Wearing a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar and a black blazer with no tie,
Alain Bellefeuille
took the witness stand for the first time, nearly two years to the day since he shot three Ontario Provincial Police officers during a
wellness check turned deadly
at his home in Bourget, Ont.
His voice was subdued, sometimes shaky, as he described crouching beside his bed with a loaded SKS semi-automatic rifle and opening fire on what he said he thought were intruders. Tears flowed when he recounted the moment he found a gravely injured
Sgt. Eric Mueller
, who later died.
“My heart was pounding in my ears,” Bellefeuille told the jury in French. “I was in a panic.”
Bellefeuille said he awoke around 2:30 a.m. to unfamiliar noise on May 11, 2023. He lived alone with his dog and had long feared a break-in. “I realized someone was in the house in the middle of the night, (and thought) there was a chance I might die,” he told the jury.
He recalled a home invasion 16 years earlier in which friends were tied to chairs and beaten at gunpoint. “That made me think a lot … that it could possibly happen (to me), especially living in the countryside, where I was.” He’d also been robbed in the past, including vehicle thefts and a break-in at his former home in Gatineau.
Bellefeuille kept a
firearm in the bedroom
. His wallet, often holding large amounts of cash, was hidden. “It could be anywhere in the house,” he said. Police later found $10,000 concealed under the bathroom sink.
The court heard that Bellefeuille is Algonquin, with status through the Alliance Autochtone du Québec. Bellefeuille said he discovered his status in his mid-twenties and grew up cut off from that part of his identity. “It’s not uncommon for our traditions to get lost over time,” he said. While incarcerated, he took part in smudging ceremonies and healing circles.
On May 10, the day before the shooting, Bellefeuille said he worked a shift on a construction site, ran errands and dropped off flooring at a trailer he had parked on a friend’s lot. Around 8:30 p.m., he had one or two cans of Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola with a friend near his home. He continued drinking alone afterward, estimating he consumed about 10 cans in total while listening to music and walking his dog.
He told investigators he felt about “seven out of ten” intoxicated, a number he confirmed in court, before going to bed just after midnight. On the stand, he said any inebriation had worn off by the time he shot his rifle.
The firearm, bought legally around 2012, was stored at the foot of his bed. When asked what he had to do to ready it for firing, he replied, “Absolutely nothing. There was a round in the chamber. The magazine was already in the magwell, and the safety was off.” He had modified the magazine to hold about 20 rounds, well above the legal limit of five, because he didn’t want to waste time reloading in an emergency.
Bellefeuille testified that the house was completely dark. He saw a beam of light and the shadow of a person he believed was armed. “It looked like he had a gun in his hand,” he said of the officer shown holding a flashlight in body-worn camera footage.
It took fractions of a second for Bellefeuille to fire.
Asked if he heard anyone say his name or announce they were police, Bellefeuille replied, “No, unfortunately.” He said he didn’t see any identifying insignia or uniforms and would have reacted differently had he known. “I would have been relieved … definitely. I wouldn’t have seen them as a threat,” he said.
During a 27-second pause in gunfire, Bellefeuile said he waited and hoped the intruder had fled. “I couldn’t see anything,” he said. “There was smoke … my ears were ringing.” But then
he heard a shot
.
“The first thing I thought was that someone was armed, and the second thing was that I needed to move … I felt vulnerable, like a sitting duck, at that point.”
Bellefeuille moved closer to his bedroom door and spotted a flicker of light behind the living room curtain. Believing the threat was ongoing, he fired again, two more shots toward the source of the light.
The jury has heard that Mueller was fatally wounded almost immediately after entering the home. Const. Marc Lauzon was shot multiple times. Const. François Gamache-Asselin was also struck.
Inside the house, investigators found camouflage décor, firearms-related signage, electronics, tools, and a mounted deer head above a Browning ball cap. “The house was a bit of a disaster,” said Bellefeuille, who told the jury he had been in the process of moving and had already packed up most of his belongings.
Photos showed the SKS rifle beside the bed. “To have quick access,” Bellefeuille said. He’d stopped sport shooting over a decade earlier, but kept the rifle.
It was fitted with a scope, though not a night-vision one. “It lights up the crosshair … red if you press it once, green if you press it again. It would be difficult … If the object is too close, you wouldn’t see much,” he explained.
The court heard that a separate night-vision scope was found on the kitchen table. Bellefeuille said it had never been mounted on the rifle. “I had put it on my crossbow … It’s not something you want to drop on the ground,” he said of the “high-value item … worth $2,000 just for that piece.”.
He also had motion-sensor lighting on his patio and disconnected security cameras outside the house to deter thieves. One motion light was triggered as officers entered the home; photos showed blood on the wooden platform beneath.
Bellefeuille testified that, after the shooting, he removed his rifle’s magazine and left the weapon next to Mueller before calling 911. “I had no reason to continue,” he said. He told the dispatcher: “I shot a police, unfortunately. He broke into my house.”
Asked what he wanted to happen that night, Bellefeuille answered, “I didn’t want anyone to die.” When pressed on his emotions, he said, “I was in a nightmare. I thought it was a home invasion. Then I realized it was police I had shot.”
His testimony started the defence phase of the trial after more than five weeks of Crown evidence. The jury has already seen bullet strikes documented in multiple rooms of the house and the officers’ vehicles outside. A forensic expert previously testified that Bellefeuille’s weapon had a high-capacity magazine with capacity for 22 rounds.
Bellefeuille has pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. His cross-examination was expected to begin on May 9.
