Motorcyclist Sébastien Beauchamp’s killers tracked him for at least four days using GPS signals fixed under their victim’s vehicle before gunning him down in Montreal on day five, December 20, 2018.
Posted at 12:00 p.m
Daniel Renaud LaPresse
At least that’s how it seemed to be described by a civilian expert from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) 10 days ago in an extremely precise testimony made at the trial of Giovanni Presta Jr., who was accused of the first-degree murder of a motorcyclist .
Previous research has shown that organized crime killers place a GPS tag under their target’s vehicle to track them.
According to the evidence filed so far at the trial, two GPS beacons were placed under the black Jeep Cherokee rented by Sébastien Beauchamp; the first on November 28th and the second on December 17th. One of them was found by the police, the other was not.
PHOTO PROVIDED
The victim, Sébastien Beauchamp, former member of the Montreal Rockers
Various SIM cards found on Presta and on murderer Frédérick Silva were at times inserted into these beacons and into phones, which were also used to locate the motorcyclist.
Using mobile phone registers, SIM cards, unique numbers (IMEI) associated with this device and registers of communication towers provided by telephone companies, civil expert Mathieu Charest, strategic advisor to the SPVM, created a 400-page PowerPoint document with maps and symbols.
The document literally simultaneously traces the route of Beauchamp’s vehicle, the movements of a white Malibu — equipped with a GPS and likely to be used as a tracking vehicle — and the route of a person walking or taking the subway, who has an administrator phone and requests the beacons mounted under the motorcyclist’s SUV.
The document also shows all incoming and outgoing messages that beacons send to each other and to the admin phones polling them.
A few hundred meters
So we see that the white Malibu sneaked around the vehicle rented by Beauchamp on December 6, 14, 17 and 18 before turning very close to the place and at the time of December 20 around 2:30 p.m Sébastien Beauchamp was shot dead in the car park of a petrol station on the corner of boulevards Langelier and Robert in the Saint-Léonard district.
During these days, simultaneously with the movements of the white Chevrolet Malibu, there is an exchange of information between an administrator’s telephone, a first beacon and a second placed under the motorcyclist’s SUV.
At 4:50 p.m. on December 6, Sébastien Beauchamp’s vehicle and the Chevrolet Malibu were very close in the Montréal-North district.
At 3:21 p.m. on December 14, the two vehicles were less than a kilometer apart in the area of rue Jarry and rue de Chamilly in the Saint-Léonard district. This situation is similar to that six days later during the murder.
PICTURE SUBMITTED TO COURT
Between 3:00 p.m. and 3:21 p.m. on December 14, 2018, the white Malibu (green) and the person with the administrator phone (orange) polling the GPS signal (blue) were very close to Sébastien Beauchamp’s vehicle (blue).
At approximately 10:25 p.m. on December 17, a communications tower indicated that the administrator’s telephone, which controlled the first beacon fitted under Beauchamp’s vehicle, was in the same location as the motorcyclist’s vehicle at the corner of Sherbrooke Street and Berri Street in Centre-Sud Montreal District.
In the ensuing seconds, the phone manager repeatedly interrogated a second GPS beacon, indicating it had just been wedged under the victim’s vehicle.
PICTURE SUBMITTED TO COURT
From 10:25 p.m. on the evening of December 17, 2018, the owner of the manager’s phone repeatedly checked a new GPS beacon (grey) that had probably just been installed under Sébastien Beauchamp’s vehicle.
Analysis also shows that on December 20, starting at 2:53 p.m., shortly after Beauchamp’s murder, one of the people involved called a taxi company three times. On the first call, he gave the address 71 Duke Street in Montreal as the destination before changing his mind.
Every time the taxi shows up where it was supposed to pick up the customer without the customer being there.
The same day, after the motorcyclist’s murder, the Chevrolet Malibu stopped at two car washes in Terrebonne before taking shelter in a Carex warehouse.
By regularly changing SIM cards and inserting them into different GPS beacons and different cell phones, Sébastien Beauchamp’s killers apparently wanted to shuffle the cards with technology. But they eventually got caught by her.
The trial will continue on Monday with the cross-examination of civilian witness Mathieu Charest.
After that, Me Antoine Piché of the prosecution and Me Dominique Shofey of the defense were to begin their pleadings.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514.287-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the La Presse mailing address.