The Cheapskate (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00In January of 1988, the clerk of a sporting goods store in a small town in Canada looked up right as a man walked into his shop. Now, it was below freezing outside, but this man wasn't wearing a coat. He was just wearing sneakers, ripped pants, and a thin plastic rain poncho. This man quickly walked down the aisle and grabbed a pair of ski pants, and then he walked up, he paid for the pants in cash, and then very quickly hurried out of the store. But after this sort of strangely dressed man left, the clerk turned on the radio, and he heard a breaking news report about a murder right up the road.

0:35But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please secretly steal the Follow Button's phone and delete all of their music playlists. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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2:37Now, Wilfred knew Agat probably wanted him to turn up the heat, but he absolutely was not going to do that because, as it was, their electric bill was already too high. So Wilfred really hated spending money, but not because he didn't have any. Back when he was a kid, his family had been really, really poor, and so he'd picked up some really frugal habits that had just sort of stuck with him. So even now that he had a steady income as a mechanic and pretty comfortable savings, he still always tried to spend as little as possible. Plus, he wanted to retire soon, and he was supporting Agat too. So as he sat there watching Agat continue to shiver, clearly trying to signal to him like, come on, turn up the heat, Wilfred finally did get up, but not to turn up the heat.

3:26Instead, he walked over to the living room and he grabbed a shawl off the couch and he brought it back and he handed it to Agat. Then as Agat kind of scowled at him, Wilfred just sat back down and continued eating his soup. Early the next morning, around 7.15 a.m., Wilfred woke up to an empty bed and the familiar sound of Agat bustling around in the kitchen, making breakfast, and packing his lunch for work. And then a few minutes later, he felt the blanket shift as Agat crawled back into bed beside him. So Wilfred and Agat had been together about 12 years, and these days they lived a pretty quiet life.

4:01Which was pretty easy to do in Kappa's casing, which was the kind of place where really nothing ever happened. And it's also where pretty much everybody knew everyone, and where people didn't even bother locking their doors at night. And that suited Wilfred just fine. Because at one point, his life had been anything but quiet. His relationship with Agat had actually begun with a huge, dramatic scandal. That scandal had cost Wilfred his marriage, most of his family, and a lot of his self-respect. So at this point, a simple life with Agat was exactly what he wanted. Now, Wilfred lay in his bed just for a bit longer, listening to the wind howl outside and, feeling a got next to him.

4:41But eventually, he got up and he headed down the hallway in just his underwear. The sun was not up yet, so the house was completely dark. But he made his way to the bathroom by memory, and when he got there, he flipped on the light. He closed the door and then walked over to the sink, and he turned on the tap, and he had just begun shaving when he heard the door behind him creak open. Now, Wilfred instinctively figured it was a got coming in to used the bathroom. Then he turned around and saw who was actually standing in the doorway. At the same time this was happening in the bathroom, Wilfred and Agat's neighbor, Suzanne Grable, was in her kitchen next door when she heard these loud crashes and shouting coming from Agat and Wilfred's house.

5:26She ran to the window to look out, but it was too dark to see anything. It sounded like Agat was screaming Wilfred's name over and over again, and so assuming there had to be some sort of emergency, Suzanne grabbed her coat and just ran outside to see what was going on. But she'd only gone a few steps out her front door when she looked over and saw the door to Wilfred and Agat's house swing open and a man stepped out. And this man was definitely not Wilfred. He was short and stocky and looked like he was maybe in his early 30s. And as he stepped down off the stoop, he turned and made eye contact with Suzanne, who immediately froze.

6:04Her heart was racing out of control, and she knew she was now in danger. But she didn't panic. She just turned and walked over to her car, she got in, and then locked the doors. And then she just sat there and waited. Now, the whole time that she did that, that she was just sitting in her car waiting, this short, stocky, mid-30-something man actually just continued to stand there in front of Wilfred and Agat's house, and he was just staring at her in the car. But after a little while, he turned and walked over to the curb, and he climbed into a blue pickup truck, and he drove off without even turning on his headlights.

6:41The second he was gone, Suzanne rushed out of her car and ran back into her own house. And once she was inside, she immediately grabbed her home phone, and she tried calling Wilfred and Agat's number for their house next door. But the line just kept on ringing, nobody answered, so she eventually hung up, and then she called the police. A dispatcher picked up her call, and just as Suzanne began describing what was going on, Suzanne, at her house, she heard this loud banging coming from her front door. Immediately, Suzanne thought that the short, stocky guy who drove off had come back for her, and so she was terrified.

7:17But then she heard Agat calling her name from outside, so clearly it was her banging on the door. And so Suzanne, she drops the phone, she runs over to the door, opens it up, And there was Agat who had no coat on, and she looked equally terrified here. Suzanne grabbed Agat, she pulled her inside, she slammed the door, locked it behind her, and then she looked at Agat like, what's going on here? And Agat, she's like, she's out of breath, she's clearly panicking here, but eventually she calms down, and she looks at Suzanne, and she says, something terrible has happened to Wilfred. About 20 minutes later, a constable with the Ontario Provincial Police drew his revolver and pushed open the front door of Wilfred and Agat's house.

7:59He was here because the police had just been told that a violent assault had just apparently occurred in this house, and so this officer was here to check it out. And so this officer, as soon as the door was open, he shouted inside that if anybody was in there, to come out with their hands up. And then when there was no response, he stepped through the doorway. As the officer went room by room, making sure nobody was in the house. He noticed that it was very quiet and very clean, like the house was immaculate and nothing was out of place. It didn't look like anything had even happened in here.

8:32Until he got to the bathroom. When he looked in there, all he saw was blood. It was on the walls. It was on the floor. It was everywhere on the toothbrushes, the toilet paper. I mean, the whole room was splattered in blood. But most of the blood had pooled around the body of a man who was lying on the bathroom floor. The man was just wearing underwear, and he was lying on his back, and there was shaving cream on half of his face. And he was covered in at least a dozen stab wounds on his neck, on his chest, and on his arms. Now, the constable knew there was virtually no chance this man was still alive, but he obviously had to be sure.

9:11So he stepped into the bathroom, he crouched down next to the body, and he felt for a pulse. but there wasn't one. The body was still warm, though, so the constable pulled out his radio, and he called it in. And he also asked for instructions, because Cappus Casing did not see a lot of homicides, and the constable literally didn't know what he was supposed to do next.

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13:33A few hours later, so around noon on January 12, 1988, Detective Wayne Frechette of the Ontario Provincial Police stepped off a plane at an airstrip near Cappus Casing, where he'd just been made lead detective on a murder case. This town was so small that the local police didn't have anyone who'd worked a homicide before. So Frechette had been flown in from Toronto to run this investigation because he did have homicide experience. He'd been briefed on the flight and already had a good sense of the case. So Wilfred Goudreau, the victim, was a 62-year-old mechanic, and he had been stabbed to death in his bathroom that morning.

14:10And right afterwards, a neighbor had apparently seen this short, stocky Caucasian man in his mid-30s walk out of Wilfred's house and drive away in a blue pickup truck. So, assuming that man that was seen leaving the house was the killer, it seemed like he already had a pretty big head start here, because he had a decent description of the number one suspect, potentially the killer. He was also confident this had not been part of a robbery or just some random attack, because the first responders hadn't found any signs of a break-in or robbery, and the house had been basically spotless aside from the bathroom where pretty clearly the murder had taken place.

14:49So Frechette, you know, he couldn't possibly know if that guy who left the house, if that really was the killer or not. However, there was one person he could turn to right now who could really help him figure out if this person could have been involved. Because she'd actually been inside the house when Wilfred was being murdered, and so very likely at least saw or maybe even knew that man that was seen exiting the house. Later that afternoon, Frechette sat in an interview room at the local police station listening to Wilfred's girlfriend, Agat, walk him through her mourning. Now, according to Agat, she hadn't actually seen the attack.

15:27She hadn't seen the potential killer, like none of it, because when she heard this commotion in the house, she had just sort of instinctively jumped into a closet and hid. And she had stayed there until she heard the sound of whoever this was leaving and driving off. Now, Frechette was not totally alarmed by this story. I mean, people get scared and they protect themselves. But what did stand out to Frechette as Agat told him this story was that she didn't cry once the whole time she was talking. In fact, she came off as almost weirdly calm. Now, Frechette knew from experience this could definitely just be, you know, a product of shock.

16:07But it also could be that she just wasn't that upset. So at some point, Frechette asked Agat about her relationship with Wilfred. And she told him that by and large, they'd been really happy together. They'd hardly ever argued, and when they did, it was just about Wilfred being cheap. Because as Agat went on to explain, Wilfred would go to crazy lengths to save money, even just a few cents, even though he had plenty of money saved up. She said Wilfred would even watch the TV with the lights off just to save money on electricity. He also insisted on reusing bathwater for the same reason. And then when he and I got traveled, he made them sleep in the car rather than paying for a hotel.

16:51So Frechette, you know, after listening to this, he felt like he was getting a picture of a guy in Wilfred who had strong opinions and really not a lot of flexibility. It did make Frechette wonder if maybe because of this personality type that he appeared to have, Wilfred, you know, it's entirely possible he could have made some enemies along the way in his life. And when he asked Agat about that, you know, when he asked her, you know, did Wilfred have any enemies, Frechette immediately saw Agat's expression change. She went from being sort of weirdly calm to looking almost apprehensive. And she looked down at the table for a moment and then back up at Frechette.

17:29and then she just said, you know, that she didn't want to point fingers here. But there was some history that he needed to know. She told Frechette that before Wilfred was dating her, Agat, Wilfred had actually been married for 20 years to Agat's own sister, Rachel Brishu. Agat said that she and Wilfred had had an affair. And when her sister Rachel found out about it, it became a huge scandal that really tore the whole family apart. Rachel had divorced Wilfred pretty much right away, and she was still very angry about it. Even now, 12 years later, like this was a deep, deep cut. And according to Agat, Wilfred's son, Paul, had taken the whole thing really hard too, and he'd barely spoken to Wilfred since the divorce.

18:20Until recently. This past Christmas, Agathe said Paul had come to Cappas Casing for a visit. It had been a pretty awkward couple of days, but she said that Paul and Wilfred had actually really bonded in the end, and Paul seemed to have, you know, basically forgiven his father. Frechette wrote all this down, but he wondered how sincere Paul's forgiveness really was. It was definitely suspicious timing. And on top of that, Paul was also in his early 30s, which was the exact age range as the suspected killer, that guy who walked out of the house that was seen by the neighbor. And so now, Frechette really wanted to speak to Paul and also Wilfred's ex-wife Rachel as soon as possible.

19:00But just as he was wrapping up the interview with Agat, an officer poked their head into the room and said they had just found something that Frechette needed to see right away. A half hour later, Frechette stood by the side of the road just a few miles from Wilfred's house, looking down at a pair of bloody winter boots lying in the snow. And then behind Frechette, a little ways up the road, was a team of police officers who were working over this blue pickup truck that they had found abandoned behind a paper mill. These two clues, the boots and the truck, were actually just the latest in a trail of breadcrumbs that the killer had apparently left behind.

19:39Because all day long, various reports had been coming in about this mysterious man who matched the killer's description. Around 8.30 a.m. that morning, so about an hour after the murder, this mystery man had been spotted in downtown Kappa's casing wearing a rain poncho, ripped pants, and no coat. He'd gone to a few different stores, buying boots, a jacket, and ski pants, and he paid for everything in cash. Then, around noon, a police roadblock had stopped a taxi on its way out of town. The taxi's passenger, who was a short, stocky man apparently in his 30s, had seemed really jumpy, So the officers had checked his ID and recorded his name before letting him through.

20:21Just then, Frechette's radio crackled and he answered it. And dispatch told him that they had just finished running the plates on that abandoned blue pickup truck, and they had traced it to a man from Timmins, which is a town about two hours south. The man's name was Richard Boucher. It just so happened that that was the same name as the jumpy taxi passenger who'd been stopped by the police roadblock. Two days later, on January 14, 1988, Detective Frechette sat at a desk in the Cappus Casing police station reading the file on Richard Boucher, who was currently on the run from police as the number one suspect in the murder of Wilfred Goudreau.

20:58And Richard's file only made Frechette feel more certain that he was his guy. First of all, Richard was a Caucasian 33-year-old man, sort of fit the physical description, and he was also a cocaine dealer with a side hustle of providing strippers to local bars and hotels. And also, he'd previously been arrested for drug trafficking. However, there was one glaring problem. And that was that so far, Frechette just could not find any connection between Richard and Wilfred. Like, if Richard was the killer, why? How? Like, how in the world could these two guys be connected? The two men lived hours away from each other.

21:39They didn't seem to share any friends or business connections or really any mutual people at all. So to Frechette, it sort of left two possibilities. Either they were linked by someone or something that maybe Wilfred had kept secret, or someone else had hired Richard to kill Wilfred. So now, while the local police focused on just finding Richard, Frechette was trying to figure out who in Wilfred's circle might have wanted Wilfred dead. But by this point, Frechette had already questioned Wilfred's ex-wife Rachel, and she definitely did seem very bitter about the divorce. But she said that she actually really didn't keep up much with Wilfred these days, and that she couldn't even begin to guess who might have killed him.

22:23Because according to her, Wilfred was like the most boring man on earth, and she had no idea who would want to do this to him. Frechette thought this was actually kind of an odd thing to say about your ex-husband who slept with your sister. However, Rachel was not the only person on Frechette's list that had a grudge against Wilfred. Because Wilfred's adult son, Paul, had been so mad at Wilfred, he'd basically barely spoken to his father in the past decade. Except for just this past Christmas, when Paul had visited Wilfred and stayed at his house. And that visit had taken place just three weeks before Wilfred was murdered.

23:01which struck Frechette as awfully convenient timing for Paul to have had this sudden change of heart. And Paul's visit would have given Paul the chance to learn the layout of Wilfred's house. He would have seen Wilfred's routine, how he moved around, and when Wilfred was alone. All information a killer would need to know before attempting to kill someone. Now, Paul did not live in the area, so Frechette had actually scheduled a call with him for that afternoon to talk all this through. And when Frechette glanced at his watch, he actually saw it was time. So he picked up the phone and he dialed Paul's number.

23:39When Paul answered, right away, Frechette noticed that his voice was a little bit shaky. And also, pretty much immediately, Paul said, you know, unprompted, that he very likely didn't have anything useful to say because he hadn't been close to his dad in years. So Frechette just asked him about his recent visit to see his dad this past Christmas. And Paul would confirm that, yes, that visit had happened. But he said that despite it being a good visit, you know, for the two of them, he claimed he couldn't really remember anything that they'd even talked about. Like, it was all just kind of a blur.

24:13Frechette did not believe this for a second. I mean, theoretically, this was like a meeting for the ages. This is a father and son who've been estranged for over a decade. And they're having this life-changing meeting where they're going to reconcile. And apparently they did, and you don't remember what you spoke about? He just got the feeling that Paul was trying to say as little as possible here, like he was afraid that sharing too much might get him in trouble. Frechette continued to question Paul for a bit longer. He asked him about his memory of his father's affair and of his knowledge of his father's finances.

24:50Now, Frechette knew from speaking to Agat that Wilfred, despite being incredibly cheap, did have, apparently, quite a bit of money saved up. But Vachette wanted to know if Paul knew about it. Because if Paul thought his dad had cash that theoretically could go to him in the form of an inheritance, well, that was a reason to make amends after all these years, or maybe even reason to commit murder. But Paul said he actually just figured his dad was broke, and always had been, because it just sort of explained why he was so cheap. Because he didn't have much money, That's at least what Paul thought.

25:26And so he said he didn't expect his dad to leave him anything. This answer made Frechette wish they were doing this interview in person. Because over the phone, Frechette couldn't watch Paul's body language as he talked about his father's money. So he couldn't tell if maybe Paul was lying when he said he didn't know that his dad had money. But either way, Paul clearly was not giving him anything particularly useful at this point. And so now Frechette was starting to think that the only person who could tell him if Richard had killed Wilfred and why was Richard himself. The police just had to find him first.