Chris's Crime Forum

Woman's body found in Point Aux Trembles

Montreal police say a woman's body has been found in the city's east end, and the death appears to be suspicious.

The body was found around noon Tuesday in a wooded area near 36th Avenue and Notre Dame Blvd. East in Pointe aux Trembles.

Police have not determined the identity of the woman. They say it's too early to tell whether the body is that of 37-year-old Natasha Cournoyer, the Corrections Canada employee who went missing after leaving her office in Laval last Thursday.

Montreal police Const. Anie Lemieux told reporters investigators are still analyzing evidence at the scene, and that the investigation will take time.

"They have to take pictures before they move in. You don't want to move anything if there is an element that can help you through the investigation, so that's why it can take many hours. It's not like in CSI when it can take an hour before you solve a crime," said Lemieux.

Reporting live from the scene, CTV's Catherine Sherriffs said it was a vast police operation with dozens of officers combing through the woods for clues all afternoon. Authorities were expected to remain at the scene well into the evening.

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MONTREAL – Police appealed late Wednesday for a variety of possible witnesses to step forward in connection with the homicide of 37-year-old Natasha Cournoyer.

Investigators particularly want to talk with people who were in the area of Place Laval, north of Montreal Island, and might have seen any kind of suspicious activity during the evening of Oct. 1.

Cournoyer, Montreal’s 24th homicide victim of 2009, was last seen there and then – her image captured by a surveillance camera as she left an office building where she worked for the Correctional Service of Canada

Montreal police specifically want to talk to anybody who observed anything even mildly unusual in that general area between 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., Constable André Leclerc of Montreal police said.

Montreal police – rather than Laval police – are in charge of the homicide probe because Cournoyer’s body was found Oct. 6 in a wooded area in the Pointe aux Trembles district in east-end Montreal.

Police are also asking “any women approached by a man in a vehicle in the Laval region in the last few weeks” to come forward, Leclerc said.

“There is no description of the vehicle available for the time being,” he said, nor of the man.

Witnesses who used a bicycle path near the Place Laval parking lot where Cournoyer’s car was discovered and might be able to pinpoint anything unusual are also being asked to step up and furnish details.

The information can be conveyed on a confidential and anonymous basis, Leclerc said, by calling the Info-Crime line: 514-393-1133.

Leclerc refused to confirm or deny one media report that Michel Trottier, 32, Cournoyer’s boyfriend, successfully passed a lie-detector test Wednesday at which he responded to police questions in connection with the woman’s disappearance.

“I don’t have that information,” Leclerc said.

The report, which cited inside sources without naming them, was carried on the ruefrontenac.com website, operated by locked-out journalists from the Journal de Montréal.

Trottier had requested the polygraph test.

Before Cournoyer’s body was found, Laval police said he was never considered a suspect.

Police make arrest in Cournoyer murder

GREAT NEWS!

Exactly one month after Natasha Cournoyer's body was found in Pointe-aux-Trembles, Montreal and Laval police say they've arrested a man in her murder.

A man in his 40s, who is known to police, will be arraigned on a first-degree murder charge later on Friday.
The Montreal police major crimes section made the arrest Thursday evening along with Laval detectives.
Cournoyer, 37, was found dead in Montreal's east end last month, five days after she disappeared from a Corrections Canada parking lot in Laval on Oct. 1.

A security camera caught Cournoyer exiting the building, and it is believed someone attacked her as she was heading toward her car.

With the help of the Surete du Quebec, Laval police launched a large-scale investigation, using helicopters and sniffer dogs to help search for the missing woman.

On Oct. 6, blue collar workers discovered Cournoyer's body in a wooded area in Pointe-Aux-Trembles.

She was an employee in the communications office of Corrections Canada.
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