‘I killed Romane. I stabbed her 26 times,' says accused in McGill Ghetto murder trial
Montreal Crime
By
The man on trial for the murder of Romane Bonnier, a woman who was stabbed 26 times in front of several witnesses in the McGill Ghetto, began his defence Wednesday afternoon by bluntly stating that he killed her.
'I killed Romane. I stabbed her 26 times,' François Pelletier, 39, told a jury at the Montreal courthouse.
He said his testimony was part of a story called 'the moth and the flame.'
Pelletier made the rambling introduction before he was sworn in.
'My objective is to explain what happened,' he said, while telling the jury to expect 'a freestyle rendering.'
He also referred to his story as 'a train wreck in four parts.'
Superior Court Justice François Dadour reminded the jury that the Crown finished presenting its evidence in the trial last week.
The prosecution's theory is that Pelletier met Bonnier after she posted an ad seeking a roommate to share her apartment and they ended up in a brief relationship. It came to a quick end and Bonnier received many text messages from Pelletier demanding that they get back together.
The Crown alleges Pelletier then waited outside Bonnier's workplace for a long time and followed her as she headed home before he stabbed her many times on Oct. 19, 2021. The attack was captured by a surveillance camera and the video was shown to the jury.
'It ends insane because (the relationship) started insane,' Pelletier told the jury.
He also referenced the popular song Creep by Radiohead, sung from the perspective of an alienated man attracted to a woman he knows he has ultimately no chance with.
Pelletier said he believes Bonnier 'had a crush' on him from the moment they met despite the significant differences in age. She was 24 when she was killed.
Days after she agreed to let him live in the apartment, Pelletier said, Bonnier put on makeup and did her hair to prepare to go out with friends. A COVID-19 health measure had been lifted, Pelletier said, and Montreal's terrasses were opening up for the first time in a long time.
Pelletier said it seemed to him that Bonnier wanted him to see her with makeup and her hair prepared for a night out.
'I knew that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen,' Pelletier said. 'That's where it gets special.
'This was something special. It ended the way you saw it (in the surveillance video).'
Pelletier also admitted that he ended up being obsessed with Bonnier.
'This girl just occupied all the space in my mind,' he said. 'A psychiatric evaluation would have been interesting to you, but we don't have that right now.'
This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 2:58 PM.
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