Woman and 12-year-old girl found dead in Lacina House

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What began as a missing persons case early on Thursday became a murder investigation after the bodies of a 56-year-old woman and her 12-year-old daughter were found at a mansion in the Lachine neighborhood.

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A car belonging to the family was found hours later on Thursday morning, near the St. Lawrence River, about two kilometers from the House.

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With the investigation still unfolding, police could only say they were looking for “an important witness or witnesses” linked to the case.

Police were informed by family members that several people were missing at 12: 15 a.m. on Thursday. At 1: 35 a.m., the investigation led them to a home in Terrasse J-s Aimanair Ashby, where the bodies of the woman and her daughter were found.

They were pronounced dead at the scene. While their deaths were initially treated as suspicious, by 8:30 a.m. the case had been designated by police as a double homicide, the 17th and 18th murders recorded this year on the island of Montreal.

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It remained unclear on Thursday morning what connection, if any, existed between the person or persons remaining missing and the bodies found in the apartment.

“At this moment we can confirm it was a double homicide,” police spokeswoman Mariane Allaire Morin said at the scene. “There is a suspect in this case, there are important witnesses that we are trying to find. …

“Our investigators and forensic experts are still at home now gathering evidence and trying to find out what exactly happened and at what time it happened. It was overnight or it was yesterday during the day,” morin said. “It’s a massive investigation, to gather all the possible evidence, analyzing the scene, taking pictures, analyzing the bodies, to find out what could have happened in this house.”

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Emergency vehicles and crime scene tape surrounded the residence on Thursday morning, a police command post had been deployed and the park in front of the residence was closed to the public.

The car belonging to the family was found abandoned near Mussible de lachine, roughly two kilometres away. Police said they could not confirm whether the missing person was the victim’s partner and father. Neighbors reported that the father had been a resident at home.

“No one was in the car when it was found,” morin said. “We are investigating to find out what time it was brought to the location, by whom. So there are still questions that remain unanswered. The investigation is still ongoing.”

On the quiet crescent street of clean city houses surrounding a tree-lined park filled with playground equipment, neighbors expressed shock and sadness.

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Camille Thiriet Richard said she watched her wife and daughter play in the park, but since the pandemic it seemed they went out much less. She said she saw the man sometimes, washing his car, but they never interacted. It was a quiet family, she said, with no outward signs of trouble.

“It’s terrible, but it’s a family tragedy,” she said. “It can happen anywhere.”

Rodolfo Torres, who has lived eight houses down the family for 20 years, said there has never been any occurrence that was not common. The only strange thing, he said, was that the man chose to paint their front door in red, on a street where every other door is white or light yellow.

“They were calm,” he said. “I think they were immigrants, like me.”

It was a shock, Torres said, to see police cruisers roll around in the middle of the night on a road where nothing like this ever happens.

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This report will be updated.

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