[1] Paul Cherry, the crime correspondent of The Montreal Gazette, wrote that Gagné speaks his joual (nonstandard Quebec French) with a strong working-class accent with a distinctive nasal tone.
[1] He amassed a criminal record, being convicted nine times over 12 years for automobile theft, home invasions, drug trafficking, and probation violations.
[1] Alongside his partner, Tony Jalbert, Gagné operated a string of crack houses and shooting galleries for cocaine and heroin addicts.
[5] He often used the "stupidity defence" at his trials by claiming that his IQ is so low that he could not be held legally responsible for his crimes, which that the courts have consistently rejected.
[14] As a prisoner, Gagné invented what he called the pen-merde ("shit-pen"), a mixture of his own excrement and urine that he would keep in an empty shampoo bottle for ten days and then use to soak the guards with.
[16] One evening in the summer of 1996, Gagné was supposed to drive a stolen automobile packed with a bomb to the clubhouse, but the attack was cancelled when the Hells Angels noted there was a police cruiser waiting for them.
[21] Gagné described the atmosphere in the Rockers as one of relentless paranoia, and members communicated via sign language or by writing on an erasable magnetic board of the fear of police wiretaps.
[23] In March 1997, Gagné, together with a Peruvian immigrant, Steve Boies, kidnapped a rival drug dealer, Christian Bellemare, and took him out to a chalet in the Laurentians.
"[26] Gagné found that the Hells Angels had their own intelligence unit with three vehicles, which were equipped with hidden cameras powered by batteries that lasted for 72 hours.
[29] Boucher ordered two Hells Angels, André "Toots" Tousignant and Paul "Fonfon" Fontaine, to kill some random prison guards, and the two men recruited Gagné in turn.
"[35] Gagné by his own admission was proud to have killed Lavigne as he remembered he felt was he would soon be promoted up to join the Hells Angels proper.
[46] Upon arriving at the garage, Boies assisted Gagné by burning his clothes and driving the getaway car to a junk yard to be crushed.
[45] After the murder, Gagné wanted to go to sleep but instead had to buy several boxes of bolts at a Réno-Dépôt store to assist Tousignant with a bomb he was building to kill some Rock Machine members.
"[49] In October 1997, Serge Boutin, Fontaine's boyfriend, reported that he heard rumours that the guards in Bordeaux prison were accusing Gagné of being involved in the Lavigne and the Rondeau murders.
"[50] On 4 December 1997, a police raid, led by Commander André Bouchard, at a strippers' agency run by the Hells Angels seized some $2.5 million in drugs and 67 guns.
[58] Over the course of a lengthy interrogation, which lasted several hours, Pigeon proceeded to psychologically deconstruct Gagné as he relentlessly challenged him on his life choices and pointed out that the Hells Angels were just using him.
He posed both as a potential friend, who was willing to help him avoid going to prison for the rest of his life, and as a tormentor, who mercilessly mocked Gagné as a loser who was too dimwitted to realize that he was being used by the Hells Angels.
However, Pigeon gambled that the sheer psychological impact of learning that Boies had turned Crown's evidence would shatter Gagné's resolve.
[62] Changing his approach, Pigeon savagely mocked Gagné as a coward for killing an unarmed woman in cold blood and told him that the exaggerated machismo of the outlaw biker subculture was only a psychological defence mechanism for weak, insecure men like himself.
"[63] Confronting Gagné head-on, Pigeon told him that he had murdered two people all because he wanted to wear the Hells Angels death head patch on his back, asking him was it really worth it given that he was going to prison for the rest of his life if he did not make a plea bargain immediately.
[65] The fact that the lawyers for the Hells Angles such as Cliche were refusing to go to the police station because it was very late in the night made Pigeon's statements about his abandonment seem believable to Gagné.
"[68] Two weeks later, Gagné and his lawyer met with André Vincent, the chief Crown Attorney for Montreal, to negotiate the terms of his plea bargain.
[69] Vincent refused Gagné's demand to be paid $1 million for his testimony, as he stated that the Quebec people would never stand for a murderer be allowed to profit from his crimes at their expense.
[76] Dagenais feared the unlikability of Gagné and his long criminal record would make it difficult for the jury to believe his testimony that Boucher had ordered him to commit murders by his hand gestures.
[77] Larochelle regarded Gagné as being the weakest link in the Crown's case against Boucher and planned to discredit him as a witness as the best way to secure the acquittal of his client.
[82] In a rare move, the Crown chose to challenge double jeopardy in an appeal, as it was stated that the trial had been marred by the extreme pro-defence bias of Boilard.
[82] Many newspapers in Quebec attacked the plea bargain the Crown made with Gagné and charged that a self-confessed hitman had just been given only 25 years in prisonm but Boucher had been acquitted.
[87] Charbonneau used the videotape to put Larochelle on trial in a sense, as she presented him as a ruthless lawyer, who would tell the most outrageous lies to acquit his client.
[91] During his outings from prison, Gagné was, according to the National Parole Board, "able to interact with citizens, learn to pay with bank cards, shop and eat in a restaurant.
[92] In February 2023, the National Parole Board granted Gagné permission to live in a half-way house as a prelude to his release from prison.