He was the energetic and charismatic frontman of one of Canada's biggest acts, a band that

went platinum, headline stadium tours and even closed out an Olympics. But off the stage, among young

fans, Jacob Hogard was gaining a notoriety of his own. Now he's facing prison convicted for

sexual assault. I'm Christie Lee from Canadian True Crime. Join me for a new series exploring Hogard's

path from Idol to Predator, only on Canadian True Crime. This is a CBC podcast.

Queer Life in Montreal was wild. The bars got started rolling around 11 o'clock at night,

went on till three in the morning and they were packed. It was a renaissance, a heyday of

gay and lesbian life in Montreal. Montreal in the 90s was a great time, but it had a dark side.

You're looking for love, you're looking for companionship, you're looking to pay your rent,

and you don't know who you're frequenting. And there's no one really looking out for your well-being.

It was not the safe CD for gay people back then. They claimed that it was just a sexual game that

went wrong. It was a sexual game. There were other things going on in those houses.

For many men, being in or out of the closet during the AIDS epidemic was a difference between

life and death. We were sick, right? But really it's homophobia that is the sickness.

Lots of people dying all around us. But what else was behind a series of deaths in the city?

If there is a pattern, that's it. Police say all eight victims were secretly gay.

Some of these killing gay men, we want to know why.

The crime seems identical to another vicious killing last month at a Montreal park.

I remember the whole concern around a serial killer and a gay village.

And it was shocking because it's one thing to have individual incidents is quite a different thing

when you may have a serial killer on the loose. So in the absence of police protection,

a community of activists are forced to take matters into their own hands.

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