Quebec provincial police are combing through a wooded area near Quebec City as they continue to search for the father of two girls whose bodies were found Saturday in a small town southwest of the provincial capital.
The bodies of Norah and Romy Carpentier, aged 11 and 6, were located in a wooded area in the community of St-Apollinaire, about 40 kilometres southwest of Quebec City.
They were taken to hospital and later declared dead.
Norah Carpentier, 11, right, and Romy Carpentier, 6, went missing Wednesday. Their bodies were found Saturday afternoon in a wooded area in Saint-Apollinaire, Que., 39 kilometres south of Quebec City. (Submitted by Amber Alerte Québec)
The girls had last been seen on Wednesday and became the subject of a country-wide child abduction emergency alert, known as an Amber Alert, that galvanized public interest in Quebec.
On Sunday, the manhunt for their father, Martin Carpentier, 44, had authorities tightening the search in a thickly wooded area near where the young sisters from Levis, Que. were found.
Police are focusing their search inside a 10-kilometre-radius perimeter in the Saint-Agapit—Saint-Apollinaire area. A resident reported seeing Carpentier in the area on Saturday afternoon.
Quebec provincial police were searching a heavily wooded area southwest of Quebec City Sunday. (Jacques Boissinot/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Residents had helped with the searches until Saturday, but police asked people to stay away from the area Sunday to let officers work.
Sgt. Ann Mathieu, a spokesperson for the provincial police force, Sûreté du Québec, said officers had found a number of objects in the woods that may help them track Carpentier down.
Mathieu said the search has been complicated by hot and humid weather and periods of heavy rain.
- A man places a message at a memorial for Norah and Romy Carpentier, Sunday, July 12, 2020 in Levis, Que. The bodies of Norah and Romy Carpentier, aged 11 and 6, were found in a wooded area of a Quebec City suburb on Saturday. (Jacques Boissinot/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
In an outpouring of support and grief for the family of the girls, residents of their hometown of Lévis have turned a gazebo into a makeshift memorial site.
With files from The Canadian Press and CBC News
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