A few hours after the verdict concerning the trial of Marc-André Grenon, convicted of the first degree murder of Guylaine Potvin in 2000, the mother of the deceased granted an exclusive interview to Jean-François Guérin.
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The jury was quick to reach a joint decision last Tuesday, after concluding that Grenon had sexually assaulted and then killed Guylaine Potvin, in Jonquière.
The words “guilty” pronounced by judge François Huot put an end to more than twenty years of ordeal for the victim’s family, describing the verdict as a “relief”.
Grenon’s trial and arrest plunged Jeannine Caouette and her loved ones into endless waiting.
“TVA News”
“It was an explosion of all kinds of emotions”: these are the words that come to Ms. Caouette’s mind after learning of the arrest of Marc-André Grenon in 2022.
“We were on FaceTime with our children who were far away. We all heard the announcement at the same time. It was a wave of shock, but at the same time satisfaction to know that we had found the piece of the puzzle that had been missing for so many years,” she added, on the show “Dossiers en course”.
“TVA News”
The murderer’s trial, which revealed all the atrocities committed against his daughter, was sometimes “unbearable” for the family.
“There are parts that we didn’t want to see. It was too difficult. It was understood from the start that we didn’t want to know anything about that part. We could imagine what she had suffered. It was enough to think about it,” she explains.
His family, who can finally turn the page on two decades of hell, was waiting for the moment when the accused would recognize the villainous actions he committed.
But it was above all the unveiling of the verdict which plunged those close to him into all kinds of emotions.
“TVA News”
Remember that the jury decided in barely forty minutes, much to the surprise of the family from Saguenay.
“We wanted to warn the whole family and the people who wanted to accompany us to know the verdict at the same time as us […] I was sure that their idea was already made for it to take so little time,” she sighs, from the TVA Saguenay offices.
Shortly after being declared guilty on all counts, Grenon did not see fit to deliver a message of apology to the family.
A choice that surprised Jeannine Caouette, describing Grenon’s way of doing things as “insulting”.
“TVA News”
“[Il ne peut pas] being numb to everything that happened. It couldn’t be. I found it terrible not to be able to say something to us […] I was insulted. He wasn’t even able to speak, that made Mr. François angry. [le juge]“, she was indignant.
“It’s terrible what he’s doing, but today, we can turn the page, and Guylaine too can now rest in peace.”
*Watch the interview in the video above*