Brother Turned Murderer – The Case of Lorne Joe Acquin

**Episode Transcription

Welcome everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Love and Murder – the weekly true crime podcast discussing relationships gone terribly wrong. Where our motto is, you’re either someone’s last love or their first murder.

I am your host Ky and in today’s episode, we’re discussing a case of betrayal, mental
health, and murder.

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Lorne Joe Aquin was born on March 21, 1950. He was described as 5’8″ 130lbs man with long black hair and a mustache.
Now, I couldn’t find anything about his childhood or anything about his past, you know, like I usually like to bring y’all.
So we’re gonna start on the day of the murder in 1977 when he was 27 years old.
On the night of July 21, 1977, 8 children were swimming and having a great old time in their neighbor’s pool in Prospect Connecticut.

Their mother, 29 year old Cheryl Beaudoin, watched over them while their father, Fredrick Beaudoin Senior, was at work working third shift at a Pratt and Whitney factory. After a while, a man showed up and came on over to the neighbor’s pool also.
“When he showed up, the kids were all excited, hugging and kissing him,” the neighbor said.
When he came, the family went home, the neighbor went inside, and the night continued on.

At about 4:15am, neighbors smelled smoke and called 911 saying that the Beaudoin house was on fire. These fire trucks, from Prospect and Bethany, which was a neighbor in town, responded to the call and it took about 30 minutes for firefighters to kill the blaze. After the excitement had died down, that’s when they began to find the bodies.

Among the dead were Cheryl, her seven children, Frederick Allen, who was 12, Sharon Lee, who was 10, Deborah Ann, who was 9, Paul Albert, who was 8, Roddrick, who was 6, Holly Lynn,
who was 5, and Mary Lou, who was 4.
And then, a six-year-old cousin, Jennifer Santoro, was over at the house as well, so she was there too.

The charred body of Cheryl was found on the kitchen floor while the bodies of the three children were found in one bedroom and two more children in another. One other child was found dead in the master bedroom and two more bodies were found in the bathroom. Several of the children, including Cheryl, had their hands tied behind their backs. Two other children’s feet were tied together and everyone appeared to have head wounds.

“All of the bodies were burned extensively.”
This was Edward P. Leonard, who was the state police commissioner, and that’s what he said at the time.

Neighbors told police that they woke up smelling smoke, but they thought maybe someone was like burning leaves or something, but the thing that made them call 911 was that they started hearing screaming coming out of the Buduan house. And when Joseph Paulino, one of the neighbors, ran up to the house because he went to try and help, whoever was screaming into house, he said the flames were already shooting from the home.

“I opened the back door and got driven back by a blast of heat, then the picture window blew out.”

Police went to Frederick’s job in North Haven at around 5.30 a.m. to pick him up and deliver the devastating news. When they picked him up, they brought him to his mother’s house where Joseph Donnelly, their Reverend, was waiting. Now can you imagine this? Police came to pick you up from work, won’t tell you what’s going on.
They then take you to your mom’s house and this person is waiting for you?
How would you react?
Me personally?
I probably have the bubble guts.
Like I’m not trying to be funny, I’m really, really not trying to be funny here. Because when I’m anxious, my stomach starts messing up and I’m assuming many people won’t do too. So you’re not telling me what’s going on at my house, you didn’t take me to my house, police is showing up at my job, something’s going on. So automatically I start getting the bubble guts.

So Frederick asks Joseph, “Are they all in Joseph’s response all…”
And Frederick says, quote, “there’s only one thing, to see the bastard pay.”
I couldn’t even imagine this scenario.
All of his children and his wife, his entire family, I couldn’t even imagine.

Investigators got to work on the case.
State troopers set up a command post at Prospect Town Hall and stopped every single car that was coming in and out of Route 68. In addition to that, they continued checking over the house.
And in their investigation that they noticed that all the doors and the windows were locked, which is weird. So everybody that was in the house already, perished; however all the doors in the windows
locked, no extra person has shown up in the house. So they went back to talk to the neighbors. Neighbors said that they saw this guy who was Lorne, come over on that Thursday night and again, early on Friday morning, they saw him sitting in a black sedan in a church parking lot about a mile from the house.

They also told police that he had been living in the house some months before he had been living in the house for about two years. He was living in the family’s basement and then suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. Then he came back that Thursday and then they saw him again that Friday.

So police took note of that.

And then investigation, of course, you have to take everything into account. So they were also taken Frederick into account and they asked him for permission to search
his truck. He gave it and they found absolutely nothing.

This is only within a 24 hour period by this time and they had interviewed more than 100 witnesses, including Fred and Lorne.
When police ran Lorne ‘s name through the system, they found out that he was actually out on parole right now for larcen. He had actually gone into prison on April 1974 and he had been released February 1975. Then in 1976, March of 1976, he was sentenced for escaping for trying to escape and then he was released on parole that September, 1976. So he’s only been out of prison October, November, December, January, February, March.

So he’s only been out of prison 10 months, which doesn’t automatically make him the prime suspect.

But in addition to everything else that they’re hearing from witnesses, this is kind of shining a huge spotlight on him. They also found out that Lorne was actually Frederick’s foster brother. So he was, you know, in a sense, related to him.

So on July 22nd at 9.30 a.m., they went over to Lorne’s apartment and asked him to come in for questioning and he agreed to come in and make a statement.

And when he went into the police station, he made a statement, all right.

That statement was singing like a bird.
He admitted that he’s the one who did this.
He said he attacked his sister-in-law and the children. So to be sure, police questioned him, asked him what happened, give them the whole rundown and they did this three different times. And then they even allowed him to meet with his psychiatrist. And he told the same story over and over again about what happened.

So of course he was arrested and booked on nine counts of murder and one count of arson.

So police had him write up a confession like you’re sure.
This is you.
I mean, everything was pointing in his direction.
Everything that he said, nobody else could have known because it wasn’t in the news at the time. So he went ahead and signed a seven page type confession saying that yes, it was him who did this. And he was arrested and booked on nine counts of murder and one count of arson. That same day, July 23rd, police found a trash bag full of bloody clothes near his driveway. And they also found bloody shoes and socks in the trunk of his car. The same car that people saw him sitting in at that church parking lot, remember? So I mean, literally what more evidence do you need? He said it. He said it three different times. Everybody said they saw him on that night.
The doors and windows were locked.
He gave a detailed description of what he did, which we’ll get into soon. Everything was found near his person. He signed the typed up confession seven pages. He talked to his psychiatrist and told the psychiatrist he did this. What other evidence do you need?

Shortly after he was arrested and booked, his defense attorney attorney, John R Williams, then accused the state police of “gross misbehavior” in the investigation.
He said that the police held Lorne without giving him a chance to get counsel for 14 hours and they’re the ones who pushed him into confession. According to him, he said police told his client that he couldn’t see a lawyer until he admitted to the murders.
Commissioner Edwards refused to have a rebuttal for this, but he did come out and say  “I’m absolutely sure he’s the man who committed the crime.”

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On August 1st, 1977, a motion was filed requesting permission to take a specimen of blood from Lorne. However, the motion was denied on August 3rd. Then on September 7th, when he was indicted by a grand jury and charged with the nine counts of murder, they tried again.
So this time, this motion came out on September 15th, 1977. And again, hey, we need to get this blood from this guy.
And they were actually granted the court order. Lorne’s lawyer fought that and said that the court made an error in ordering the blood withdrawal since no evidence was presented in establishing probable cause for this. Basically, what he said was because Lorne said, you know, he’s not guilty, there was no evidence that he committed to crime and for them to ask for the blood, which me personally, I don’t understand that because he has a typed up confession.
They found the clothes. They have witnesses saying he was at the location.
They didn’t say at the time of the fire, but I’m not a lawyer who knows. His thing was that just because he was charged with the crime doesn’t give you the right to search and seize anything he owns.

So basically, if you don’t understand what’s going on here is that his lawyer is trying
to push back the trial, trying to put in reasonable doubt saying that, you know, let’s push out the clothes that you found.
We can’t put that into evidence. Let’s take away his confession. We can’t put that into evidence. And let’s look at other suspects like Cheryl’s brother, for instance.
And the court said, yeah, none of that’s going to happen. The trial is going to start.
It’s going to continue and we’re going to put everything into evidence and let’s move
forward.

The trial went about, you know, choosing the jury and everything. The jury was sworn in on July 16, 1979 and was given Lorne’s confession to read through
and it was also made public to the public.
Hey, I’m not a writer.
Leave me alone.

So in his confession, which everybody read by that time, he described how he used a
lug wrench, a tire iron and a knife to kill everybody. He also confessed that he had been at the house at around 7 p.m. on the night of July 21, 1977 and he had gone there to take the children to pick raspberries.
He said once they did that, he left by 8 30 p.m. and then came back at two or three in the morning and came into the house through an unlocked seller door. He said when he got into the kitchen, he turned on the light. And that’s when Cheryl came down. I guess she had heard the commotion or everything she came down to see what was going on.

“She didn’t seem surprised that I was there” and he told her, Hey, I need some tools from the basement because I’m fixing my car at two or three o’clock in the morning. So can I go down to your basement at two or three o’clock in the morning and get some tools? Being that, you know, this is her foster brother in law, I guess she didn’t think anything of it and she said, Sure, go down to the basement and, you know, get whatever you need.
So he went and he got the lug wrench and he came back to the kitchen. He said, Hey, yeah, you know, it’s two or three in the morning and can I get a beer? Because I mean, I’m at your house at two or three in the morning. And when she said, Sure, you know, she’s again, this is your brother in law. So you’re not thinking anything weird.
I guess even though it’s two or three in the morning, maybe they have that kind of
relationship, you’re not thinking anything weird. So she turned around to get him a beer from the fridge and that’s when he smacked her over the head with the wrench and he just kept hitting her, hitting her, hitting her. He said she didn’t scream.
She didn’t make any noise or anything and I’m wondering me, was she not trying to call attention to make her children come running? I’m just, I’m just, I, I, I, woo, to me, that’s so that’s brave that you would take those blows and not even make a noise so your children wouldn’t be alerted and hopefully this maniac will leave them alone.
Even so, one of her children did hear the noise and he came to the kitchen to see what was happening and that’s when Lorne hit that child over the head with the wrench.

He then went about hitting the other children with the wrench and the tire iron and when he heard Cheryl moan in the kitchen, he went back to the kitchen and started stabbing her.

Remember this is all in his confession so I’m telling you the confession that I’m going to tell you what he said in court.
He then told police that he tied up some of the children with string and sexually molested the 10 year old Sharon before killing her. Then he poured gas over everybody, the children, the mother all through the entire house and then he set the house ablaze.

However, when he took the stand on September 5th, 1979, he painted a completely different picture.

He said he didn’t do any of that.

He denied the role in the murder period and any of the murders. He said, I didn’t do that. He said he only did that confession and signed off on it because that’s what his psychiatrist told him to do. He said the psychiatrist said, “you’d be better off if you signed.”

He also said he continuously asked police for a lawyer.
He’s like, I want to talk to my lawyer.
I want to talk to my lawyer.
I wanted to talk to my lawyer and they told him,

“I know you did it. Why don’t you just confess to it.”

And they wouldn’t allow him to get a lawyer. When asked about the blood on his clothes, he said, oh, the blood was from a fight that I got into the night of the murders with some men outside of a cafe.
I went to get some coffee. Then they make it right. I beat their asses. That’s where the blood came from. And he also said that when police first told him about the murders, he got so mad that he punched a wall of the police barracks and he told the state trooper,

“George, you’d better get those guys before I do.”

Now during the trial, prosecutors showed the jury a photograph of the seven smiling children that had not been entered into evidence previously. So Lorde’s lawyer tried to get a mistrial for that. And the judge said, no. And the trial continued. Now the issue with this trial, which is why I’m going through all of this, which I would have gone through all of this.

Anyway, but the issue with this trial is some evidence seemed to support what Lauren was saying. So number one, he did react exactly as he said he reacted when he was told of the murders at the at the police station. That’s number one. Number two, during the trial on October 2nd, 1979, a state police fingerprint expert testified
that the bloody hand and fingerprints found in the bathtub were not lorns and the hand print on one of the door jams didn’t belong to him either. Now I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’re thinking. Well, it’s probably somebody from the family or something like that, but it wasn’t matched to any of the victims and it wasn’t matched to Frederick either. And also, then also the town’s newspaper, the current C-O-U-R-N-T had interviewed Lorne and this interview was by reporter Lincoln Milstein on October, 1977.
And this interview actually wasn’t even published until the confession was released. But in the interview, Lorne said that he didn’t remember anything about the killings.

All he remembers is “talking to Cheryl” and then he remembered “bodies and blood all over the place and the house was on fire.”
He said he remembered being scared and hot and running from the house.

“When I came to my senses, I was on Wally Avenue in New Haven.”

He also said he didn’t even remember giving this confession that people are saying that he gave. So, based on all of this, what do you think? Before we continue, what do you think? Do you think this is like a Stephen Avery situation? Do you think mental health played a role in this? Do you think he’s just lying through his teeth and this actually happened? But then if that’s the case, then why is no evidence pointing to him? But then at the same time, they requested a blood draw and if he had nothing to hide, he would have just given the blood. But then again, Stephen Avery case, then they just planted blood. So maybe that’s why he didn’t want to give the blood. You can go back and forth on this all day. Anyways, I just want to know what you think. So take a second before we continue on.

Let me know in the comments below.
What do you think?
Do you think he is guilty?
Do you think he’s not guilty?
What do you think?

Remember, I said he was being held in the Whiting Forensic Institute prison?
Well, on October 5th, he was then transferred to a state mental hospital in Middleton for “security reasons.”
And then on October 31st, he was officially committed after his quarter-pointed psychiatrist testified that he could be suffering from schizophrenia or a form of epilepsy and could be dangerous to himself and others.

Now this was October 1977, not 1979.

So then now fast-forward back to 1979, on October 1979, the jury deliberated for eight
hours over the course of three days and they came back and said that Lauren was guilty on all counts of murder. He was not, however, charged with sexual assault. Now they’re assuming why he did this and Chief Assistant State’s attorney Walter Scanlon
said that “Acquin might have been caught by Cheryl Beaudoin sexually molested one or more of the Beaudoin girls and been so ashamed that he was driven to kill the whole family.”

That’s their assumption.

The state tried to get the maximum possible prison sentence of 245 years, which is 25 years for each murder and 20 years for arson, but Judge Walter Pickett sentenced him to 105 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 50 or 55 years. Five minutes after the hearing, his attorney filed an appeal. That is like the fastest appeal I’ve ever seen. Like he had it written out and ready to go. The court denied his appeal and Lorne went to prison.

Throughout the years, Lorne has petitioned for a habeas corpus trial, but they’ve continuously shut him down.
And if you’re like me, you’re like, “What the hell is the habeas corpus trial?”

Which is a “a writ for bringing an accused from a different county into a court in the
place where a crime has been committed for purposes of trial or more literally to return hold in the body for purposes of deliberation and receipt of a decision.”

So I guess basically it just means he was just trying to say, “Hey, I didn’t do this.
I said I didn’t do this. Let’s reverse this decision.”

He was sentenced to service sentence at McDougal Walker Correctional Facility in Suffield, Connecticut. His lawyer said that, “The confession never should have been admitted into evidence. I think that nobody will ever know what really happened in this case. If the confession had been kept out, he would have had to have been acquitted.”
While he was in prison for 38 years, he had been disciplined eight times. And the first time happened two days after he was convicted. And that was due to violation of rules. The offenses were assault, possession of drugs, possession of contraband, and making a disturbance in the prison. His last disciplinary case was in 1997 for an assault and refusing to provide a specimen.

In June of 2015, he was placed on a ventilator in the hospital’s intensive care unit. As a hospital staff requested that the judge needed to make a medical decision, “Per the Department of Correction, Mr. Acquin does not have any family willing or interested in having contact with, or making decisions for him. Mr. Acquin did not assign a health care agent before this devastating illness.” And then two days before the meeting with the judge was scheduled to take place, he died.

So he died June 2015 of a severe brain bleed. And he was 65 years old. He went into prison at 27 and he died at 65. No autopsy was done and nobody knows what caused the brain bleed.

Robert De Clarke, the funeral home’s former owner, will say former owner because this funeral home now obviously has another owner. He sought and received custody of the remains from the probate judge and he took the remains and performed a cremation. Then it sat there.
He would periodically take it to the  Department of Correction just to see if any family members or anybody were willing to take them and he would take them back and be forth because nobody wanted them.
He said he didn’t know of Lorne. All he knew was that nobody was claiming this guy and he was shocked to learn of the crimes that was committed so long ago.

“That’s tragic. I can’t believe that. I dealt with so many cases over the years, but man, that’s a tragedy.”

As of today, he can’t say where exactly the remains are. The last time they talked to him was during the pandemic and he said after the pandemic, he’s pretty sure that whatever remains that are there of anybody else will be buried with other unclaimed remains in a plot he owns at Northwood Cemetery in Windsor.

As of 2009, news outlets tried to interview Fredrick’s who was in his late 60s at this
time and still living in prospect, but he didn’t want to talk about the crime.
As anybody wouldn’t want to, like, are you serious? Why would you reach out to him for interview? It still hurts your whole family is gone. Do you guys not understand that? Why are you trying to interview this man? Leave him alone.

And this is still known as it was known for a long time as the largest mass murder in
Connecticut history that is until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14, 2012.

And that is the case of Lorne Joe Aquin.

What do you think about this case?
Do you think he did this?
Do you think it was mental health?
He could have done it and really forgotten about it?
Or do you think he just went on a rampage because as they assume it wasn’t said, nobody ever said this ever happened.
Nobody said there was evidence of this ever happening.
But as they assume he was found molesting one of the children and then he just killed
everybody so it wouldn’t come out.
Again, this is all speculation.
All of it.
There was no actual physical evidence that tied him to the murder.

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