A Rwandan woman in Montreal Canada who vanished while on an evening walk near her home in January was found floating in the St. Lawrence River more than 100 kilometres away, the circumstances of her death are as mysterious as her disappearance.
IGIHE.com had reported this matter of the missing Rwandan Clemence Umugwaneza.
The body of Clémence Umugwaneza, 26, was spotted by the Coast Guard near Louiseville on Saturday night, about 115 kilometres northeast of Montreal.
The corpse was pulled out of the river, and Trois Rivières police were called in to investigate. Once the body was identified as Umugwaneza, Montreal police were contacted to deliver the news to her family.
An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death and how long Umugwaneza was in the river, said Montreal police spokesperson Mélanie Martineau, saying every hypothesis from foul play to suicide remains on the table.
“All avenues of investigation are being kept open,” she said. “It’s really the autopsy that will determine where we go from here.”
A key question is where Umugwaneza ended up in the frigid waters – near her Cartierville home or closer to Louiseville. While Martineau said it is “possible” she floated all that way, the autopsy may be able to shed light on whether her body could have gone into the water closer to where it was found.
The coroner’s office will also look for signs of violence as well as try to pinpoint when Umugwaneza died.
Umugwaneza was last seen at about 9 p.m. on Jan. 11 when she left the home she shares with her family in the Cartierville area of Montreal to go for a walk.
Relatives became alarmed when she didn’t return and called the police, who took the disappearance seriously.
Umugwaneza had no history of going missing, suicidal tendencies or known associations with unsavoury characters.
Montreal police combed the area around her home, searched the riverbanks with dogs and set up command posts nearby to seek the public’s help to locate her.
“We really had no clues,” Martineau said.
While the file is in the hands of Trois Rivières police for the moment, she added Montreal police could get involved again depending on what the coroner finds.
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