Marc Lépine (French: [maʁk lepin]; born Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi; October 26, 1964 – December 6, 1989) was a Canadian mass murderer from Montreal, Quebec.

Gharbi was abusive towards and contemptuous of women, and left the relationship after Monique returned to nursing to support her children; Lépine was seven at the time.

Feminists and government officials considered it a misogynist attack and an example of the larger issue of a high frequency of violence against women.

[7] Rachid was a non-practising Muslim, and Monique a former Catholic nun; she had rejected organized religion after she left the convent.

Much of young Gamil's early childhood was spent in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, where his father worked for a Swiss mutual funds company.

[13] He required his wife to act as his personal secretary, slapping her if she made any errors in typing, and forcing her to retype documents in spite of the cries of their toddler.

[13][15][16] In 1970, following an incident in which Rachid struck Gamil so hard that the marks on his face were visible a week later, Monique decided to leave.

[17][18] Following the separation, Gamil lived with his mother and younger sister Nadia; soon after, their home and possessions were seized when Rachid defaulted on mortgage payments.

[4][22] Concerned about her children and parenting skills, she sought help for the family from a psychiatrist at Sainte-Justine Hospital in 1976; the assessment concluded there was nothing wrong with the shy and withdrawn Gamil, but recommended therapy for his sister Nadia, who was challenging Monique's authority.

After the divorce became final in 1976, the Lépine children, then aged 12 and 9, returned to live with their mother, who had been promoted to director of nursing at a Montreal hospital.

[4] Taunted as an Arab because of his name, at the age of 14 he legally changed it to "Marc Lépine", citing his hatred of his father as the reason for taking his mother's surname.

[27] Family relations remained difficult as his younger sister Nadia publicly humiliated him about his acne and his lack of girlfriends.

For two years, the experience proved positive as Lépine, often with his best friend, enjoyed the time with photography and moto-cross motorcycles.

[31] Lépine developed an interest in World War II and an admiration of Adolf Hitler,[32] and enjoyed action and horror movies.

[4][34] Lépine applied to join the Canadian Forces as an officer cadet in September 1981 at the age of 17, but was rejected during the interview process.

[36] In August 1982, Lépine began a two-year pre-university course in pure sciences at Cégep de Saint-Laurent.

In February 1986, during the last term of the program, he suddenly and without explanation stopped attending classes, as a result failing to complete his diploma.

[16][36] Lépine moved out of his mother's home into his own apartment,[36] and in 1986 he applied to study engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal.

[36][41] In February 1988, he began a course in computer programming at a private college in downtown Montreal, funding his studies with government student loans.

[37] In April 1989, he met with a university admissions officer and complained about how women were taking over the job market from men.

[1][49] The event was later described as a "pseudo-community" type of "pseudo-commando" murder-suicide, in which the perpetrator targets a specific group, usually in a public place, and intends to die in "a blaze of glory".

[51] The letter also contained a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine labeled as "radical feminists" and appeared to target for killing.

[52] Another letter, written to a friend, promised the explanation to the massacre lay by following clues left in Lépine's apartment.

[53] Lépine was buried in the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal, a few blocks from where he committed the massacre.

[54] A police psychiatrist who interviewed Lépine's family and entourage, and who had access to his letters, suggested that he may have had a serious personality disorder.

The psychiatrist noted "extreme narcissistic vulnerability" as shown by fantasies of power and success, combined with high levels of self-criticism and difficulties dealing with rejection and failure.

[1][55] Other psychiatrists suggested that Lépine was psychotic, having lost touch with reality as he tried to erase the memories of a brutal and absent father, while at the same time unconsciously identifying with a violent manhood that dominates women.

Other theories were that Lépine's experiences of abuse as a child had caused brain damage or led him to feel victimized as he faced losses and rejections in his later life.

She also wondered whether Lépine viewed her as a feminist, and that the massacre might have been an unconscious attempt to get revenge for her neglect while she pursued her career and for his sister's taunts.

Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts.