When director Megan Wennberg was nearing the completion of editing for her award-winning documentary Drag Kids, she didn’t realize how different the subject of her next project would be from its troupe of spotlight-seeking adolescents.
While talking with her producers Erin Oakes and Edward Peill at Tell Tale Productions, the topic of what to do next came up, and nothing could have prepared the Halifax filmmaker for the journey that would begin with the next question.
“They asked me, ‘How do you feel about vigilante justice?’ And I was interested,” says Wennberg, whose documentary The Killing of Phillip Boudreau debuts on CBC-TV on Saturday at 9 p.m., and on the CBC Gem online platform.
The film examines how the death of Boudreau, from the Cape Breton Acadian fishing community of Isle Madame, became national news seven years ago while inflicting untold suffering on the people who lived in its tight-knit villages.
Facts of the case
As was reported at the time, Boudreau, a small-time criminal who stole and resold fishing boat equipment and poached lobster traps, was deemed missing after his speedboat Midnight Slider was found floating and abandoned on June 1, 2013. Eventually, the police investigation led to the arrests and convictions of three crew members of the Twin Maggies for their roles in his death at sea.
In 2015, James Landry was sentenced to 14 years in prison for manslaughter, his son-in-law Dwayne Samson pleaded guilty and received a 10-year sentence, while Craig Landry received two years of probation after pleading guilty to accessory after the fact. Both James Landry and Samson were released from prison less than five years later, with James Landry dying in hospital 11 months after receiving his parole.
Those are the most basic facts of the case, but Wennberg wanted to investigate how such a crime could happen; who was Phillip Boudreau and what were the factors that contributed to his death, and what lingering effects its aftermath has left on the island’s population.
“How does a community move forward from such a horrific act of violence? How do people move on when some of its community have killed one of its own?” she asks.
“That became more my interest going forward, especially seeing how people were still in pain. I had a feeling it would still be painful for certain members of the community, but I wasn’t expecting it to still be so raw for as many people as it was.”
Reopening wounds
Over the course of making The Killing of Phillip Boudreau, Wennberg’s visits to Isle Madame were frequently tense and emotional; being identified as a stranger right away, she could see the look on people’s faces suddenly change when she told them why she was there.
She wasn’t surprised by their reactions, Isle Madame is the kind of enduring, historic community where residents are either neighbours or relatives, or both.
“It’s either something they don’t want to talk about, or they have very strong desires to talk about it but feel like they can’t because they can’t risk saying something that would upset someone else in their life,” says Wennberg, who started her journey by talking to those who were connected professionally to the case.
Police officers and prosecutors involved outlined the history of the crime, while more detailed insight came from Isle Madame journalist Jake Boudrot from the Port Hawkesbury Reporter, who had covered the case with more sensitivity than national media outlets which branded Boudreau’s killing as “murder for lobster.”
She was also able to paint a more detailed portrait of Boudreau, thanks to friends like Rheal Landry, who hadn’t talked to anyone about the case previously, and Jean-Claude Heudes, who had only discussed it with those close to him.
“I didn’t get the sense that people who were hurt by it had as much space to talk about it,” she says. “When it happened, things really flared up and people got really heated about it, saying things like ‘No one deserves to die like that’ versus ‘He got what was coming to him.’
“That was kind of the hard-line that people split along. But since then, in order for the community to move ahead, I think it was less voiced, even though those feelings are very much still there.”
Digging deeper into Boudreau's life
Boudreau was a complicated character, a junior high school dropout and repeat offender who had gotten used to incarceration — “Jail wasn’t a deterrent to him,” says Wennberg — and also a bully who knew how to push people’s buttons.
“But then I’m finding out more about him, and how he had a rough upbringing, and of the men who killed him, one of them was apparently also one of his main customers. When Phillip would steal things from other fishermen, this guy would buy a lot of it.
“It seems like Phillip was used a lot by men in the community to either (mess) with each other, or (mess) with each other’s stuff, steal things ... and it started when he was really young.”
By the same token, prior to the events of June 1, 2013, the crew of the Twin Maggies were respected members of the fishing community who hadn’t previously given law enforcement any cause for concern. Wennberg says her goal was to show both sides of the story, and help viewers understand that what happened that day on the water was the result of people making choices in the heat of the moment, “some of which were horrible.”
“I was definitely interested in the vigilante justice, when people are pushed so far they take the law into their own hands, and I wanted to look at what provokes that, but also what the results are,” she says.
“In the moment, it may seem like you’re solving a problem. I don’t know if that’s what they were thinking at the time, but it seemed like Phillip was a big problem for the community, and with him removed, then problem solved. But that wasn’t the case, and I think the film shows there’s still a lot of pain and trauma in the community as a result.”
Up next
For her next project, Wennberg anticipates she’ll let the pendulum swing in the opposite direction, with subject matter that doesn’t involve a violent crime.
“Hopefully in the winter, if we can start shooting, I’d like to do something on master synchronized swimmers, which will be lighter and more upbeat,” says the filmmaker.
“I wouldn’t mind alternating between dark and light, but I definitely don’t have the appetite for more dark at the moment.”
