The still unclear discovery of two lifeless bodies on Thursday evening in a residence in Beaumont has disrupted the usually peaceful daily life of this picturesque little village east of Lévis.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, volunteer firefighters from the Beaumont Fire Department found the bodies of a 48-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl in a residence on Route du Fleuve. The bodies, explained Sûreté du Québec (SQ) spokesperson Béatrice d’Orsainville, showed “no trace of violence.”
“The investigation is continuing and for the moment,” the sergeant said, “we are not ruling out any hypothesis.”
A 46-year-old woman was also taken to hospital as a precautionary measure. “We never feared for her life,” said the SQ spokesperson. “We must understand that she was there and saw the scene, so we can assume that she experienced some trauma.”
The police refuse to give details of the links between the three people involved. In the village of Beaumont, however, the population is dismayed by a tragedy that has all the appearances of a family drama.
“When I saw it on the news, my jaw dropped,” recalls Marie-Pier Tremblay, a cashier at the village grocery store. Without knowing the identity of the victims, the woman remains shaken by the suspicious deaths that occurred a few kilometers from the store.
“I’ve lived here for 20 years. We don’t yet know all the circumstances surrounding the tragedy, but if the worst comes to pass, she explains, from memory, the last tragedy of this magnitude to have occurred here dates back to the executioner of Beaumont.”
This dark chapter in the village’s history refers to a man sentenced to 22 years in prison in 1997 for sexually and violently abusing his wife and children for nearly a decade and a half.
At the Guilmette campsite, located not far from the residence where SQ investigators were still working Friday morning, emotion is running high among the seasonal vacationers who, at this time of year, populate this site with a view of the river.
“It really touched me,” explains the receptionist. “It surprises everyone here, since it’s been all over the news. Beaumont is so quiet. You never imagine that it could happen here.”
In front of the Lapierre butcher’s counter, customers who file past to pick up their orders remain mostly silent in the face of the tragedy. “We don’t know anything, we don’t know who it is either,” says the owner, Francis Lapierre. Since this morning, people haven’t talked about it too much — at the same time, those who are most affected by it have to stay home today. We understand them.”
The annual festival dedicated to the village firefighters is taking place this weekend. “I don’t know if it’s going to happen,” the butcher still wonders. “Maybe he doesn’t feel like celebrating anymore…”
The coroner is now conducting his own investigation to determine the cause of death.