.

“The children would come and go and were there this weekend,” he said.

Poulin said they never noticed anything unusual about the family but never spoke to them more than to wave and say hello. He said the father worked as an electrician.

In the home’s driveway stood a camper trailer and a dark blue pickup truck. Bicycles could be seen in the open garage. The curtains in both front windows had been drawn shut.

The house, still decorated with Christmas lights, was also equipped with two surveillance cameras – one above the front door and one inside the garage. A sign hanging on the metal gate to the backyard warned of the surveillance. The lawn and front garden were neatly manicured.

Sgt. Richard Gagné of the SQ said the provincial police force had been called in by local firefighters about 3 a.m.

As onlookers gathered around the home Tuesday, a huge SQ bus used as a mobile command post was parked outside the house. Police, wearing rubber hip waders appeared occasionally from the shed. At about 5 p.m., one SQ officer emerged from the backyard carrying a live cat.

At about 7 p.m., the bodies, each wrapped in white plastic and strapped on to gurnies were rolled out of the backyard and lifted into two vans.

They were taken to Montreal, where autopsies will be performed to try to determine exactly how the deaths occurred.

Two women who were at the scene since 8 a.m. Tuesday said they were intrigued by how the police and journalists work.

“No words can explain this,” said one, who gave her name only as Natalie.

“Nothing like this ever happens here,” she said about the town of about 5,000 people.

Lise Messier, who lives kitty-corner to the Richardson St. house, said she was awakened at 3 a.m. by two large bangs she thought might have been gunshots.

A third sounded like an explosion.

She tried to get back to sleep but after about five minutes, looked out her window to see huge flames rising from behind her neighbour’s grey bungalow, and fire trucks outside.

“Police told me they might have been having a picnic in the garage and propane exploded,” Messier said. “I said, ‘A picnic at 3 in the morning? Come on!’ ”

In his Facebook post, Marcoux vented his frustrations about the “lies,” “blind judges,” and “corrupt lawyers.”

“I swear by my heart of a father,” he railed in one of a number of chilling passages, “that my children will never be mistreated ever again, not even with the blessing of a hypocrite judge.”

Although unclear when it was written, what could essentially prove to be a suicide note was posted sometime overnight. One of his Facebook friends responded, urging him “Don’t give up.”

Punctuating his text with repeated use of exclamation marks, Marcoux complained that Brillant’s lawyer had filed a motion for custody “in the middle of the school year,” which caused “my son to lose his year and (created) problems even with the grades of my daughter.”

Court records attest to a bitter breakup between Marcoux and Brillant, who ended their common-law relationship in 2002. While they split amicably at first, signing an agreement to share custody and divide assets with the help of a mediator in June 2002, they later locked in a lengthy child-custody battle. Their court fight started in 2005, then died down and escalated again in 2009.

In 2006, a judge had to intervene on the question of whether Brillant had repaid $3,682.56 she had borrowed from Marcoux between the summer of 2002 and early 2004. He said she still owed him the money. She brought witnesses to court – including her new spouse, Michel Gonzalez, and one of Marcoux’s former partners – who said she had repaid the debt in furniture.

Quebec Court Justice Pierre Labbé ultimately ruled the debt had been acquitted and ordered Marcoux to pay $108 in court costs.

The renewal of the battle in 2009 was over custody of the two children and involved more than a dozen hearing dates, some involving psychosocial experts. The last court date took place on May 18, Marcoux’s birthday.

Marcoux also had a criminal record dating from 2005. He pleaded guilty to a charge of intimidation and received a suspended sentence in 2006.

His lawyer in the file, Jean Asselin, was on holiday and his legal partner could not say whether the charge was related to the custody battle.