Three suspects are facing assault charges following the discovery of “human remains” on Sunday afternoon in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, near Quebec.
According to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), the alleged victim died in a residence in a quiet neighborhood of Contrecoeur before his body was dumped 220 km away on the premises of a tree-trimming company in the west of the capital.
The SQ arrested two men and a woman on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. while the trio was traveling in the territory of the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, south of Montreal. Jean-Philippe Lamontagne, 44 years old, and Cassandra Major, 31 years old, come from the metropolis. The third suspect, François Bouchard, 31, lives in Contrecoeur in Montérégie.
The three appeared via videoconference at the Quebec courthouse on Monday afternoon. They face a charge of disparagement of a corpse, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. The prosecutor in the case, Me Jean-Simon Larouche, has already indicated that more charges would be added to the case.
Two searches took place on Monday morning: the first on the vehicle in which the three suspects were at the time of their arrest; the second in a house on Rue Dozois in Contrecoeur, where, according to the SQ, “everything indicates that the murder took place”.
The Forensic Identification Service and the Forensic Sciences and Forensic Medicine Laboratory attended the scene to collect evidence and determine the causes of death.
The circumstances of the death remain unclear, particularly due to the corpse’s advanced deterioration. The victim’s identity remained unknown for more than 24 hours after he was discovered. According to information from Le Devoir, the machines on the tree felling company’s premises were used to dispose of the body.
Police do not rule out that this suspected murder is linked to organized crime. The discovery of the body on Sunday in Quebec City adds to four murders that have occurred in the national capital since the beginning of the year, three of them in recent weeks.