Champion bodybuilder became a noted crime fighter

Date: 05-11-2006 Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamCanada

Joffre L'Heureux, chief of Huntingdon's police and fire departments for 38 years, until he retired in 1986, was also a finely chiselled championship- winning bodybuilder.

As a teenager, L'Heureux was slight and physically short, a sickly boy with a light frame who developed and toned his muscles so rigorously he won a number of bodybuilding competitions in the 1940s and '50s.

Known throughout the Chateauguay Valley as Le Chef, L'Heureux was 89 when he died at Barrie Memorial Hospital in Ormstown on Oct. 26 of complications from a stroke.

"Had he chosen to pursue a career in professional bodybuilding, he would have been highly successful. He would have made a lot of money at it," said longtime friend Ben Weider, founding president of the International Federation of Bodybuilders.

"Although he had big muscles, he had a bigger heart. He was decent, honourable, and a compassionate person. There was not a mean or racist streak in him.

"He was always concerned about the welfare of others, always prepared to give offenders a second chance," Weider said.

"He often told me that as a law-enforcement officer, he would always rather talk his way out of a situation than fight."

L'Heureux, the youngest of three children in the family, was born in St. Jean d'Iberville on Jan 1, 1917. When he was 21 months old, his father died and he was raised by his grandfather. As a boy, he suffered from Sydenham's chorea, a neurological disorder that caused his body to twitch uncontrollably, and he was bullied at school.

Influenced by stories of legendary Quebec strongman Louis Cyr, L'Heureux started lifting barbells he put together from pieces of scrap metal.

He worked briefly as a bank teller, but by the time he was 19, he was physically fit and joined the Sherbrooke police force, where he became a beat constable and wrestling instructor.

At 26, he was hired by the town of Richmond as chief of police and is credited with taming what was then a rowdy lumberjack town.

"He concentrated on his bodybuilding, even when he was on patrol," said his son Joffre, a Huntingdon town councillor.

"I remember as a kid, he was a strong man who always tried to settle things without force. He wasn't rough, but he could handle himself in a fight if he had to."

In 1947, L'Heureux won the title of Quebec's Plus Bel Homme and took the top award of Canada's Most Perfect Physique.

Two years later, he placed second to Steve Reeves in the Mr. America contest, and in 1951 was named Canada's best-developed athlete.

Shortly after l'Heureux moved to Huntingdon, he made headlines across the country when he helped solve the brutal murder of local taxi driver Lucien Brunette.

L'Heureux tracked the two 18-year-old farm hands who had bludgeoned Brunette to death to a barn where they were hiding, and he talked them into surrendering.

The killers, Ken Bevin and Gervin Patenaude, were convicted and sentenced to hang, but L'Heureux petitioned to have their death sentences commuted to life in prison.

"He was a very fair man. He wasn't out for vengeance," his son said. "Those boys trusted him, which is why they gave themselves up. A lot of people in town trusted him. He wouldn't give a ticket to someone for nothing."

He was married twice, first to Giselle Perreault, with whom he had five sons and a daughter.

He is survived by his second wife, Lise Lemay.

L'Heureux was buried with full military honours yesterday from

St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Huntingdon.