archive of original WKT website 2001-01

Montreal Gazette articleAugust 21, 2002
Cold cases' red by SQThe killings of three females in the Townships are being investigated again after the brother of one of them brought up new allegations.Paul Cherry / Montreal GazetteWednesday, August 21, 2002The Sûreté du Québec have red investigations into the cases of two women and a child whose violent deaths in the Eastern Townships have gone unsolved for decades. Spokesman Cpl. Jean Finet confirmed yesterday that two investigators from the SQ's Montreal-based crimes-against-persons unit will be assigned to a review of the three cases, involving women who died between 1977 and possibly 1979. The investigators will review the cases with their Sherbrooke-based colleagues. The renewed interest in the cases was sparked by what Finet referred to as "new allegations" pertaining to the cases. "I should say that allegations are different from having new evidence in a case," Finet said. John Allore, the brother of one of the victims, has been in contact with the SQ in recent months and persistently requested that the unsolved cases be reviewed. Allore's sister Theresa was reported missing on Nov. 3, 1978, while she was a student at Champlain College in Lennoxville. Her body was found in the Coaticook River on April 13, 1979, one kilometre from Compton, the village where she was boarding.The coroner who filed the report on Theresa Allore's death in 1979 said water had caused too much damage to her body to determine the exact cause of death. But the same report suggests the 19-year-old woman was strangled. The SQ interviewed 200 witnesses as part of their investigation. John Allore asked the SQ to look into whether his sister's homicide could be tied to the deaths of Manon Dubé, a 10-year-old girl whose body was discovered in Ayer's Cliff shortly after she was reported missing in Sherbrooke in 1978, and Louise Camirand, a 20-year-old Sherbrooke woman who was raped and strangled in 1977.Allore's desire to see his sister's case solved was renewed in February with the arrest of man suspected of murdering a 16-year-old girl who was abducted in Longueuil. That case had remained unsolved since 1987. The man, charged in February, has yet to be tried for the murder. Finet declined to say whether the man is considered a suspect in the three other homicides. But for the past few months John Allore has been persistent in pursuing new leads in his sister's case. His efforts were the subject of a series of articles recently published in the National Post newspaper "I think it's positive and I'm hopeful, however just investigating it is not everything. I hope that they will be thorough in their revision of the files," Allore said yesterday when told of the new development. Finet said the investigators involved have a lot of work ahead of them but that new technology and crime databases that were not available to investigators during the 1970s might make a difference this time around. He estimated the work will take between about four weeks.© Copyright 2002 Montreal Gazette