On the morning they were arrested for allegedly burning bodies as part of a series of mafia murders, Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion had already finished breakfast and packed their daughter off to elementary school. A hand-drawn Mother's Day card hung on the fridge next to family photographs. Viau, 44, didn't have to go to her shift at the roadside poutine restaurant until later that day, so she tried baking something new: blueberry phyllopuffs. The pastries were still on the stove top when police arrived at 9:56 a.m. on October 16, 2019.
"We're normal people," Viau swore to the arresting officers, through her tears, after she and her husband were each charged with two counts of first-degree murder. "We didn't kill anyone."
Undercover recordings made by investigators told a different tale. The interception division of the Sûreté du Québec had secretly taped Viau and Dion speaking about how they'd disposed of bodies for members of the Calabrian Mafia. By their own admission, they'd incinerated corpses in their yard in a bonfire. "We did what we could with what we had," she explained, when police questioned her about the cremations.
"But setting the bodies on fire?" a sergeant detective asked. "Was that [idea] from Guy, as he's a fireman?"
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