The first investigator who took charge of the Carpentier file said Tuesday he did not receive all statements from patrol officers at the scene when he arrived. Two of those statements mentioned the father’s depressed state and his fear of losing custody of his daughters, information that is nonetheless essential.
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Investigator Kevin Camiré confirmed that he had neither the statements of Amélie Lemieux’s wife nor of Keven Lemieux, a friend of Martin Carpentier, who came to the scene of the accident in the evening.
However, it was these two people who spoke most forcefully to Carpentier about his depressed state, and his friend even admitted to asking him if he was considering suicide in the past few weeks. For his part, Alexandre Pelletier, the mother’s new spouse, had been quick to mention an Amber alert about a possible kidnapping situation with the patrolman questioning him.
“The only statements I had at the time were those of Amélie Lemieux and [d’une automobiliste témoin de l’accident]’ the investigator suggested to Camiré.
key information
Worse, the police officer claimed to have learned of the existence of those two statements during Tuesday’s public inquiry during the testimony of Patrol Officer Vincent Poirier. More than two and a half years after the events.
Questioned by the family lawyer about the situation, Mr Camiré admitted that it was an unusual situation.
“I was surprised. […] Normally I should have access to all statements,” he said, adding that the documents would be passed “hand-to-hand” at the scene of an investigation. “Usually it’s given to the team leader or directly to the investigator,” he said.
However, the information in these statements was of paramount importance as it addressed Carpentier’s unstable condition and the importance of an early Amber Alert.
“No one told me about Amber Alert that night,” the officer added.
Police officer Camiré finally spoke to Alexandre Pelletier on the morning of July 9 “between 8:40 a.m. and 10 a.m.”, more than five hours after taking over the investigation. Amélie Lemieux’s spouse then repeated his request for an Amber alert.
The alarm was finally raised on the afternoon of July 9, and represented the first media notification of the drama that was unfolding.
Bad luck for the handler
The first handler, called earlier Tuesday in the minutes after the accident, testified that the state of the “completely depleted” first aid gave him no chance.
“If I had been there first, there would have been no contamination. And when you know that three people are traveling, imagine the highway of smells,” Stéphane introduced himself to explain how everything could have been different.
But at the same time it is impossible to blame the first responders who arrived on the scene, that is, about fifteen police officers and firefighters.
“I don’t blame them for wanting to save lives, but I’ve never seen that happen. Just four people could be enough for me to scrap a scene,” Stéphane Ranger explained about the contamination at the accident site, which left him no clues to investigate.
The agent described to coroner Luc Malouin how a dog-search operation works and insisted on deconstructing popular belief.
“Forget what you see on TV,” Mr. Ranger said from the start. “We don’t smell the couch where the guy sits and the dog walks. When tracking, the area must be protected. That is, when the dog finds a trail, it turns around and we leave.
“We can’t locate in such a contaminated area, the dog will be in the clouds,” said the police officer.
Lack of cooperation from a hospital?
The lack of cooperation between a hospital center in the first hours of the girls’ disappearance and Martin Carpentier, mentioned in the first report by coroner Sophie Régnière, surfaced again on Wednesday during the testimony of dog handler Stéphane Ranger.
The police officer explained that a hospital resorted to medical confidentiality to refuse to say whether Carpentier and his daughters were there, suggesting they were there.
“I usually close all the doors when I’m done. And when I’m told a hospital isn’t cooperating, I tell myself it’s because they’re there,” said the Agent Ranger, disgusted by such a situation.
“I can’t believe that someone at the hospital would have made the decision not to give us information that could have helped us,” he said. “Who are you exposing yourself to by cooperating with the police?”
High impact, but not excessive speed
Another witness questioned on Tuesday, the reconstruction specialist of the Sûreté du Québec charged with investigating Martin Carpentier’s evasion that led to his escape into the forest, notes that the exit from the road was not with excessive speed and does not represent a complicated scene. But impossible for this expert to determine whether the accident was due to a voluntary gesture or not.
“What goes on in the driver’s head is beyond my expertise,” insisted investigator Martin Lessard, reconstruction specialist at SQ for five years.
According to his findings, Martin Carpentier’s car exited eastbound Highway 20 to cross the median and hovered after hitting a culvert. “The car flew about 21.38 meters in the air,” the police officer told coroner Luc Malouin, qualifying the scene as “not complicated.”
The photos attached to the investigation report show that the impact was still serious, airbags were deployed and a window was smashed. However, due to the damage, police said the vehicle was not speeding.
“The traces and elements visible at the crime scene correspond to such a collision [110-115 km/h]’ said the agent.
Coroner Malouin asked the police officer to do the calculations to estimate the exact speed when leaving the road.
The investigation continues Thursday with testimonies from main crime investigators and a person responsible for triggering the Amber Alert.