The new head of the Main Crimes Unit of the Montreal Police force is pointing to cold cases.
Mélanie Dupont, who was appointed commander of the unit in November, said in an interview on Tuesday that the Montreal Ville Police Service will assign 16 full -time detectives to address unsolved homicides.
Previously, the force had six detectives assigned to cold cases, but they lacked the time to work on them because they were retired to help when there was a new murder in the city, he said.
“Mixed with the Homicide Unit, it is not fast enough,” said Dupont. “It is better if it is separated.”
There are more than 800 unsolved homicides in the Montreal Police archives. Dupont said he did not expect the unity of improved cold cases to solve them all, but he hoped that he could start with cases in which the DNA had been collected.
With new tools, such as genetic genetics, where the police use broader DNA databases to find the relatives of the suspects, Dupont said that he hoped to give some resolution to families whose loved ones had been killed.
CBC explains how the police finally determined beyond all the doubts that killed Montrealer, 16, Sharron Prior in 1975 despite the fact that a new evidence was not caught.
“We want the same answers as them,” he said. “We want to work on that. Now we have the possibility to do it.”
Dupont said that the new cold case squad would use any tool at its disposal: in addition to genetic genealogy, there are now new DNA tools that can produce the profile of a suspect from a much smaller sample. She said the researchers would also request the help of the public to promote the cases that have stagnated, something they have rarely done before.
The tools have been successful elsewhere. Longueuil police significantly used genetic genetics to resolve Sharron prior murder In 2023. The Provincial Police of Quebec also tracked recently The man who killed Guylaine Potvin, 19, in 2000, using chromosomes analysis and another new DNA tool.
The Toronto Police have also announced advances in cold cases thanks to genetic genealogy, but the Montreal police have not yet had a similar advance.
Stéphane Luce, a private researcher and president of Meurtres et Tiriions Irresolus du Quebec (MDIQ), a website that tracks murders and disappearances without resolving, said families expect responses from the SPVM.
Luce said he was surprised to learn that there were only six researchers working in cases of cold in the SPVM and that they were being attracted to work in new cases.
“I could feel of the families that there were no responses of the cases that are in the SPVM court, but now I know why,” he said. “The SPVM will have to show these families that they are working hard in their cases.”
Marc Bellemare, a lawyer who has represented the families of the victims of cold cases for decades, said the SPVM that reinforces his cold case unit was good news.
He said that many of the families they have represented have been frustrated by what they called a lack of transparency of the investigators and the police forces working in the case of their relative. He said everyone is accustomed to listening to the same tired words of the police: “investigation continues.”
“Families want the best researchers, they want the best people,” he said.
Manon Lisée, whose brother, Stéphane Gauthier, was kidnapped in Montreal in 1982 and found dead two days later, said he has been pressing the police to obtain information for years.
“Every three, I call the police,” he said. “I want news, but they never have something important to tell me.”
She said that the relatives of the victims, like her, have to fight to obtain any police information.
She also said that the new and improved cold case squad was good news.
“It gives us hope,” he said. “On the other hand, my brother is one of many.”
