A man was found dead Saturday morning in the waters of the St. Lawrence River in Montreal. His identity is unknown, but investigators rule out a priori the thesis of a criminal act.
A call was made to 911 around 8:30 a.m. by a passerby to report the presence of a body in the St. Lawrence River, near the Jacques-Cartier wharf, in Old Montreal.
“When the police arrived on the scene, they noticed the presence of a body in the water and asked for the assistance of the firefighters of Montreal so that they could locate the body of a man”, explains a spokesperson for the Montreal Police Department, Caroline Chèvrefils.
Investigators then arrived at the scene. However, since there is no indication “leads to predict that it would be a criminal event”, this file was transferred to the coroner’s office. For example, it could be suicide or drowning.
A pedestrian “in critical condition”
This event comes a few hours after the report of a collision which took place around 4 a.m. between a vehicle and a pedestrian crossing Saint-Jacques Street, near the intersection with Saint-Pierre Street, in Ville-Marie .
“The vehicle is said to have left the scene following the collision. But thanks to the information received from the witnesses we met, the suspect vehicle was quickly located,” says Ms. Chèvrefils. The driver, a 22-year-old man, will be met by investigators to clarify the circumstances of this collision which occurred in the early morning.
“The investigation is still ongoing to understand what exactly happened,” confirms the SPVM spokesperson, who specifies that the scene of the collision was protected by the investigators.
The 25-year-old pedestrian is “in critical condition” after being transported to a Montreal hospital.