Over the course of 50 testimonies, Amélie Lemieux followed in detail the deployment of the research carried out to find her daughters Norah and Romy, who disappeared with their father, Martin Carpentier, in July 2020. Friday, on the last day of a public inquiry which lasted 17, it was a mother who no longer has any faith in the authorities who took the floor.
“My faith in the system is rendered void,” she told the Deputy Chief Coroner, Mr.e Luc Malouin. I consider my family to have been abandoned. »
Amélie Lemieux notably castigated the silo work of the authorities, the scarcity of staff and the lack of training of the officers deployed. She also criticized the lack of communications “at all levels”, the loss of time linked to “the duplication of investigators” and the indecision of senior officials who are nevertheless responsible for coordinating the search under “clear guidelines”.
She also denounced the claims of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), which repeated that it had taken corrective measures since the death of the two little sisters in order to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again. “I learned that several structures have either been changed, improved or created,” said the mother, still bruised by the mourning of her children. Why didn’t my daughters have this chance? »
Several misfires
The public inquiry brought to light a number of oddities which seem to have undermined the quality of the inquiry and the effectiveness of the research. The triggering of an Amber alert took place, for example, almost 18 hours after the disappearance of the children. Less than three hours after the accident, however, a relative already suggested to the police to launch one, raising the possibility that Martin Carpentier, depressed, had been able to remove them.
The fifty or so witnesses who took the stand also described often laborious research, initially carried out with a minimal staff and fueled by an investigation that took several hours to understand the urgency of the situation despite numerous red flags. .
The first officers to arrive at the scene of the accident, for example, never shared with the investigator several crucial pieces of information on the depressive state of the father and on the possibility that the latter could have kidnapped his children. Some witnesses only learned of the existence of this information, although collected in the first hours of the tragedy, by listening to the public inquiry, almost two years after the fateful night.
“It is absolutely inconceivable, insisted the representative of the family, Mr.e Jean-François Leroux, that these declarations were not reported to the only investigator who was on duty. »
The lawyer who represents the professional association of SQ officers, Mr.e Daniel Rochefort, criticized the impartiality and the validity of certain particularly acerbic expert reports against the provincial police force during his argument. According to him, the criticisms formulated are based on a purely theoretical framework, “an ideal scenario” which does not allow a fair reading of the reality on the ground.
Me Rochefort maintained that the lack of manpower, and not the work of the police, was to blame for the muddles noted in the framework of the investigation and the search. “The knot, the boo, it is there,” insisted the lawyer, inviting coroner Malouin to recommend the hiring of more staff in his report.
A report in the fall
Friday saw the curtain fall on a particularly emotional investigation, followed closely by a mother who heard, hearing after hearing, the nightmare which deprived her of her children.
“I heard about forty people talk about the Carpentier affair. Each time, said Amélie Lemieux, my heart sank because my daughters are not just a file: they are two wonderful little girls. »
She recounted the still present consequences of her life drama: the medication she must take to sleep, her anxiety at the thought that a burglary or a fire could rob her of the memories she has left of her daughters – their toys, their drawings, photos, so many traces of a happy time that ended deep in a forest of Saint-Apollinaire.
“I can only wish you the best, the Deputy Chief Coroner told him at the end of his testimony, despite all your pain and pain. »
Me Malouin also wanted to assure that his report will in no way blame the dedication of the police officers assigned to the search. “I will never question their good faith, he said, and their will. »
Me Luc Malouin will now have to examine more than 800 documents submitted as evidence, study the content of the testimonies heard and read the recommendations submitted by the participating parties to produce his report. The Deputy Chief Coroner expects to table this in the fall.