Most Wanted - The Hunt for Jonathan Ouellet-Gendron | 9
31:10 Share

Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime.

Coming to ABC and Hulu. Amanda Riley was a mother, wife, speaker at her church. And then she got diagnosed with cancer. A beloved young Christian woman fighting a battle undeserved. We thought she was God's gift, but she was a liar. Why would somebody fake cancer? From the number one smash hit pod.

It was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down. You're not going to believe this. Scamanda. New episodes Thursday nights on ABC and stream on Hulu. A listener's note. The following episode contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature and may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. A brazen shooting strikes fear in a quiet, upscale neighborhood.

Some of the rounds that were fired inside the apartment didn't stay in the apartment. We know that one of them exited out of the building. Thankfully, no one was there at that point. If they had been, they could have easily been struck by gunfire. One man is left dead, and another becomes the focus of a police manhunt. And once the gunfire ended, there was approximately eight rounds fired. Once that ended, everyone fled the scene.

I'm Tracy Tong, and this is Crime Beat Most Wanted, a podcast that takes you inside open investigations of serious crimes in the hopes your tips lead police to justice. Today, I'm joined by Jules Knox to share the story of a man wanted for first-degree murder after a deadly daytime shooting in Saskatoon in May 2022. This is The Hunt for Jonathan Ouellette-Jandran.

The city of Saskatoon is sometimes called the "Paris of the Prairies." The Senator Sid Buchwald Bridge leads from the bustling downtown into the heart of the Nutana neighborhood. While parts of Saskatoon are plagued by crime, these streets are upscale and quiet. 911, where is your emergency? Around 4:30 in the afternoon on May 19, 2022,

911 calls broke the silence. What's the address of the emergency? The code was unknown call for service complaint, kind of. So it's basically like the dispatchers have such minimal information and no context to what's going on. Someone on the third floor heard shooting off was the term. Maybe a BB gun involved and someone ran from the third floor. Constable Jeff Willoughby rushed to the 700 block of Melrose Avenue.

And what he discovered was much more violent than shots fired by a BB gun. I found the victim in the fetal position just west of the main entrance in the parking lot.

He didn't know who he was, didn't know what was going on. There was no one else really on scene. As I started doing those compressions, I noticed like blood was coming out of his abdomen and I assessed his abdomen and saw multiple gunshot wounds like some along his belt line, one by his belly button and that was the one that was like, every time I did a compression would spray blood out. His eyes were open, he was unresponsive. He wasn't warm to the touch. I could see he had duct tape on his face.

His hands had clearly been bound at some point. He was zip-tied, shot through the neck and abdomen multiple times. So I radioed that like this is a murder. Staff Sergeant Corey Linus with Saskatoon Police shares what happened next.

Not only did we have 911 calls about shootings in the area, shortly after we had phone calls from the hospital saying there was a gunshot victim there. We had another phone call from nearby, a civilian calling in saying they had somebody who was requesting medical attention possibly shot. So this was all coming in very quickly and now we're trying to determine if they're all related.

Police knew that there were three gunshot victims, all found in the same area, and one is dead. Our tactical support unit was working at the time. Is there concerns that there might still be an active shooter waiting? Is there an ambush? Absolutely, and that is part of the reason why our tactical support unit went. They're trained for those type of incidences. So they went in and started clearing areas.

you know, as many apartments as they could. They were noticing some blood in the hallway. - They're following the trail of blood to the scene of the crime. - Correct. Which led them to one apartment and then they also noticed blood leading to another apartment that they had to verify and make sure that wasn't our crime scene. So ultimately they did determine what our crime scene was. It was an empty apartment.

Was it lived in? It definitely lived in. Okay, so this isn't a stash house. This is somewhere that somebody is making their home. Right, that's right. There was definite signs of a struggle. There was bullet holes. There was blood in the apartment. Furniture was knocked over. They did locate some zip ties and some duct tape in the apartment as well, which led us to believe that this was possibly more than just a random shooting.

It appeared that this quiet condo had been turned into a battleground. A struggle where eight shots were fired by at least two different weapons. Some of the rounds that were fired inside the apartment didn't stay in the apartment.

We know that one of them exited out of the building and based on our forensic identification people, they could use a laser to show that it came out of the building, angled down and would have struck one of the parking stalls that's just behind us here. So thankfully no one was there at that point. If they had been, they could have easily been struck by gunfire. That was Saskatoon Police Sergeant Ken Kane. Here's Constable Jeff Willoughby to share where the investigation led them next.

So I'm a canine handler and I deployed my dog in an effort to try and to find the firearm that might have been used. They can do article searches where they pair human odor or scent with items. So if you handle like a gun or a knife or you're wearing a hat, the dog has been trained to locate it, associate the odor to the item, and then give an indication, which is a down. So he lays down to let me know that this item has recent human odor on it.

with the K-9 team on the hunt. Detectives interviewed witnesses and canvassed neighbours for surveillance video, trying to piece together what exactly happened. There's two people at hospital, one's taken by paramedics and the other one took a cab. We don't know what their involvement is, so we have to err on the side of caution and ensure that their charter rights are taken care of. So we asked the members to arrest them for the investigation of the homicide, seize their clothing.

Police identified the man who was shot and then caught a cab to hospital as 35-year-old Muhammad Abdullah Ali. He was not cooperative in the sense that he didn't want to provide details of what had occurred. He referred to himself as a victim. However, he would not state how or why he was a victim. We started to believe that he had involvement in what had occurred in terms of the person being shot and killed.

We have video of Ali and this unknown, at that point, unknown male fleeing from the scene. We're able to disseminate a picture of him interiorly to our police service. Lo and behold, one of our drug investigators looks at that and says, "That's Jonathan Oledjandron 100%."

Jonathan Ouellette-Jean Dron is described as a slender 35-year-old man who is about 5 feet 6 inches tall, with black hair, brown eyes, and weighs around 140 pounds. He has a large tattoo of gorillas on his upper torso. He is wanted on several charges, including first-degree murder and drug trafficking.

Making big financial decisions is never easy. Whether you're buying a home, renewing your insurance, or collecting your pension, there are so many things you need to think about. Having confidence in the financial services professionals and institutions you're working with is critical.

and thanks to BC Financial Services Authority, you can. As the regulator of BC's financial services sector, BCFSA is here to help protect some of your biggest financial investments and to make sure these transactions are stable so you don't have to worry. Visit bcfsa.ca and feel confident about your financial decisions. After all, BCFSA is in your corner financially.

Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go. So whether you're playing a game at home Yes! Cool! or attending one live Cool! you can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at cox.com slash internet. Cox Internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox Mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U.S. to H2023. Results may vary, not an endorsement. Other restrictions apply.

After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal is a podcast that delves into the dark side of history. Expect murder and conspiracy, ghosts and witches.

I'm Anthony Delaney. And I'm Maddy Pelling. We're historians and the hosts of After Dark from History Hit, where every Monday and Thursday we enter the shadows of the past. Discover the secrets of the darker side of history on After Dark from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. The man found murdered in the parking lot of a Saskatoon condo complex was identified as 29-year-old Brandon Baxendall.

I was definitely in shock. I didn't really believe it. We've agreed to hide the identity of Brandon's fiancée because she's worried for her safety and the safety of their children. There were multiple people involved. Some of the others aren't even named or we don't know their identities. You just don't know who or where these people could be.

The couple had been together for nearly eight years. He was always quiet and taking in everything around him. He wasn't a show-off and didn't have to be the loudest person in the room to have a strong presence. And I just felt captivated by him. And he was also very handsome. He was a dad. He had two little kids, a little boy and a little girl. He was a very hands-on dad. He was the dad that if they fell and got hurt, he was there immediately.

When was the last time you heard from Brandon? About 20 minutes before he was killed. I was with both my kids at a sporting event. We were planning to have him come and pick up our son. He said he would be there right away. He just had to do something quickly and then we didn't hear back from him. Detectives learned that before picking up his son, Brandon stopped by 710 Melrose Avenue.

We know that the day of the occurrence that they had planned to meet in that apartment, he voluntarily went to the meeting. We know that he was dropped off, went in. What we don't know is why it turned sour. So whatever transpired was over a matter of minutes. Sergeant Ken Kane and Staff Sergeant Corey Linus tell us what they believe happened next, and the details are graphic and shocking.

Brandon was known to police as a drug trafficker in town. We believe that Brandon was there to either buy drugs or deal drugs. When he got in there, we believe that he was overtaken by two or three individuals. He was put in zip ties. We also learned after the fact that he was armed.

My belief is that they were probably going to try and attach him to a piece of furniture to keep him somewhere, and that he found an opportune time as they were attempting to do this to him to then fight back. And we believe he was able to escape the zip ties and once that occurred, a gunfight ensued where Brandon was shot, Muhammad Ali was shot, one of our witnesses was shot.

And once the gunfire ended, there was approximately eight rounds fired. Once that ended, everyone fled the scene. Through some video surveillance, we then find out that our two suspects came out of this door, kind of angled across through this tree area here, across the front yard of this residence. So what we're going to have is Ali running first. He'll be reaching at his belt area in pain. He had been shot.

And then shortly behind him will be Ouellette Gendron. And when you slow the video down, you'll be able to see the hand tattoo that matches. He's wearing a remarkable jacket that we've captured numerous times on surveillance footage. So this is the set of stairs that Ali runs down. He turns onto the sidewalk. And the way that this area works is there's a bit of an embankment after the parking lot that goes down.

Muhammad Ali was familiar with the area. Oled Jendron didn't realize about this drop, I don't think, or in the panic kept running. He actually falls off of this little precipice, drops a bunch of items, including some of the zip ties. He gathers himself, gathers his items, and then continues after Ali.

Our thinking is that they want to get off of a main street, sort of out of the public view. Remember, they're panicking. So they see this opening, they turn, there's less eyes focused into the lane, and then kind of go their separate ways. Muhammad Ali runs and actually hails someone else's cab. We have the footage from inside the cab. He tells them that he's been injured and he's bleeding, and this cab driver drives him directly to a local hospital.

We have the video from that cab and you can see on the dash cam that there's police cars responding lights and sirens into the area. Ouellette Gendron we believe continues to run out of the area and is gone before arriving police officers get here.

One of the items that he dropped, a citizen who is pretty switched on realizes that this might be evidence, you know, something's going on because of the massive police response. He actually goes out with barbecue tongs and utilizes a clean pair of tongs in a plastic bag to essentially retrieve an exhibit for us. Was it a zip tie? This one wasn't.

It ended up being a phone charger that was in his possession that he had dropped. When he did wipe out it appears that he still has a handful of the zip ties which for whatever reason he scoops up and then continues to run. And does the phone charger, does that help you? It does help us because we're able to send it away for a DNA analysis. Muhammad Ali was renting that apartment. Brandon got dropped off from a friend. He was supposed to have a meeting with Muhammad.

He tells us that he dropped off the victim at the location and went for a drive, was supposed to wait for a phone call to come back and pick him up. He ended up getting a phone call from Brandon and he had told him he had been shot. He did go back to the scene

drives up and then realizes that this is very dangerous for him. He obviously knows that there's been gunfire. Brandon is now down. He can't get him up and into the vehicle. Realizes that he's in medical distress. I would say essentially panics. He knows that Brandon has a gun. For whatever reason, didn't want his friend to be caught with the firearm. Disguises the firearm close to the scene. Leaves and then a couple hours later phones back in and describes what he did.

Do you know where roughly Brennan's firearm was discarded? It was discarded in a garbage can just on the other side of this parking lot for the next condominium. And our patrol people did a good job. They took a large scene, taped it all off so it was still contained within the crime scene. With little information on where the suspects fled, the K-9 team continued to scour nearby back alleys.

We headed westbound down there, south, and then west again, then south, looking for anything that the dog might have been able to locate. Constable Jeff Willoughby, Staff Sergeant Corey Linus, Constable Adam Boyce, Sergeant Darren Harvey, and Constable Brent Van Thine all worked together in their search for evidence. The next day, we were able to determine a path that we think the suspects left in through CCTV footage.

We contacted our public safety unit who are trained at grid searching. At the start of every search you have a GPS. Basically it'd be just like if you were going for around the GPS on your watch, similar technology. It just tracks your movements. We went from where they were last seen on camera, we searched the street and then we started coming down the alley searching there.

Our search members are checking garbage cans, they're climbing up on top of things to look on top of roofs, looking in vehicles, under vehicles, anything where a gun could be hit. So it's a little bit slow and meticulous. And after every task I go back to the command post, I give the search manager my GPS, he's downloading my track. We decided we wanted to detail the yards down McPherson. There was a lot of good information.

But I kind of broke it down into five points, I guess. We have number one, which is where the murder did occur. Number two is the rough area of there was a doorbell camera that showed them exiting towards 11th Street and heading west. But we don't have anything other than that, except now there's a, they found, I believe it was a cell phone belonging to one of the suspects. And then they had an injured person across the street.

than an injured person down here. If there's two different search teams and they've searched the area, one would be red, for example, one would be yellow, we can overlay the maps and we can make sure that that area that we're searching, what the probability of detection is and how well we've covered it. The day after the murder, just hours into the search, Constable Brent Vanthine made a big discovery. Luckily, the second yard I went into,

did a quick detailing, came to the garage, saw the garbage can, walked right up to it, opened it up, two handguns with some paper towel inside.

If you're fascinated by the darker sides of humanity, join us every week on our podcast, Serial Killers, where we go deep into notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday.

A few miles from the glass spires of midtown Atlanta lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility, nicknamed Cop City.

At approximately 9 o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper.

This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance. The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down. Love and fellowship. It was probably the happiest of everybody in my life. And the lengths we'll go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

Hi everyone, I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia D'Ambra. And every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings. From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances, each Tuesday we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets.

Listen to Park Predators now wherever you listen to podcasts. When police found two handguns about a block away from the scene of Brandon Baxendall's murder...

They sent the weapons away for DNA testing. One of them was Muhammad Ali's and the other one we reasonably believe belonged to Jonathan Ouellette Gendron. We know that Jonathan Ouellette Gendron, that he would have been one of the persons firing. We know that Brandon Baxendall would have fired rounds. At this point, based on the evidence we have, we don't believe that Muhammad Ali, although was in possession of a firearm, that that gun was used to fire any of the rounds.

As a struggle ensued, it's not clear what unfolded inside that apartment. But police said ballistics testing found that Muhammad Ali was shot by the same gun as Brandon Baxendall, suggesting that it's possible Ouellette Gendron shot both men. Do you believe that Jonathan Ouellette Gendron was shot? We do not believe he was.

So there's a total of five persons in the apartment when this goes down. And to this day we have one other unknown person that fled the scene, but we cannot determine who that person is at this point yet. Police believe that after fleeing the murder scene, Jonathan Ouellette Gendron was picked up by a friend. How long he spends here in Saskatoon after the fact, we don't know for sure. The next time that he comes to our attention is in Toronto.

Through some information we obtained through a witness, we were able to get an address in Toronto where we believed he would be staying. So we got a hold of our partners in Toronto and asked if they could set up surveillance on the address and they did so. They were able to confirm that Jonathan Legendron was renting that apartment under an assumed name.

The next day, actually, we were hoping he was going to get arrested. But the night before, he's seen on video packing up and leaving. He does get into this white Cobalt. It's got a dark roof. We weren't able to get a plate off of it, but him getting into that vehicle is the last time we've seen him. What's interesting too about these pictures is that you can see he's got shoe boxes. He's a massive shoe fan.

and he also went back for his cat. Little things like that might hem him up at some point if somebody's like, "Yeah, my neighbour's a French guy that's got a skinny build and loves shoes," because that's his thing. The ID that he was using in Toronto to rent the apartment, it looks very legitimate. It was an Ontario driver's license, assumed name Brian Marchand. So, I mean, if he has access to that, he may have access to passports or other identification that can get him out of the country.

He's 5'6", about 140 pounds, so he's a real small individual. Typically wears glasses, usually has a beard and shorter hair. He has a rose, like a black rose tattoo on the back of his left hand, and he'll have a Mayan tattoo on his right hand. And I believe he has a larger tattoo on his chest of a gorilla.

In the spring of 2024, Canada's BOLO, or Be On The Lookout program, named Jonathan Ouellette-Gendron one of Canada's most wanted suspects in the country. In cooperation with Saskatoon Crimestoppers, the BOLO program is pleased to offer a reward of up to $50,000 for any information leading to the arrest of Mr. Ouellette-Gendron.

My hope is that I get a phone call one day that there's some police jurisdiction that has him in custody and we can go get him and bring him back so that he can go before the courts. Brandon's fiancée says an arrest would bring her peace of mind. It would mean being a little less worried when I go out with my children, when I send them to school or going to the park. You just never know who's walking by.

but nothing, in my opinion, is going to fill the void that me and the rest of his family feel. I would say it's felt like a hundred years has passed, but also it feels like it was yesterday all at the same time. There's been many moments of wanting to pick up the phone and call him to tell him something. Like when our kid lost their first tooth. It's definitely a void that can't be filled for them.

They miss their dad and there's so much love that he had to give them that no one else possibly could. Muhammad Abdullah Ali was arrested for first-degree murder. His lawyer said that because court proceedings are still ongoing, he currently doesn't want to comment on the case, but points out that the charges against his client have not been proven in court. Police continue to hunt for Jonathan Ouellette Jean Dram, who remains at large.

If you have any information, Crimestoppers is waiting for your anonymous call. The number is 1-800-222-TIPS or 1-800-222-8477. You can also submit a tip online. We'll include this information in our show notes. You can watch our docuseries Crime Beat Most Wanted on YouTube, where you can see the suspects still at large.

Thanks for listening. Crime Beat Most Wanted is hosted by me, Tracy Tong. Reporting in this episode is by Jules Knox. Adapted to podcast by our senior producer, Dila Velasquez. With help from associate producer, Elizabeth Sargent. Audio and sound design by Rob Johnson. Please tell a friend about this podcast and consider rating and reviewing Crime Beat Most Wanted on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Thanks again for listening. Please join me next time on Crime Beat Most Wanted.

Killer messaged you yesterday? This is so dangerous. I gotta get out of this. Based on a true story. New season Mondays at 9 Eastern and Pacific. Only on W. Stream on Stack TV.