The family of a 16-year-old girl murdered in Toronto in 1972 will finally be able to turn the page nearly 51 years later as new DNA technologies have finally solved the mystery and made it possible to find her killer.
“A murder of a 51-year-old has been solved. Yvonne Leroux was 16 years old when she was murdered in 1972. DNA from the crime scene was compared to genealogical databases to identify a suspect’s relatives, which helped identify the attacker. , York Regional Police (YRP) announced on X on Wednesday.
During a news conference, deputy head of the investigation Alvaro Almeida said he was “happy” to finally be able to provide answers that had long been awaited by the family of Yvonne Leroux, who was found lifeless in west Toronto in 1972, Global reported News.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it was to live with such a loss all these years, not knowing who was responsible for it all the time,” he continued, according to English-language media.
Thanks to new investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) technology, police were able to track down Bruce Charles Cantelon, then 26 years old.
The technology would thus use DNA found at the crime scene “at the time and preserved for more than 50 years” to create a DNA profile, which would then be compared with public genealogical data, according to English-language media.
However, according to police, the suspect took his own life 19 months after the murder.
“Yvonne is by no means forgotten. It has influenced our family for many generations. Our family has been asking this question for more than half a century. Getting answers will never change what happened or bring her back,” the young victim’s family lamented in a press release.