RIMOUSKI — The trial of a Quebec man accused of using his truck to kill three pedestrians heard from its last witness on Friday, with the jury expected to be sequestered by the end of next week.
The defence’s final witness at the murder trial of a Steeve Gagnon concluded his testimony on Friday,
Gagnon, 40, has pleaded not guilty to five charges including three counts of first-degree murder.
Gagnon is accused of accelerating his truck onto the sidewalk in Amqui, Que., about 350 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, on March 13, 2023, killing three men and injuring nine other people.
The defence’s final witness was a psychiatrist who met with Gagnon last September. His opinion was based on the single meeting 18 months after the events.
Dr. Samuel Gauthier testified Gagnon denied having any intent to strike people, telling him he dropped something in the cab of his truck and took his eyes off the road as he tried to retrieve it.
“He realized that something was happening but he wasn’t able to describe it,” Gauthier said.
The psychiatrist says Gagnon recounted driving back in the opposite direction, viewing the carnage and hearing people yell that he had struck the pedestrians.
He also testified that Gagnon was angry about some personal setbacks in the period before the alleged attack. Gagnon blamed doctors for delaying back surgery he needed to resume work as a truck driver, and he was also upset after losing his employment insurance, which forced him to go on welfare, Gauthier said in his testimony.
Gagnon’s version of events has evolved. After the crash, he told provincial police the next day he remembered nothing apart from taking a nap and waking up at the police station.
In court, Gagnon said he remembered little except striking a pedestrian and the rest was blank.
The Crown keyed in on those discrepancies during Gauthier’s cross-examination. The psychiatrist believes the accused’s jumbled memory may be linked to a dissociative state due to trauma, as a way of coping.
Gauthier also said Gagnon had likely suffered from persecutory delusions for several years, but it wasn’t a factor in March 2023.
“Although he was ill, his condition was not severe enough to alter his appreciation of the nature of his actions or to recognize that they were wrong,” Gauthier said.
There were no outbursts during Friday’s hearing from Gagnon, who was sent away from the courtroom a few times after expletive-laden tirades against the prosecution, the judge and even the jurors, earlier in the week.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Louis Dionne told the jury that final arguments will be heard next Wednesday. Gagnon’s lawyer, Hugo Caissy, will go first while Simon Blanchette, who has prosecuted the case with Jérôme Simard, will go last.
Then the 14 jurors will be pared down to a dozen.
Dionne said they will likely begin deliberating next Thursday.
— by Sidhartha Banerjee in Montreal.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2025.
The Canadian Press
