Years of investigation were wasted by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) in the case of killer and sexual attacker Marc-André Grenon, one of his victims denounces today. A period during which he could have committed several others, fears Karine St-Denis, who still lives with the after-effects of the atrocious attack she suffered 24 years ago.
“We left a murderous predator outside,” she says during an emotional testimony, a few days after the conclusion of her case.
On June 7, Marc-André Grenon finally pleaded guilty to trying to kill her after breaking into her apartment in Sainte-Foy in July 2000.
In an almost identical scenario, the murderer had attacked young Guylaine Potvin a few months earlier, a crime of which he was found guilty last January, after more than 22 years at large.
A delay far too long in the eyes of Karine St-Denis, who pleads today that the police had held sufficient clues for years to justify tracking the suspect in order to recover his DNA and compare it to that, identical, found on both scenes.
However, the “Bélier Project”, which brought together her file and that of Guylaine Potvin, remained for far too long under the responsibility of the SQ’s Crimes Against Persons Division, she says, from 2001 to 2018.
“These are people who investigate murders, sexual assaults, it’s day-to-day. They take calls on the fly, from 9-1-1, they go with the news of the day. The four or five year old file, and worse, the 18 year old file, is at the bottom of the pile. […] This is why the cold case division exists,” explains Karine St-Denis.
It was at the cost of “tough” procedures at times that she said she obtained, in 2018, the desired transfer to the Disappearances and Unresolved Files Division, also known as the cold cases division. Eighteen years after the fact.
It is from this moment that the file will really get underway.
When the case was taken over by the cold case division in 2018, 322 investigation subjects were targeted and 300 of them were dismissed after agreeing to provide their DNA. Marc-André Grenon refused to do so in 2006 and will again decline an offer to this effect in 2021.
However, he appeared on the investigators’ radar very early, from 2001, since he had resided in an apartment directly behind Guylaine Potvin’s house. He had been arrested three days before the young woman’s murder for stealing jewelry. He also has a history of breaking and entering.
“We knew him,” protests Karine St-Denis today. “He is in a file that involves crimes against the person and we have not cleared him, we have not eliminated him. »
However, it was not until the summer of 2022, after the investigation was taken over by the Unsolved Crimes Division, that he would become a “priority subject” thanks to an innovative genetic analysis technique known as name “PatronYme project”.
Investigators then follow him to the cinema to retrieve a paper cup that he threw in the trash, a way of obtaining his DNA by the so-called “abandonment” method.
But why not shadowing earlier? Karine St-Denis still asks herself. “It’s not locking him up for life without proof or seizing his property. But to go through your trash, pick up a straw, go get a beer and have a drink, like in [an undercover operation] mister big? »
Asked to react, the SQ indicated that it would not comment on the case, given that the legal proceedings in the case have not officially ended.
Karine St-Denis also has a bitter taste from the 15-year prison sentence her attacker received on June 7. A sentence that he will serve concurrently with that of life in prison, i.e. a minimum of 25 years, which he will have to spend behind bars for the first degree murder of Guylaine Potvin.
“This guy will not spend a minute in prison for what he did to me,” she laments, still scarred by the violent attack she suffered 24 years ago.
An attack so sudden, in the middle of the night, while she was in bed, that she told the investigations that she believed she was attacked “by a bear”.
When she finally wakes up, confused, with a swollen face, she cannot call 911 because the stubbed cord on her phone has disappeared. She will go out and knock on neighboring doors until they open it for her at 6 a.m.
She adds that she is still waiting for a response from the General Directorate of Compensation for Victims of Criminal Acts (IVAC) to cover her psychological consultation costs.
Karine St-Denis also qualifies her criticism of the investigators in the case. “The cold case team has done an incredible job starting in 2018. The problem is they didn’t do it before. »
Her throat tightens as she recalls the police officer who dealt with her in the weeks following her assault. “I didn’t miss a day of school. It was the investigator who called me every week to make sure I had bought groceries.”
If the two convictions of Marc-André Grenon gave her a certain satisfaction, she remains convinced that he caused other victims. “He did not commit these two crimes so close together to stop,” insists Karine St-Denis today.
Two days after his arrest, in October 2022, the SQ released a press release affirming that its investigation “tends to demonstrate that the suspect could have caused other minor or adult victims.”
“I know it’s still active,” says Karine St-Denis. We must clean up all the unresolved files. »
