Polytechnique murderer Marc Lépine had her on his kill list. She never forgot the moment she found out

Warning: This story contains graphic details of violence and mentions of suicide.  

On Dec. 6, 1989, 14 women, including engineering students, a nursing student and a staff member, were killed in a shooting rampage at Montreal's École Polytechnique by a gunman who shouted: "I hate feminists."

Marc Lépine had applied to the school but didn't have the credits needed to be accepted. His friend later told CBC he felt "rejected" by women.

It was Canada's deadliest mass killing at the time.  

Two days later, Francine Pelletier was dealt another shock. She was a columnist for La Presse, and eventually became a co-host at CBC's The Fifth Estate, where she produced a documentary on the tragedy 10 years later.

Early that morning in December 1989, Pelletier's editor at La Presse called to tell her that her name was on a hit list found inside Lépine's pocket, along with a handwritten suicide note, and it had been leaked to the newspaper. 

"So that's that's how I learned that my name and those of many other women had been published in the newspaper without us knowing beforehand," Pelletier said.

The list included 19 women Lépine claimed were "radical feminists" who he would have killed if it weren't for a "lack of time." Some were well-known, including a Quebec cabinet minister and a union leader. 

But it wasn't just the hit list itself that angered Pelletier.

"That was sort of his last act of bravado," she said. "There is really no conceivable way that he could have done the plan that he had thought out so carefully — the École Polytechnique killings — and at the same time go around the city and shoot various women." 

Instead, her anger was provoked by why their names were leaked when Montreal police had refused to release the gunman's suicide note.

"The most important piece of information that we needed to try and make sense of this was ... put to the side."

At the time, there was public debate on what motivated the shooter. Some thought it was an isolated incident, while others believed it was a reaction to the progress women had made in society.

Pelletier believed it was a political crime and the note would bring answers the public deserved.