A man who went on a murderous spree
after killing a young student he picked up in a gay bar was sentenced
to twenty-five years in prison without parole Monday in Canada,
reports The Canada Press.
Carlos Rivera's luck ran dry on July
17, 2007, the day Jesse Imeson walked into Windsor's gay strip club
The Tap, where Rivera, an architecture student at St. Clair College,
was working as a part-time bartender.
Imeson also plead guilty to killing an
elderly couple who lived northwest of London while attempting to flee
the police.
But Imeson's murder spree started with
Rivera, when he walked into the gay bar where Rivera was working
looking for a job as an exotic dancer. After being told to return
the next day about the job, Imeson and Rivera stuck up a
conversation, then began drinking.
After the bar closed, the pair went to
a third man's house, where they continued drinking. At the house,
Rivera was photographed by the third man with Imeson's arm around him
while making a licking motion towards Rivera's nipple.
The pair then traveled to Imeson's room
in a Windsor boarding house.
Imeson told police he strangled Rivera
the next morning with a belt after waking up to find the
twenty-six-year-old student performing oral sex on him.
“The gay guy – if I had to do it
again, I would do it,” Imeson told an undercover cop.
Imeson then stole Rivera's car, wallet
and identification and fled north. He found a .22 semi-automatic
rifle in a dry shed he had broken into. And then, he killed Bill and
Helene Reier, an elderly couple in their 70s, in their basement with
the gun.
When asked about his motivation in
killing the couple, Imeson told a detective, “What's to know?
Shots were fired. People died.”
Rivera, a native of El Salvador, was
warmly remembered by The Tap owner Eddie An. “[H]e was a sweet guy
and a hard worker,” An told Xtra.ca. “He treated
customers really well and the other bartenders like him.”
Imeson was arrested fourteen days later
in an empty cottage in western Quebec.