An 18-month-old child from Stoneham, missing with his mother, was found Thursday evening in Ontario. “The child is doing well,” the SQ said in a statement.
Updated at 0:01
The car linked to the wanted poster was located around 6:30 p.m. in Hagar, Ontario. The Sûreté du Québec had launched an appeal to the population on Wednesday, at the request of the directorate of youth protection (DPJ), to try to find the mother and her son. The 32-year-old reportedly left her Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury home over the weekend with her son and had not been heard from since.
“The circumstances surrounding their departure from the region lead the authorities to believe that the situation of the child is or may be considered as compromised,” said the Sûreté du Québec in a press release.
The child’s mother was to be questioned soon by the police about the murder of her ex-husband, a man who had to promise in court not to bother her again after years of a stormy relationship and who was found dead on Valentine’s Day.
The 32-year-old reportedly left her Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury home over the weekend with her son and had not been heard from since.
Thursday, the call to the public had been extended to all of Canada, because the police had been informed that the mother would have left Quebec, “possibly in the direction of Western Canada”. She could ride in a white Chrysler 300 vehicle and wear a wig or have dyed her hair to change her appearance, according to investigators in charge of the case.
“The authorities also learned that she would have tried to entrust her son to an acquaintance before leaving,” said the police force. The acquaintance in question, however, was unable to help him at this time.
The mother is the former spouse of a truck driver found dead at his residence in Saint-Isidore, Beauce, around 1 p.m. on Valentine’s Day. It was his colleagues at CDL Maple Equipment, the company where he worked, who reported his absence. The police then evoked an obvious “violent death” and opened a murder investigation.
The man is the father of the 18-month-old toddler. He was separated from the mother.
The father worried the authorities
According to court documents obtained by The Pressthe police intervened last June to drag the father before a judge, because “incidents” which occurred between 2019 and 2021 in Saint-Isidore raised fears that he “caused lesions” to the mother of his son or that he “damages his property”.
During a first appearance, the father had not admitted the facts. A judge had initially prohibited him from owning weapons. A week later, during a second appearance, the man admitted that his behavior could raise fears for the safety of his ex-spouse.
The father of the family has never been accused of a concrete act of violence and his criminal record remains clean. But before the court, on June 17, he had to undertake to keep the peace, to no longer communicate with the mother without her consent, not to “annoy her, follow her, spy on her or harass her” . He also had to agree to leave wherever she was if she asked. At the same time, the court had forced him to take steps to undergo therapy related to “impulsivity and/or violence”.
Additional questions
After the discovery of the lifeless body of the father of the family recently, the police had warned the mother that they might have additional questions to ask her, as a potential “witness”, according to our information. Last Saturday evening, the authorities heard from her, while she was at her home. On Sunday, she had disappeared, without a trace, with her child. She no longer answered her phone.
The police had not triggered an AMBER alert to find the 18-month-old toddler because this file does not meet the criteria in this area. It was not a kidnapping, as the woman has legal custody of the child.
With the collaboration of Florence Morin-Martel, The Press