CANADA Canada - Kelly Morrisseau, 27, pregnant, Gatineau, QC, 10 Dec 2006

The stabbing death of an Indigenous woman in Gatineau remains unsolved 10 years later, and police are holding a news conference later Wednesday in a bid for tips

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Gatineau police are holding a news conference in the P3 parking lot at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

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Her aunt, Doreen Morrisseau, said Kelly Morrisseau had been trying to turn her life around in Winnipeg, but that when she moved back to Ottawa she returned to the street around the time an acquaintance introduced her to crack cocaine.

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composite sketch of a possible suspect who was seen leaving Kelly Morrisseau's Vanier apartment with her at about 4 a.m. the day she was found.

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There was a sign of hope about two years ago when APTN first reported that police had a potential new suspect in early 2013.

They had their eyes on Marc Leduc, a man who was charged with the murders of two Ottawa women, one dating back to 2008.
They were going to compare Leduc’s DNA to evidence the killer left behind, suggesting police at least have DNA of the man who killed Morrisseau.

That determined to be inconclusive.
Leduc wasn’t the first person police had asked to take a DNA test. The investigation has taken them throughout the country and it’s believed parts of the United States.

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The facts are this: She was a mother, she was pregnant and someone stabbed her over 20 times dumping her nearly naked on the pavement of a parking lot in Gatineau park.

She was found by a passerby at about 5 a.m. still alive.
A paramedic said at the time she was alive because it was so cold out that it basically put her “on ice.” She died about an hour later at the Hull hospital just around the corner.
Her baby died too.
It was a gruesome end – for both.
The only thing the family can do, as they wait for justice, is keep remembering.
“Her smile,” said Warren Morrisseau. “And her laughter were most memorable. I can hear her laughter still today.”

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Gatineau police set up the command post Wednesday in the park's P3 parking lot, just north of the intersection of Promenade de la Gatineau and Rue Gamelin.

They said two organizations, Sun Youth and Crime Stoppers, are jointly offering a $12,000 reward to anyone who provides information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the murder.

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Police also provided more detail about the suspect and his vehicle.

• They said between 4 and 5:40 a.m. on Dec. 10, 2006, the vehicle used the lane reserved for emergency vehicles between Promenade de la Gatineau and Boulevard Saint-Raymond.
• That reserved lane no longer exists, and is now a bike lane or path.
• Police are asking anyone who may recall having seen the suspect vehicle or any other vehicle not identified as an emergency services vehicle that morning to contact them.
• Items belonging to Kelly Morrisseau and evidence were found in Rue des Frênes (near boulevard du Plateau) and behind the business at 115 boulevard du Plateau in Gatineau. So police believe the suspect drove around in that sector, and likely stepped out of his vehicle more than once in the early hours of Dec. 10.

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Familial DNA searches could help crack Canadian cold cases

Aedan Helmer
More from Aedan Helmer

Published on: January 7, 2017

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Though he had never before heard of Kelly Morrisseau, the details of her cold case, and the subsequent 10-year investigation into her killing, were instantly familiar to Rockne Harmon.
Harmon discovered the Morrisseau case the same way he’s stumbled across dozens of others – through a daily Google search for “DNA evidence” from his California home, where he’s spent the past decade as a forensic cold case consultant, after building an impressive resume with 33 years as a career prosecutor, retiring in 2007 as senior deputy district attorney with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, where he served on the team that prosecuted O.J. Simpson.
As he read over the case file of Morrisseau, a 27-year-old mother of three who was found 10 years ago at the entrance to Gatineau park, Harmon was instantly reminded of the case of Sonia Varaschin. The slaying of the Orangeville woman in August 2010 remains unsolved in a case, like Morrisseau’s, where it is believed investigators recovered DNA from a suspect that has yet to turn up a positive match in Canada’s databank.
Harmon lobbied reporters covering that case – through all those grim anniversaries of her death – to explore an alternative method of DNA matching called familial searching (FS) which, Harmon acknowledges, often gets tagged with the “controversial” adjective when it’s reported.
Familial searching, as Harmon describes it, is a two-phase process to develop investigative leads to potentially identify close biological relatives of the source of a DNA sample that carries an unknown forensic profile.

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“DNA dragnets, or sweeps (where police compare an unidentified suspect’s DNA to a wide swath of samples, including those collected from voluntary subjects, as was done in the Varaschin investigation) rarely produce solid investigative leads. They are occasionally successful, but it only raises the question whether other methods of DNA searches could be used – not just for so-called perfect matches, but for close matches – because while the perpetrator may not be someone who’s in the DNA databank, they could have a close relative who is.”

Bieber said the method works upon some of the “sad realities” of crime.
“Recidivism, the likelihood of repeat offence, is the whole basis of the social policy of collecting DNA in the first place. The other sad reality is the familial clustering of crime,” said Bieber, careful to distinguish between the myth of a genetic predilection to crime among family members, and the quantifiable “social and cultural clustering of crime” among family members.
“These are not hypotheses, these are sad realities. Between 40 and 60 per cent of the prison population in the U.S. has a close relative who’s had a collision with law enforcement, most likely brothers, and the next most likely is fathers.

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Gatineau police offering $50,000 reward for information in 2006 Kelly Morrisseau murder

The 27-year-old pregnant mother of three was last seen on Montfort Street in Vanier.

ottawa.citynews.ca

• White man
• Between 24 and 30 years old
• Between 180 and 200 lbs
• Standing 5' 8″ to 5' 10″
• Athletic build
• Blond, short, curly hair
• Spoke English and French without an accent

• Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera or Calais
• 1985 to 1990 model
• White, light grey or silver
• Spoke wheel covers
• No sign of rust
• Was in excellent condition''

dotr said:

View attachment 479731
''They said he speaks English and French with no accent.''
''Gatineau police spokeswoman Isabelle Poirier saidinvestigators have spoken to 200 peopleabout the case and have a DNA profile of a suspect after laboratory analysis of items found at the crime scene.''

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/police-post-image-of-suspect-in-morrisseau-slaying-1.635173

View attachment 479732
Police said the suspect drove a white or grey four-door Oldsmobile from the late 1980s in good condition similar to this one. ((Gatineau police))
rbbm

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