
Ducarme Joseph, alleged street gang leader.
Photograph by: TVA , The Gazette
MONTREAL — A man that several sources have identified as former gang leader Ducarme Joseph was found dead on Friday night in the St-Michel district of Montreal.
Around 10:15 p.m., his body was discovered in the street at the intersection of St-Michel Blvd. and Michel-Ange St., Montreal police said. The victim had been shot multiple times, police spokesperson Constable François Collard said.
No suspect has been arrested, and the motive for the homicide is unknown.
Montreal police have not revealed the identity of the victim because his family may still need to be notified. “I can tell you he was a man in his 40s and he was well known to police,” Collard said. “All investigative hypotheses are being withheld.”
Joseph, 46, was the apparent target of a shooting at the Flawnego fashion boutique in 2010 that killed two people, Joseph’s bodyguard Peter Christopoulos, 27, and store manager Jean Gaston, 60. Joseph apparently used a back exit to escape unharmed. Three men, Carey Isaac Regis, Kyle Gabriel and Terrell Lloyd Smith, were convicted of murder in the shooting and sentenced in May to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Montreal police considered Joseph the most influential street gang member in Montreal, and police had been advising him for years that there are contracts out on his life. Also known by his aliases, Kenny, Ducarmel, K, Kentucky and King Kenny, t Joseph is assumed to be the founder of the 67s street gang based in St-Michel, named after the bus route that runs through the district. He was known as an important player in Montreal’s drug and prostitution scene, filling the vacuum left by the dismantling of the Hells Angels and imprisonment of alleged Mafia kingpin Vito Rizzuto.
Joseph’s recorded history of violence dates back to Jan. 8, 1989, when he lured a 12-year-old into prostitution and sexually assaulted her. He pleaded guilty in that case and was sentenced to eight months in jail and two years probation.
On May 29, 2000, he was charged with brutally beating and choking a tow-truck driver at Drummond St. and de Maisonneuve Blvd. after he tried to tow Joseph’s Porsche, which was illegally parked in a private lot. Joseph was acquitted in that case four years later.
In 2008, Joseph was charged with assault causing bodily harm after witnesses said he stabbed two people outside a bar on Parc Ave. But the victim who identified him never showed up in court to testify, and the charge was dropped.
Between April and June 1998, there were several incidents between Joseph and his then-girlfriend. In early April, Joseph tried to strangle her and threatened her with a revolver.
On May 21 of that year, he tried to push her out of a car that was travelling at 180 kilometres an hour. He hit her, threatened to kill her and broke into her house several times, a police report says. Joseph was found guilty of uttering death threats against the woman and was sentenced to 15 days in jail and one year probation or a $100 fine. Ten other counts against him in that case were withdrawn.
This is the 18th homicide of the year on SPVM territory, compared to 17 by this time last year.