Missing-child case has tragic ending
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/05/2011 (5523 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MONTREAL — It was a little more than a dozen years ago that 10-year-old Jolene Riendeau vanished mysteriously from the gritty Montreal neighbourhood she called home.
As the months and years rolled by, her family never gave up the belief she would be found alive and well.
That hope was dashed Wednesday when Riendeau’s family received the grim news police had found her remains — a discovery that also triggered an official homicide investigation. Jolene was last seen on April 12, 1999, and the story of her disappearance became well-known throughout the province.
She came home from school that day to help her father with supper. As a reward, she was given $2 so she could get a treat from a local convenience store. Strapping on a pair of rollerblades, she assured him she’d be back for dinner.
The last sighting of Jolene was in front of the shop as she munched on a bag of chips. Then she vanished.
Hundreds of tips came in — Montreal police said Wednesday detectives followed up on 1,500 of them — but none was founded. There was a vast search of the working-class neighbourhood: alleyways, laneways and door-to-door canvasses.
They looked in the Lachine Canal and did so again a few years later when a tip came in saying the body was there. Throughout it all, Jolene’s mother, Dolores Soucy, never gave up hope. She began volunteering with Montreal’s Missing Children’s Network to help others experiencing the same pain. Soucy made a number of pilgrimages to the neighbourhood she left behind years ago.
Last August, she returned to the Pointe-St-Charles borough to distribute new posters — one showing what Jolene might look like in her early 20s.
Jolene’s face became one of the most recognizable on missing children’s posters in Quebec. About a million were distributed after her disappearance.
Police offered their condolences on Wednesday and vowed to follow through on their investigation.
They were being prudent with any information they revealed.
It was not immediately known where or when the remains were located.
Detectives have been on the case since the day after her disappearance, but Lafreniere insisted that details of the case remain under wraps so as not to jeopardize any future prosecution.
— The Canadian Press