DISCLAIMER

Many of the names and some of the descriptions in this blog have been changed to protect the guilty.

Saturday, February 1, 2020

The Daniel Croteau Murder, Part 10: Devils and Dirtbags…and Another Suspect?



Pictured above: Father X

I didn’t know what to expect when Crash Barry (pictured below), an editor-at-large and an investigative journalist for an alternative monthly print magazine and website in Portland, Maine called Mainer News, first contacted me in 2017 about my blog series on the Danny Croteau murder. Crash grew up in Indian Orchard, attended St. Matthew’s in The Orchard, and Cathedral High School—five years after I graduated from CHS. I knew his brother, who was in my class, but not him.


He wanted to know more about a man he called Father X, a pedophile priest I had mentioned in my blog. When Crash was a teenager, he knew him fairly well, because then man was St. Matthew’s pastor and Crash’s family was very involved with the parish—Crash was a lector for the Saturday evening late Mass and was the church’s master of ceremonies. He even “babysat” (slept in) the rectory (the building next to St. Matthew’s below) for Father X while he vacationed in Barbados.


I wished I had more information to give Crash about Father X. I didn’t really know much, other than assorted rumors and the fact that he gave me my first communion (pictured below). The scuttlebutt over the years was that Father X had been abused by a relative as a child and may have fathered a kid with his niece. Crash was beginning to work on an investigative podcast on Father X, but I had little to offer on the priest back then.



A year later, Crash emailed me informed me that had driven 250 miles to the nondescript New England city where Father X lives. He was armed with a bottle of 100-proof bourbon for truth serum to get him to confess his sins. The defrocked priest (pictured by Crash below) did spill the beans, to some extent—and Crash secretly recorded the whole dang thing! Father X downplayed his crimes, but he did, after a few drinks, finally get to the roots of his perversion: his father had molested him from age four to 14. The bastard had also sexually abused Father X’s two sisters, and eight out of 10 of his own grandchildren—both boys and girls.



But Father X’s dad received some instant karma one night in 1987, when one of his granddaughter victims called him ranting and raving and saying she was going to the district attorney. So he went out to his yard and put a bullet in his head.

The climax of this conversation is one of 13 podcast episodes of Crash’s Devils and Dirtbags series on the Springfield Diocese clergy abuse scandal.  As for the niece impregnation rumor, at the time Crash thought that if it were true, it seemed as if Father X’s sex addict dad must have been the one who knocked her up, because the ex-priest claimed he is “as gay as a three-dollar bill.”

But then, on the web, I happened to find this weird connection between one of Father X’s late nieces and a priest Crash calls Father Zee—a notorious pedophile and a member of the Springfield clergy sex abuse ring. I told Crash about what I had stumbled upon, he did a little digging, made a few calls, and sure enough it was Zee who was the father of the love child.

By the way, Crash credits me for “editorial assistance” on the podcasts. It’s too kind of a term, because it was Crash who did the heavy lifting, superb writing narrating, and producing, and had the balls to visit and interview not only Father X, but also the chief suspect in Danny’s murder, Richard Lavigne.




Richard Lavigne's latest mandated sex offender photo

I met Crash last February during one of his breaks he was taking during a marathon session of going through case files for the podcasts at the Hampden County Superior Court. He said that before his return to Maine he planned to show up at Lavigne’s door and try to talk with him. “It’s extremely unlikely he’ll say ANYTHING to you,” I said. “The only thing he’s said to a reporter in all these years is, ‘My silence has been my salvation.’ But what the hell. Go for it.”

Crash’s plan of attack was to tell Lavigne that he was writing an investigative piece on FATHER X and to ask him if he knew anything about him.


“Would you like to come in?” Lavigne asked.

Were you friends with Father X?” Crash asked him in his living room.

“We weren’t friends,” said Lavigne, frowning. “More like acquaintances.”

Crash explained Father X’s background to Lavigne because a recently published true crime book (one I had also given editorial assistance to) had briefly hypothesized that if Lavigne hadn’t killed Danny, then perhaps Father X did. There’s zero proof behind this conspiracy theory, but Crash wanted to know if Lavigne thought Father X could have been a killer. 

When Crash earlier had asked Father X if he knew Danny, he said no—that the boy went to school at OLSH, but was a parishioner at St. Catherine, not OLSH, the church where Father X was stationed. Father X said he didn’t really know Lavigne (they were acquaintances) but nonetheless doesn’t think that the man killed Danny.


Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church

Lavigne said he didn’t know Father X was still alive or had gotten into trouble and had been laicized. Either he didn’t read the papers or he was feigning ignorance.

“How do you remember [Father X]?” Crash asked. “When you hear the name [Father X], what do you think of?

“A person I really wasn’t fond of,” he said. “I always found him to be kind of prissy. We were never friends.”

“How much contact would you have with him? Were there gatherings of priests?”

“That’s it. You know, when you have a big lunch with the Diocese and I might be sitting across from him. And that’s really the only contact with him,”

“Did you ever have any argument with him?”

“No.”

“What about this theory of him being a murderer?” Crash asked. “Any thoughts on that?”

Lavigne stared at Crash blankly. Crash again mentioned the true crime book he had just told him about minutes earlier, and explained the conspiracy theory that Father X could have been Danny’s murderer.

“Really?” he said, sounding surprised.

Crash babbled a little more about the book and how the author also pondered the possibility of Danny’s Boy Scout leaders or other men might have murdered Danny.

“So,” Crash said, “do you remember [Father X], at all, as a violent man?”

“No,” Lavigne said.

“You called him prissy. That’s sort of opposite of violent.”

“Yeah, right. I was uncomfortable with him,” Lavigne paused. “I found him like I said: prissy.”

“Did you know he was gay?”

“No,” Lavigne said. “Though I assumed that he was.”

In Crash’s riveting podcast, Lavigne went on to give an account—for the first time to a journalist—of his side of the story in his 1991 molestation conviction, as well has his opinion of the dozens of sex abuse allegations against him over the years.

In another exclusive, Lavigne explained to Crash why he showed up at the murder scene (pictured below) a day after Croteau’s body was found—an act that ultimately led police to consider him the prime suspect.


Lavigne also described peeking through the window of a fellow priest in the act of molesting boys, and telling Bishop Christopher Weldon about it…but the Bishop covered it up. Yes, Lavigne names the priest, who had been unaccused. Until now.

I’m not going to reveal any more here! Listen to Crash Barry's podcast series yourself!




Becky Miller Snider, who is Richard Lavigne’s cousin, sent Hell’s Acres the above photo of Lavigne, in the psychedelic frock, marrying her parents in 1971, and the photo of him below at her christening party in 1973.


She first wrote a comment at the end of this blog post in March of 2021. She followed that comment with family lore of Lavigne's mother often walking around the house topless, and Lavigne having younger friends over his house playing poker—as his mother served them food and alcohol.


It’s not the first revelation of his mother’s strange behavior. A true crime book about the Croteau murder details a description by Lavigne’s friend of her topless and sunbathing with Lavigne, his hand on his mother’s breast. He also used to grab her breasts through her clothing and ask, in front of his friends, “Are these real?” She was sexually provocative in the presence of Lavigne’s friends, often wearing skimpy bikinis.


Snider fears that Lavigne may have also gotten “too close” to one of her relatives.





24 comments:

jank said...

Welcome back!

Hell’s Acres said...

Thanks! It’s good to be back!

Missy said...

Your series has been riveting, I am very glad too see you are back!

Hell’s Acres said...

Hi Missy,

Thanks for checking the blog!

Unknown said...

Welcome back sir!

Hell’s Acres said...

Thank you, sir!

M Lefebvre said...

Glad your blog series is back. Thanks for all the great content!

Hell’s Acres said...

Thanks, M Lefebvre!

'Chaug Guy said...

Glad to see you're back. I think the blog is great.

Great job.

'Chaug Guy

Hell’s Acres said...

Hey ‘Chaug Guy! Thanks.

Jim C said...

Patiently awaiting the 10 part oral history of CHS food fights

Hell's Acres said...

Jim C lol that would be great. I wonder when the food fights began and when they ended.

Remember, the nuns ruled with an iron fist in the '60s (including maintaining student silence in the hallways between classes) but began losing their authoritarian grip around '68 or '69. My guess it was around then that the food fights started. Or was it earlier?

When did they end? Around the mid-1980s?

MattyMatt said...

Good to have you back. Figured you had some involvement with the book. Keep it going!!

Agawamian said...

Welcome back, Hells! Just for laughs I went to the site today and was surprised to see your new post. I've missed your writing these past years.

Thanks for the podcast recommendations. I've bookmarked it, and can't wait to start listening.

Free Country the band name said...

My grandparents knew Lavigne, who used to pick up my uncle (their son) and some other neighborhood kids and bring them to do some odd jobs and weird stuff like that. My uncle quit the job without warning and my grandma was upset with him and called him lazy etc. He finally told her that the Father had made him "uncomfortable" and that was that. Later on, all that other stuff went down. Man... I'm going to listen to Devils and Dirtbags. I sent it to my 98 year old grandfather too who's a retired MA State cop and has been in the area all his life. He'll love it, and love this blog too.

Hell’s Acres said...

Wow, I think your uncle’s instincts were sound enough to dodge a bullet on that one! I’d be interested to hear what your grandfather thinks.

Jungle Jim jjimjjim@ roadrunner.com said...

Glad to see more on Danny C. I lived in East Springfield when it happened and new Father Dirt Bag. I now live in S Cal have read Fleming book. Being a retired Wilb PD officer have for many years followed the case. enjoy this site
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Unknown said...

I just scanned a little of this. I felt I had to comment before I read it all. Richard Lavigne makes me want to go back to my hometown of Chicopee and confront him with questions which would never be answered. This twisted evil person is my cousin. I have never met him. I only found out about him in 2005 when my grandmother asked me to tape 60 minutes for her. I did and then watched in horror, disgust and sadness at the story and how this was so obviously covered up. These poor boys and men. Then to find out I am related to this sicko....omg... this piece of crap baptized my sister and I think married my parents. How is he still alive? I feel so horrible for all these victims. I cannot express my disgust that I am related to him. I think he is my third cousin. Thank you for doing these to help others. Becky L. Snider

Hell’s Acres said...

Hi Becky,

From Barry’s visit with Lavigne in Chicopee we know he denies ALL molestation allegations and in the past there has been one accusation by a female relative of his, so consider yourself lucky you were never alone with him when you were a kid.

Unknown said...

I was born in 1973 in Chicopee, Massachusetts and moved away to Florida when I was 2 years old. Richard Lavigne, known as "Dick from my Aunt, doesn't know who I am. I have read this podcast in its entirety. I have some more work to do. Research. I have heard stories about Dick, my cousin, over the years. I heard stories about his mother, whom had no moral compass whatsoever. At her house she used to have her son and his friends over for card games. Poker, I think. These men were younger than Dick. His mother served them food and alcohol during these games. Shocker! She walked around with no top on, breasts exposed which also reveals the sickness and depravity involved in this family. I am going through pictures and other items more closely now to see what more I can find. I have a feeling most of our family moved away because they were disgusted by Dick, the other priests and knew more. All I can say is I am sorry to all the survivors, victims, families of all boys, girls, who had their innocence taken away by a man and other men they trusted. I was raised Catholic but it never fit right for me. These horrible men used, manipulated, threatened any involved. Becky Miller Snider

Hell’s Acres said...

Yes, please feel free to do some research and leave comments. It’s interesting and revealing to read family accounts. I had heard (never confirmed) that Dick had a twin who died at childbirth or in utero. Depending on which study you read, this affects the surviving twin psychologically. It’s no excuse, but I wonder if family members can confirm this about Lavigne.

Unknown said...

I am wondering how to post a picture on here. It is of Dick marrying my parents. I don't think I would have been his type.... which I am so grateful for beyond words. This evil monster did marry my parents in 1971. I have proof, unfortunately, since it ruins everything I was told to believe in. I do have the photo but I do not see an option of picture upload. Please advise. Thank you, Becky M Snider

Hell’s Acres said...

Hi Becky,

Feel free to email me the photo at hellsacres@gmail.com and I’ll publish it at the bottom of the post and refer to your comments.

boston boy said...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9613857/Prosecutor-Late-former-priest-killed-altar-boy-1972.html Found this today!