Quebecer who used to be mayor of small town arrested in wife’s death
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2011 (5395 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MONTREAL – For nearly four years, Paul Laplante was the former small-town mayor whose wife had gone missing.
Last month, police finally found Diane Gregoire’s remains.
Now Laplante is under arrest.
His lawyer said Tuesday the former mayor of St-Liboire was incarcerated and expected to be charged Wednesday in what police have described as a homicide case.
Police confirmed an arrest in the case and that the accused would face charges southeast of Montreal on Wednesday.
They said little else — including who the man was or what the charges would be.
“He knew the victim,” provincial police Lt. Guy Lapointe told a news conference. “(He’s) 54 years old.”
Laplante’s lawyer, Robert La Haye, said his client would plead not guilty to the unspecified charges against him.
Laplante was photographed and filmed by news crews as he was escorted into police headquarters in Montreal after being arrested in St-Hyacinthe, about 65 kilometres east of Montreal.
The arrest comes 47 months after Gregoire vanished in January 2008.
The remains of the 51-year-old woman were found last month in a densely wooded area in Coteau-du-Lac, not far from the Ontario border.
Police say Laplante was the last person who reported seeing her in the parking lot of a mall south of Montreal, but they were never able to conclude Gregoire had even been at the mall.
Laplante told police in 2008 he left Gregoire in the car and went inside to have breakfast.
He said she never joined him in the shopping centre as agreed.
In the months that followed, volunteers searched different areas for signs of the missing woman. Posters of the woman were circulated widely across the province.
Earlier this year, police said they thought Gregoire had been killed.
They subsequently searched a pig farm in St-Valerien-de-Milton before the grisly discovery on Nov. 21.
Eight days later, provincial police took over the investigation and vowed to build on the evidence gathered.