Randy Tshilumba found guilty of premeditated murder in second trial over Maxi clerk stabbing

A jury has found Randy Tshilumba, 27, guilty of first-degree murder in the 2016 stabbing death of a supermarket cashier, the same verdict as in his first murder trial in 2017.

In April 2016, Tshilumba repeatedly stabbed 20-year-old Clémence Beaulieu-Patry in the middle of the day at the Maxi supermarket where she worked in Montreal’s Saint-Michel neighbourhood.

Tshilumba pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder, but the prosecution and defense agreed he stabbed Beaulieu-Patry. Tshilumba’s lawyers argued he was not criminally responsible for the death.

The jury’s guilty verdict came Monday after three days of deliberation.

At his first trial in 2017, Tshilumba was found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

In a November 2022 ruling, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial, finding that the judge in the first trial had given the jury instructions that were “unnecessarily long, unnecessarily complicated, but above all clearly contradictory and prejudicial.”

Tshilumba, 19 at the time of his arrest, admitted to killing Beaulieu-Patry. He said he acted in self-defense because he was convinced the woman and four of her friends had been plotting to kill him for more than a year before the stabbing.

Tshilumba’s lawyer argued that his client should not be held criminally liable because of his mental illness.

The same defense was presented to the jury at the second trial, but the jury again sided with the prosecution, which presented excerpts from notes the defendant had made on his cell phone. They included phrases such as “make up a good story for the police” and “how to commit a perfect murder.”

During the first trial, psychiatrist Dr. Louis Morissette concluded that the defendant suffered from a paranoid delusional disorder and believed he was being persecuted by Beaulieu-Patry.

‘This is a murder of women,’ says Crown

Morissette has since revised his diagnosis, determining that Tshilumba instead suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

But the prosecution’s theory was that the crime was not an “accident,” said Claude Berlinguette-Auger, prosecutor for the Director of Criminal and Penal Affairs (DPCP), after the hearing.

“It wasn’t motivated by a psychological problem. It was someone who had actually tried his luck with Clémence, who hadn’t been successful,” she told Radio-Canada.

“Absolutely, this is a femicide. Violence against women must be punished severely,” she added.

Nathalie Beaulieu, the victim’s mother, said the second trial was sometimes worse than the first, as the family was still trying to rebuild itself after the first trial.

“Over the last seven years, we’ve become a little softer in our lives,” she said.

But this second trial also provided comfort to the victim’s parents.

“It’s a great relief to know that he’s going back to prison and that he’s going to serve the punishment that he got for destroying our lives, for taking Clémence’s life. Clémence can rest in peace,” Beaulieu said.