A man who was ordered to leave Canada 15 years ago after admitting to killing a person during a home invasion is now accused of sneaking back into the country at least twice to allegedly carry out thirteen similar robberies, including one that ended with another victim being killed in Laval almost a decade ago.
Septimus Neverson, 52, was arrested last month in Port of Spain, the capital city of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, on a request from police in Montreal and Laval after a lengthy investigation by a joint task force connected him to a series of nine home invasions carried out in 2006, in the western part of the Montreal Island and Laval, that had left police puzzled and frustrated for years. At one point a $25,000 reward was offered for the suspect’s arrest.He is also alleged to have left Canada sometime after 2006 and then returned to carry out another four home invasions in Montreal during 2009.
During a news conference held at Montreal police headquarters on Wednesday, police declined to comment on how Neverson allegedly managed to leave and return to Canada with apparent ease despite having been convicted of manslaughter in 1998. According to records held by Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, Neverson, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, arrived in Canada in June 1985 as a visitor and then went on a crime spree that included the home invasion, on March 20, 1987, that resulted in the death of Jean-Guy Gauthier, a 35-year-old north end Montreal resident who was killed in his house on Legendre St.
Neverson was initially charged with murder in the case, but after a series of three trials he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to a three-year prison term on top of the 11 years he spent detained in the case.
In November 2000, he was expelled from Canada based on a criminal record that already included 20 convictions.
