A Sûreté du Québec investigator recounted Thursday at the trial for the murder of Guylaine Potvin, in Saguenay nearly 24 years ago, how he and his partner had tracked the suspect to a movie theater, in 2022, then discreetly retrieved his discarded soft drink cup from a trash can after the film, in order to obtain his DNA.
Detective Sergeant Christian Royer testified Thursday morning at the trial of Marc-André Grenon, accused of first degree murder and serious sexual assault. The crimes were committed in April 2000 in Jonquière, today a district of Saguenay.
Mr. Royer told jurors on Thursday that he went to Grenon’s apartment, in Granby, in August 2022, after the Laboratory of Judicial Sciences and Legal Medicine of Quebec identified him as a possible ” subject of interest” in the death of young student Guylaine Potvin, 19, found lifeless in her home 22 years earlier.
Investigator Royer and his colleague then follow Grenon and a woman to a cinema, where the police officer buys a ticket to sit next to the suspect.
The officer said Thursday that he and his partner did not lose sight of the cup, which they then retrieved from a trash can outside the movie theater.
The Crown has already argued that the genetic material on the cup and straws matched DNA found at the crime scene 22 years earlier in Saguenay, which led to Grenon’s arrest in 2022 in Granby.