OTTAWA — His exceptional longevity and vigor had made Ernest Côté something of a celebrity among Canadian military veterans. So in December, when someone posing as a city employee invaded Mr. Côté’s luxury apartment here, tied up the 101-year-old veteran, pulled a plastic bag over his head and left him for dead, the news attracted national attention.
Mr. Côté, who fought on D-Day, managed to free himself, remove the bag and avoid suffocation. But the shock of the episode was compounded by surprise when the police arrested the suspect, Ian Bush, a 59-year-old human resources manager and consultant from suburban Ottawa who had no criminal history.
The mystery surrounding Mr. Bush grew on Friday when he was arrested again after a court appearance and charged with the murder of a retired federal court judge, his wife and a neighbor in 2007. That triple homicide also involved the invasion of a condominium. The couple, Alban and Raymonde Garon, and the neighbor, Marie-Claire Beniskos, were tied up, beaten and then suffocated with plastic bags. The Ottawa Citizen and other news organizations say Mr. Bush is also under investigation in connection with a fourth suffocation killing.
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On Dec. 18, the day of the attack on Mr. Côté, he reposted links to four business-related news articles as well as an article from Reason, an American libertarian magazine, with the headline, “When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Who Pay Off the Cops Will Have Guns.”
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