Quebec provincial police ended their 12-day manhunt for Martin Carpentier on Monday evening following the discovery of his body in a wooded area southeast of Quebec City hours after an emotional funeral was held for his daughters.
Police had been searching for Carpentier since July 8, when his daughters Norah and Romy Carpentier, aged 11 and 6, went missing and became subjects of a nation-wide child abduction alert. The girls’ bodies were located three days later in a wooded area in Saint-Apollinaire, about 40 kilometres southwest of Quebec City.
The Sûreté du Québec tweeted that they located a body in the Saint-Apollinaire area at 7 p.m. ET after police received a tip from a citizen.
“Everything suggests that it is Martin Carpentier,” the provincial police said Monday evening. “According to initial findings, he took his own life.”
Bernard Ouellet, the mayor of Saint-Apollinaire, said he was hoping the 44-year-old former Scout leader would be found alive but was nevertheless relieved that the manhunt that had kept his neighbours on edge was finally over.
“We will stop thinking about it,” Ouellet told CBC News. “We will stop living in fear. We can finally go out on our land in peace.”
A card distributed by the family depicts Romy, right, and Norah Carpentier, at the funeral home in Levis, Que., Monday, July 20, 2020. (Jacques Boissinot/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Earlier in the day, hundreds of people showed up to pay their respects to Norah and Romy as the girls were laid to rest in their hometown of Lévis, south of Quebec City.
Reading from a letter she wrote to her two little girls, Amelie Lemieux thanked her daughters for the “priceless privilege” of being their mother.
“Even if I didn’t have enough time by your side, I will continue to cherish, one by one, each memory, photo, video and continue to hear your soft voices call me ‘maman’,” Lemieux said through tears.
“I love you madly.”
It’s not clear how the girls died. Police had refused to release those details while there was a chance that Carpentier would be found alive and charged in connection with their kidnapping and deaths.
With files from CBC News and The Canadian Press
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.