Montreal's Top 10 gangland murders: #3 Richard Blass

Richard Blass

Richard Blass was a SuperPest. 
Raised in Rosemont beside at least two brothers (one of whom, Michel, was a killer as well), Blass took on the local Mafia singlehandedly because he did not want to give a cut to the mob. He tried to kill Frank Cotroni and then survived four subsequent ambushes, one involving two bullets to the head and two to the back, earning him the nickname Cat, or Weasel, depending on whom you asked. 

The Val David Chalet

   Blass robbed banks and killed people the way others would make their toast. His lawyer struck a deal in which he would avoid being labelled a dangerous offender but the judge died during the trial and all bets were off, leaving him vulnerable to an endless life behind bars. During the FLQ crisis Blass offered a prison warden to take FLQ detainees prisoner in a way to get the FLQ to give up their detainees but that was shot down. He escaped jail twice, once with the assistance of Jacques Mesrine's female accomplice. He loved publicity and even furnished notes and photos to the media, including one taunting the hulking, bald, fearsome QPP cop Albert Lisecek. 

Frank Shoofey

Richard Blass, dead

Benoit Vinet
rented the cottage
to Blass

       Blass committed the unspeakable crime of setting a fire in a bar and barricading the customers inside, thus killing 13 in the Gargantua Bar. He then escaped to a ski Chalet in Val David with a crony and two women. Somebody tipped off he cops of his presence. Police rushed up to the chalet and shot Blass dead with 27 bullets. He died from lead poisoning January 24, 1975, surrounded by seven weapons, gas masks and ammunition. 
   A gun was in his right hand on which there were no finger prints. Blass was a lefty. His lawyer Frank Shoofey said it was proof cops simply executed him. His killer was said to be Lisacek but police put out word that Lisacek did not personally shoot him dead. Perhaps they feared retribution against the maverick officer. 
    Blass was a mama's boy. His father had left the home when he was a small child. She killed herself a few years later. He is buried in the Cote-des-Neiges cemetery,  his headstone bearing the inscription, "freed for God, freed from mankind."