Canadian Murderer Encouraged to Visit Sex Workers by Parole Officer Kills Sex Worker

Eustachio Gallese, a Canadian man who was convicted of murder in 2004 for beating his wife to death with a hammer, was living in a halfway house when he killed 22-year-old Marylène Levesque on January 22. According to the Montreal Gazette, visiting sex workers was an approved part of Gallese’s Parole Board of Canada-approved “social re-insertion plan” when he killed Levesque.

In 2006, Gallese was sentenced to life in prison after beating his wife to death with a hammer and stabbing her body. In 2007, the Parole Board labeled Gallese a “high risk of violence,” but lowered later lowered that risk to moderate. In 2016, he was granted supervised release and sent to a halfway house in March 2019. In September, he was granted a further six months of day parole, and a summary of the board’s evaluation reveals that Gallese’s parole officer had approved visits to sex workers as part of efforts to rehabilitate the convicted murderer:

“Although you are still single and you say you aren’t ready to enter into a serious relationship with a woman, you are able to efficiently evaluate your needs and expectations towards women,” the summary read. “During the hearing, your parole officer underlined a strategy that was developed with the goal that would allow you to meet women in order to address your sexual needs.”

Sources tell the Gazette that Gallese had been banned from the massage parlor where Levesque worked after being violent with several employees and that Levesque had agreed to meet Gallese at a hotel, where he killed her. Gallese had also been convicted of conjugal violence in 1997.

Following a call from Quebec Justice Minister Sonia LeBel for the parole board to look into how it happened that a murderer twice convicted of violence against women would come to be encouraged to be alone near a woman—who was most likely not informed that he was a murderer and that she was part of his rehabilitation process—the board has launched an investigation into whether or not parole officers had been properly trained to evaluate the risk Gallese posed to every single woman he encountered.