[insects and birds chirping]
[lawnmower rattling]
[soft dramatic music]
* *
[foreboding music]
* *
- Oh! Ah!
Oh, oh, oh, oh!
[lock clicks]
- In our suburbs,
evil lurks behind closed doors--
true stories so terrifying because the horror is real.
You will never look at your neighbors the same way again.
I'm John Carpenter,
and this is "Suburban Screams."
[person shrieks]
- I told my wife, he's in a maximum security prison.
He's not getting out.
What I didn't tell her was, if he does get out,
we'll have to run.
We won't have any choice.
[suspenseful music]
* *
My name is Rick MacLean.
I grew up in the city of Miramichi in New Brunswick.
Miramichi was a sort of middle class,
working class kind of community.
It was quiet. It was peaceful.
And people knew each other's business.
They knew if there was trouble at home.
They knew if the kids were being bad.
- My name is David Cadogan. I moved to Miramichi in 1976.
I found Miramichiers to be the kindest, most generous people
that I'd ever run into anywhere.
And they still are.
- Everyone's dying to escape
to one of Canada's best kept secrets.
- * By the sea *
* Miramichi *
- When my father and I bought our first paper there,
we had to build the whole business from the ground up,
pretty much.
I went to Manpower.
And I said, look, I said, I need somebody
that I can teach to be a reporter.
When Rick turned up, he said, a-ha.
He said, I think this is the kind of guy
that Dave might be looking for, sent him to see me.
- The first words I remember out of his mouth were,
who the fuck are you?
And I said, Rick MacLean.
I'd like to interview for the reporter's job.
- We sat down and we talked.
And 15 minutes later, he went to work.
- So I worked at the newspaper for a few months.
At one point, Dave asked,
where do you see yourself in five years?
And I never missed a beat.
I looked him right in the eye, and I said,
I see me doing your job in five years.
And he howled with laughter.
That's how I ended up the editor of the newspaper.
- You need an editor with a killer instinct, really.
And he was just brilliant at that.
Rick could be quite bloodless when he was on the hunt.
[suspenseful music]
* *
- This is a very small-town newspaper.
But it's "The New York Times" of Miramichi.
The newsroom was only four desks.
But Dave wanted this to be the best newspaper,
pound for pound, in the country.
It was me, my wife, and reporter Bonnie Sweeney.
- For you.
- Good morning, Bonnie.
- Morning.
- More fan mail?
- You know how much they love you.
[typewriter clacking]
- You must be doing something right, Rick.
This guy wants to use your testicles for golf balls.
- Yeah, he isn't the only one.
- It's your job as editor.
Pick the fights.
Those in power accountable, all that crap--
just get me those fucking headlines.
* *
- [sighs]
- The whole idea was that you covered the go-kart races
and you covered court and you covered the car accidents
and you covered city council.
There were no blaring headlines.
But we worked around the clock trying to find them.
[phone ringing]
* *
- Hello, Mira--
ah, wait, wait.
I--you need to slow down.
What?
- Another angry reader?
- There's been a murder.
* *
- Uh, honey, I think we need to--
- I'll cancel dinner with the Stevensons.
Just get home safe.
- Thank you, sweetie.
* *
[dog barking]
[tense sting]
[zipper whirs]
- Was that a boot print on his skull?
- John Glendenning is the victim.
Botched robbery, most likely.
We just got his wife to the hospital.
It's a miracle she made it.
- Who would do something like this?
* *
[sighs]
* *
- The community is panicked
because this is the first murder in years
that anyone can remember, certainly since I was a kid.
Mary Glendenning had been horribly beaten.
And the 911 recording was heart-rending.
She was terrified.
But Mary's alive.
She can give some testimony, talking to the police.
And very quickly,
Allan Legere is the main suspect.
If you lived in Miramichi, you knew who Allan Legere was.
He was bad news. Everybody knew he was bad news.
* *
He was always in trouble with the law
for some reason or other.
But he was the kind of guy that would tie two cats' tails
together and then throw them over a wire, over a line,
you know, and let them hang there.
He had always been a twisted person.
He was bright. He was a machinist.
That's not an easy job.
And really muscular and fearless--
so he was quite willing to sort of
impose himself physically on people from a very young age.
Certainly, the community was terrified of him.
- Years before the Glendenning murder,
he was writing to us all the time.
And I would respond.
So he wrote a letter to the paper
about how people were such sheep,
and he would rather be a pirate than a sheep.
And I responded,
saying the people who supported their community,
they were the heroes, not the pirates.
So those were my initial interactions with him.
- So police officers believed Allan Legere
was looking for the quick score.
He walks into that house,
and he has an elderly couple with money in the house,
and he has complete control.
And he just went wild.
He's beating on this man.
He's demanding the combination to the safe.
She's trying to open the safe,
but he's beating her and hitting her in the head.
He just went berserk.
And it was rough.
Fortunately, Allan Legere is pulled in
within a couple of days.
And the community goes, whew, thank heavens.
These cases, they go to trial relatively quickly.
So I turned to our crime reporter, Bonnie Sweeney,
and said, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to cover this like a transcript.
You're going to take down every word said
in that courtroom, everything that you see.
[typewriter clacking]
- They just called a recess.
- These are all the transcripts?
- Yeah. - Hey.
- Oh, thank you.
- Do you want anything waiting for you when you get back?
- Just the biggest cup of coffee you can imagine.
- Our coverage was selling a lot of newspapers.
There was a gas station 400 yards
from where our printing press was.
It was the first place that got the papers every night.
People knew that.
One night, there were 125 people
at the gas station waiting to get their copy.
- This is how you're keeping up with "The New York Times"?
[whistles]
- It's David versus Goliath.
- You better hope Legere ends up behind bars.
Or he'll be coming for you.
[tense music]
- Allan Legere decided that he didn't like the report,
saying the community is against me
and this isn't fair.
Legere knew my name and who I was.
And I'm singled out as the person
who's responsible for it.
Suddenly, my wife and I became aware that
our personal safety was at stake.
The case goes to the jury.
Very quickly, they come to a verdict.
And the verdict is guilty.
He'll eventually get life,
which is automatic with second-degree murder.
And it's over, right?
You could see the community sort of give a sigh of relief.
After being afraid of Allan Legere,
finally, we're gonna be safe from this guy.
The community can forget about it,
which is exactly what the community did.
And Allan Legere vanishes from the public's awareness.
He was buried in a maximum security prison...
They thought, forever.
* *
[birds chirping]
[typewriter clacking]
- Hard to believe just six months ago,
we were scooping "The New York Times."
I don't want another murderer.
But I could use some goddamn news.
[phone ringing]
- Miramichi, how can I--
What?
[tense music]
It's my husband. He's on the police scanner.
- Tell Kenny to hold the phone up to the scanner.
- OK.
[beep]
- Hospital's in lockdown. Teams on each floor now.
Suspect is armed. He's dangerous.
[radio static]
- Dispatch, I've lost visual.
Suspect last seen fleeing the building.
[radio static]
[upbeat music playing over radio]
[buzzer blares]
- We interrupt this program for an urgent news bulletin.
Please be on the lookout for--
[radio changing stations]
- [screams] [car horn blares]
[gasps]
[car door dinging]
* *
[seat belt clicks] [screams]
- Drive!
- [whimpering]
[engine turns over]
* *
- The escaped convict, it's Allan Legere.
- You'll think he'll come back to Miramichi?
- If he's smart,
he'll get as far away from here as he can.
* *
[soft dramatic music]
* *
- Allan Legere was convicted of murdering
a shopkeeper in Black River Bridge, New Brunswick in 1986.
Three years later, he escaped from prison.
- A predator like Legere was looking for an opening,
and he saw one.
He starts poking at his ear to create an infection
so that he has to go to a hospital about 100 miles away
in Moncton once or twice.
He took some pieces off his television
and fashioned a homemade key.
He shoves it up his rectum to hide it.
They allow him to go in the bathroom
with the door mostly closed.
The next thing you know, Legere bursts out of the bathroom.
Cuffs are gone.
Explodes past the first officer,
explodes past the second one, who all he can do,
as he gets close to him, is he sprays with the pepper spray.
Well, that doesn't work in the back of the head of a guy
who's running away from you.
[tense music]
I knew I had a target on my back.
The community was sort of,
I think, unconsciously holding its breath,
waiting for something really, really bad to happen.
* *
[pounding on door]
[lock clicking]
[pounding continues]
[pounding intensifies]
[tense music]
* *
[pounding continues]
[banging]
[doorknob rattling]
- Oh, geez.
- I'm sorry, Annie.
I'm such a klutz.
Oh, I brought you a nice salad.
[bag rustling]
I'll put it in the kitchen.
- You know, Annie Flam, she's like 76.
She was basically everyone's Jewish grandmother--
older house, right downtown,
two minutes away from the fire station and the police station.
Annie and her sister-in-law
were blithely going on with their lives.
[foreboding music]
* *
[knocking]
- Someone at the door?
Annie?
[knocking]
Who would visit at this hour?
[muffled door clicks]
Annie?
[muffled thud]
* *
- [groaning and grunting]
- [grunting] - [groaning]
- [winces]
[dramatic music]
[screams]
[bone cracks] [shrieks]
[crying]
[grunting]
- [grunts]
[ominous music]
* *
[dog barking]
[somber music]
* *
- [panting]
- [whimpers]
[crying]
- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Shh.
No.
You stay in bed, OK?
- [whimpering]
- Shh. OK.
* *
[grunts]
* *
[sighs]
[panting]
Mm. Mm.
* *
- [crying softly]
[whimpers]
[tense music]
* *
[groaning]
- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Stay here.
- OK. - OK?
- OK. - OK.
[canister rattling]
[canister thuds]
[lighter clicks]
* *
- [coughs]
* *
[flames crackling]
[dramatic music]
* *
- [coughing]
[groans]
[coughing]
[tense music]
[grunts]
[whimpering]
* *
[coughs]
* *
[sobbing]
- Two sisters beaten, their home torched.
- Annie Flam, 75, was beaten to death.
Her sister-in-law was also beaten, but she survived.
- It's a tragedy.
He'd taken his time.
He'd killed Annie, then he'd come up the stairs.
He knew that Nina was there. He'd sexually assaulted Nina.
He tucks her into the bed like he'd tuck in a child,
all firm in the bed.
She didn't resist, which is probably why she survived.
- I mean Annie Flam, for heaven's sake,
she wouldn't have weighed 100 pounds.
She was just a sweet, frail, little old lady.
So the assault that he committed there
and the murder he committed there were just so disgusting.
[sighs]
- That's the latest in a series of brutal attacks in the area.
Nobody knows for sure who's behind them,
but the number one suspect is a convicted murderer on the run.
- Everyone's favorite suspect is Allan Legere.
He's a convicted killer who was serving a life sentence
for the brutal murder in 1986
of an elderly Miramichi storekeeper.
- At the time, I had a column every week.
So I was commenting on everything
that was going on with Legere,
never in his favor, of course.
So nobody likes it when you cover their crimes.
- Here are all of the alleged Legere sightings today.
- He's becoming a damn boogeyman.
- There was a fire at my house.
[indistinct radio chatter]
Honey, are you OK?
One second.
What happened?
Mr. Cadogan, your house was burned throughout.
Your wife was lucky she wasn't inside.
- Legere?
- Certainly what she thinks, Sir.
- You did this to us.
You taunted him with your paper.
What did you think was gonna happen?
- Honey. - Shame on you.
- Honey!
[door clicks, beeps]
[door slams]
[keys jangling]
[engine revving, gear cranking]
* *
- The fire was set in the middle of the bed
in the master bedroom.
And that was a bit of a pattern.
That had happened in several other homes in the area.
Legere was targeting people that he tangled with.
And frankly, at that point, I did get nervous,
because I was one of his prime contacts.
And he had no interest, of course, in a fair fight.
My marriage was breaking up.
And with Legere on the loose,
she had no interest in being there and left.
[sighs]
- When the fire happened,
you know, I was scared to death.
It's like you were in the herd
and the lion was circling around the outside.
And you didn't want to be the one that the lion singled out.
And it was just a matter of time.
- Allan Legere is the subject
of countless whispered conversations
every day in this town.
- On account of his criminal records, people have a fear.
Just the name Allan Legere
sends a fear through the people.
* *
- More sightings--
a severed head found on a doorstep,
a man and his wife were bludgeoned with his own shotgun,
and a number of people who say they wake up
with some guy just standing over them.
- Sounds like Legere.
[sirens wailing]
- At a home that would have been
a 60-second walk from my office,
Donna Daughney and Linda Daughney--
women minding their own business--
- Two sisters who lived here were viciously beaten
and sexually assaulted, their home set on fire.
[sirens wailing]
- Just like in the Flam case,
Legere, he tucked her into the bed.
* *
[sirens wailing]
It just gets worse and worse and worse.
[dramatic music]
- It was awful.
Linda would die from smoke inhalation.
I've seen the autopsy photos. You can see the soot line
running down through her trachea.
[tense music]
- It upsets me as a parent, a citizen, and a police officer
to see human lives taken like this.
- It's becoming a too-familiar scene
in this part of Northeastern New Brunswick.
More than a dozen RCMP officers
are looking into the killing of two sisters.
* *
- This is the moment when, for the community,
we now accepted that
Allan Legere was a serial killer,
that we were the hunting ground, and we were the hunted.
Every indication is that we have someone here
who kills for kicks.
- Rick MacLean, editor of the local paper,
says people are terrified.
- People from national television stations,
they're all coming to town looking for someone to talk to.
And I became sort of the media face of this thing.
I was the person that you were seeing
on television and on the radio, and we didn't know this,
but Allan Legere had a radio and he was listening.
I'm sure people are thinking now
that unless they catch him, it will happen again.
[tense music]
I used to joke with Fred Ferguson,
the crown prosecutor who put him away for the Glendenning case,
Legere ever gets out, I just have to run faster than you,
because, you know, there's an assumption Legere had a list
and Fred was at the top of the list.
And in the most serious voice
I've ever heard him use, Fred went, no.
No, it's you.
It's not me.
All this attention became a sore point with my wife.
At one point, she sat me down and basically said,
you know, what about us?
- [gasps]
- Hey, I was just coming to give you a kiss.
- I'm sorry for the less-than-warm reception.
- No, it's OK.
How's our little one doing?
[soft dramatic music]
- Do you think we're putting a target on our backs?
* *
- About two weeks later, the 28th of October,
everything completely exploded.
All hell breaks loose.
[dramatic music]
There's someone being chased around
the town of Chatham.
Everybody in the community is listening to the scanners,
listening to all this happen in real time.
[indistinct radio chatter]
Police officer said, surrender!
The man spins, fires a shotgun.
[gunshot]
The man--it was Legere--
turned to him and, in a completely calm voice,
said, if you don't leave me alone,
I'm going to fucking kill you.
And Legere escapes.
The RCMP released a news release
saying there was a shot fired
and we basically don't have anything else to say.
- He's outfoxed his pursuers,
and that now he's even made the Mounties cry uncle.
Neil Stairs, CBS News, Chatham.
[tense music]
* *
- The community was furious.
The community is afraid for its personal safety.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police won't tell us anything.
I did something I've never done before
and I've never done since.
I wrote an editorial and put it on the front page
of the newspaper.
In that, I said, look.
You say you want our help.
We are desperate to help.
And yet, you're providing us with no information
for our own personal safety.
* *
After this call to action,
I could only hope that the police got ahold of Legere
before Legere got a hold of me.
[tense music]
* *
[wind howling]
It was the 15th of November.
Legere, he had been hiding for months.
I was stopping at a gas station
to get some gas on the way into work.
And a police officer pulled up, jumped out of his car,
and confirmed Legere apparently was bottled up in a small area
of Chatham Head, near the church,
near where my grandmother lived.
They had him boxed in.
He couldn't get out, and they couldn't find him.
* *
[faucet squeaks]
[ominous music]
* *
- [gasps]
[grunting]
[blade swishing] [yelps]
- [grunting]
* *
[somber music]
* *
- At 7:05,
Father James Smith, Roman Catholic priest,
was five minutes late for his mass.
And Father Smith was never late.
There was blood everywhere, absolutely everywhere.
He had slaughtered him. I've seen the photos.
The floor was covered in blood.
Blood splattered onto the ceiling.
I didn't know you could do this.
He had disconnected his face from his skull
as if it was a mask.
And it slid sideways on his face.
He had--it was the most vicious of all the attacks.
- First, an elderly woman, then two sisters,
then a priest were murdered.
- The mayor says people are afraid
and they're arming themselves.
- Some people have called me and said that, you know,
that they're sleeping with a loaded gun, but...
I wish they wouldn't.
- You know, a lot of murder going on.
And I think we have to do something about it.
And we have to do it ourselves locally.
People were certainly terrified.
All kinds of things started to shut down.
You know, people would not go out at night
for anything, to shop.
Halloween was canceled.
Elderly people in town,
many of them moved in with their adult children or left town.
- You'd walk the streets, and it was like COVID.
The streets were empty.
Legere, he could be anywhere.
It's just never going to end for us.
It just keeps going on and on.
We're never going to feel safe again.
[tense music]
* *
It's winter, and we finally had
our first snow storm of the year.
Allan Legere had been hiding
at a string of things that sort of looked like teepees
and makeshift shelters on the outskirts of the community.
But now it's November. It's freezing cold.
And there's snow. So you can't hide snow prints.
So he had been forced to flee.
And that night, Allan Legere gets ahold of a cab.
And Legere points a gun at him and says, start driving.
But it's starting to snow.
And the cab swerves in the middle of this highway,
ends up in the ditch.
A good Samaritan stops.
It was an off-duty police officer, a woman,
who had stopped to help them.
Now he has two hostages.
Finally, he's running out of gas.
So he pulls into a small town to get gas.
He pumps in the gas,
dashes in, throws a 20 on the counter,
comes running back out, and the car is disappearing,
sort of swishing this way as it's going.
Legere calmly walks over to a tractor trailer,
an 18-wheeler, points at the driver,
Brian Golding, says, I'm Allan Legere.
Get in the truck.
And now he's got an 18-wheeler, and he forces him to go north.
[sirens wailing]
Transport truck on that road doesn't make any sense.
Everybody was so afraid, people called the police.
The police stopped the truck.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- It's him. It's him.
- Drop your weapon! Get out of the truck!
[tense music]
[bone cracks] [woman screams]
- [screams]
[lighter clicks]
[flames whooshing]
- Ah! - [groans]
[blade swishes] [woman screams]
- [exhales]
* *
[shallow breathing]
* *
[dramatic music]
[singer vocalizing]
* *
[tense music]
* *
[indistinct radio chatter]
- On the Miramichi, they've hoped and prayed
for this moment.
Allan Legere, a suspect
in four recent murders, in handcuffs--
soon to be behind bars again.
The man they believe was terrorizing them
has been finally caught.
- RCMP nabbed Legere.
He had a sawed off rifle loaded and cocked,
but he didn't resist.
- I rushed to the newsroom.
The phone rings, and it's Dave Cadogan.
And he sort of rhymes off,
we need to do this, we need to do this.
And I said, we did that, Dave. And we did that, Dave.
And finally, I said, David,
we have to have a special edition.
And I'll never forget what he said.
He went, fuck, yes!
People were out in the streets.
The church bells were ringing.
[bells ringing]
- In town, the bells rang out,
calling people to a special mass to celebrate
what the priest called,
"the liberation of the Miramichi."
The mayor of Newcastle says
a load has been lifted from his shoulders.
- And on the streets, it's completely different today.
Everybody's in a different mood altogether.
It's almost unbelievable,
the change that has happened since yesterday.
[soft music]
- We can put our machetes and everything away.
[laughs]
- The best thing that ever happened.
Make it a good Christmas, won't it?
- Legere would be charged with four more counts of murder,
but this time, it's first-degree murder.
The sentence is still life,
but now the opportunity for parole goes from 18 years--
the Glendenning case-- to 25 years.
- Many people believe that Allan Legere will eventually
get out of prison, that he will escape,
because he's done it before,
because he's always been quite the con man.
And they believe he will--
if he does get out-- that he will kill again.
[tense music]
* *
- Very quickly after he was back in prison,
he was starting to plan his escape again.
I get a phone call from my wife.
I'm at work.
She's at home with our one-year-old.
My wife was just frantic on the phone.
I said, what's wrong?
[suspenseful music]
* *
- "Hi, Dear.
"How are you?
I had such a nice time last summer seeing you there."
[foreboding music]
"Nice place."
* *
[breathing shakily]
"You're such a lovely wife, and I just love that new baby."
[baby babbling]
"So quiet and bouncy.
"I know you spend a lot of time by yourself,
"so I know you won't mind me visiting you next year.
Until then, I'll see you again."
- The police said it's Legere.
He tells you that he knows things about you,
that he understands where you live,
understands that I have a little girl.
Allan Legere's first parole hearing,
it was about a two-hour process.
And I'm told he spent about 20 minutes talking about me.
It's personal.
I've written a series of headlines
about Allan Legere over the years.
When Allan Legere escaped,
I had a photo of him that filled the front page of the newspaper.
It was the only thing on the paper.
And it said, "escaped" right across it.
When Allan Legere was caught, same photo, same size--
it said "caught."
And when Allan Legere was found guilty,
same photo, and it said "guilty."
I don't run a newspaper anymore,
but I'm waiting for one last headline--
"dead."
[eerie, dramatic music]
* *