Denis Lortie (born March 10, 1959) is a former Canadian Forces corporal. In 1984, he stormed into the Parliament Building in Quebec City and opened fire with several firearms, killing three government employees and wounding 13 others. The National Assembly's serjeant-at-arms, René Jalbert, volunteered himself to serve as a hostage, and conversed with Lortie for several hours before convincing him to surrender to authorities. After a 1985 conviction of first-degree murder was overturned by the Quebec Court of Appeal, Lortie pleaded guilty to reduced charges of second-degree murder in 1987, for which he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for ten years. Lortie was granted day parole in 1995, then full parole in 1996, and has since kept a low profile among the general public. Life Denis Lortie was born in Quebec on March 10, 1959, as the youngest son of eight children. His exact birthplace within Quebec is not publicly known. Lortie and all his siblings were physically and sexually abused by their father for many years. Lortie's father reportedly fathered a child with one of his daughters. One of the Lortie siblings finally informed the police of the abuses in the late 1960s. In 1969, Lortie's father was sent to federal prison for three years. In 1972, Lortie's father finished incarceration but never returned to his family. Lortie joined the Canadian Forces in the late 1970s after finishing high school in Quebec. Lortie served in the Logistics Branch at CFB Borden, CFB Valcartier, CFB Halifax and CFS Carp. On December 27, 1980, Lortie married Lisa Levesque in Quebec City, and he was posted to CFB Halifax the following year. The couple had a son in 1982 and a daughter in 1983. At the time of the shooting, Lortie was posted to CFS Carp, near Ottawa, was ranked a corporal, and worked as a supply technician. Lortie was bilingual in French and English. But even while speaking French, his native language, he encountered pronunciation difficulties. This resulted in irregular and halting speech. Lortie blamed his social and professional failures on his inability to speak English flawlessly, and was keenly aware that his poor English reinforced negative stereotypes of Francophones and Québécois. After the birth of his daughter, Lortie worried that he would become abusive in the manner of his father, and contemplated killing himself and his family before placing blame on the governing pro-sovereignty for