archive of original WKT website 2001-02

SIDHARTHA BANERJEEThe GazetteWednesday, September 18, 2002
Murder case stays on hold'Not enough new evidence' to relaunch probe into 1978 case, Sûreté says
John Allore hasn't given up hope that his sister Theresa's killer will be found, but the Sûreté du Québec said yesterday they will not reinvestigate the 23-year-old murder case. After a three-week analysis of Theresa Allore's case file by investigators from the Sûreté's Montreal-based crimes-against-persons unit, it was decided there wasn't enough new evidence to rethe case.
"A complete analysis was made after the allegations made by the brother of the victim in the National Post," said Constable Jimmy Potvin of the Sûreté's Eastern Townships detachment. "But there isn't enough new evidence to restart the investigation. The file is stilland active but there isn't any new development or evidence to further our investigation."
The SQ had said they would rethe Allore case and two other unsolved violent deaths in the Townships between 1977 and '79 that John Allore believes may have been linked to his sister's death. The other victims were Louise Camirand, 20, of Sherbrooke, who was raped and strangled in 1977, and Manon Dube, 10, whose body was found in Ayer's Cliff soon after she was reported missing in Sherbrooke in 1978. Potvin said he didn't know whether there were any new details on the other cases. "The only case I know about is the case of Theresa Allore." John Allore expressed frustration with the SQ, saying they didn't keep their promise of three weeks ago.
'Last six months'"The new evidence isn't anything in the old case file; it's what we've discovered in the last six months," Allore said in a telephone interview from Durham, N.C., yesterday. "What they said they were going to do was review all three cases, but they looked at Theresa's file and not the other two." Theresa Allore was reported missing on Nov. 3, 1978, while a student at Champlain College in Lennoxville. Her body was found in the Coaticook River on April 13, 1979, about one kilometre from Compton, the village where she had been living. The coroner who filed the report on Theresa Allore's death in 1979 said water had damaged the body, making it difficult to establish the exact cause of death, but the same report suggested the 19-year-old had been strangled.
"I'm forced to carry on my own personal investigation, which is preposterous," Allore said. "But what am I supposed to do - just drop it?"
Allore had been persistent in his pursuit of Theresa's murderer, repeatedly calling on the SQ to rethe case.His efforts were the subject of a series of stories in the National Post.
"In the last month we've made significant progress and we'll stay on it, and if the Sûreté du Québec doesn't want to help us, that's fine," Allore said, "We've got private investigators and law enforcement in the U.S. who are willing to ... and that's a hell of a thing to say for victims in Quebec, that I have to go to American law enforcement to help me solve this crime."
- Anyone with information on any of these three homicides can contact the Sûreté du Québec at (819) 572-6039.- John Allore's Web site is at www.whokilledtheresa.com