Coroner to probe case of Ottawa man stabbed to death in his cell 5 years ago

Everything Donald James Mongeon owned in life fits in a small cardboard box, the one they handed his father after he was found dead in a locked prison cell on Jan. 17, 2000: Some clothes, a notebook from his computer course and an old ball cap.

The Ottawa thief, 27, lay in a pool of blood undetected by guards for six hours. He had been stabbed at least 10 times, once in the heart. The guards assigned to check on inmates, every hour on the hour, reported nothing wrong on their overnight watch at Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston.

The death began as a low-priority police case, and his father's hopes of finding out what happened faded when the probe wore down earlier this year with not enough evidence to convict the suspects. Now, the Citizen has learned that the Ontario coroner's office will soon announce an inquest into the unsolved killing of Mr. Mongeon.

Joe Martin, the dead inmate's father, has always just wanted to know what happened to his son, and when the police investigation slowed, he figured he'd never find out. He's embraced the news of the inquest to see otherwise.

"Hopefully something good will come out of it," Mr. Martin said yesterday. "I'm not holding my breath, but we might finally find out what happened. It's got to come out, and until it does, there's no closure," he said.

Mr. Mongeon, a first-time federal offender, was just six months into his five-year sentence when he was killed. He was sent to federal prison for being the wheelman in a botched armed robbery at an Ottawa beer store.

The robbery unfolded under the close watch of the Ottawa police, who were tailing Mr. Mongeon's accomplices in connection with the execution-style killing of a key witness in a murder trial. The police watched the thieves from a plane and in unmarked cars. Still, they let them go into the beer store, waving guns and demanding cash.

Outside in the parking lot, the police rammed the getaway car and opened fire, with a bullet grazing the chin of one of Mr. Mongeon's accomplices.

Mr. Martin said he never gave his son an ounce of sympathy when it came to his crimes. But he certainly didn't deserve to be slashed to death in prison for agreeing to drive the getaway car.

"It doesn't mean he's supposed to pay the ultimate price in prison. He would have been out in a year-and-a-half and he'd be sitting right here beside me today if the guards had done their job," Mr. Martin said.

The coroner's inquest is expected to investigate the prison guards' actions the night Mr. Mongeon was killed. "One way or another, the guards were involved. They looked the other way," Mr. Martin argues.

"He was a nobody to the public. The public doesn't care because he was in prison. If he came from a high-profile family, the case would have been solved," Mr. Martin said yesterday.

For their part, the Ontario Provincial Police assigned the case to one of their top detectives, Insp. Ian Grant, who says he cared about it and worked it hard.

While the police were accused of considering the killing a low priority because Mr. Mongeon was a federal prisoner, they were also continually thwarted by a code of silence among the inmates.

Then last year, the OPP reported an apparent crack in the case, with detectives turning to DNA evidence to find the killers. But today, detectives concede that unless someone comes forward, they just don't have enough evidence to convict their suspects.

Until there is a break in the case, only the inquest will detail the killing for Mr. Mongeon's family.

Three days before his killers came calling, Mr. Mongeon phoned home and told his father he had decided to turn his life around. He had put in for a transfer out west, where he could be closer to his girlfriend. He spoke about raising a family and making an honest living.

In interviews with the Citizen, his family and girlfriend said there was no indication that Mr. Mongeon's life was in danger.

Five years later, his family remains outraged that the killers haven't been brought to justice.

"It's not like they had to go looking for the killers. They're already in jail, just a few feet away, and locked up," Mr. Martin said.

Inquest Called Into Jailhouse Killing