GATINEAU, Que. -Family and friends held a vigil Wednesday night for the victim of Gatineau’s first homicide of the year after the body of 18-year-old Valerie Leblanc was found behind a school on Tuesday afternoon.
Her body, which Gatineau police said had been badly beaten and burned, was found by a group of students at around 4 p.m. in the woods behind the CEGEP de l’Outaouais’s Gabrielle-Roy campus.
The students found Leblanc’s body while walking on the main path in Gatineau Park, exploring the area on their second day at the school located just across the border from Ottawa.
One, who declined to give her name, said they noticed something strange when they saw traces of smoke coming from a trail.
The body wasn’t visible from the main path, she said, but they came across it about five seconds down the trail.
“It didn’t seem real,” she said. “It looked like a mannequin. We would never have thought it was someone. That’s why there was a delay in calling the police.”
Sgt. Jean Paul Lemay said when police arrived on scene, they found smoke coming from the location of the body.
“We’re dealing with a body that has marks of violence and also burn marks on the body,” he said.
An autopsy was to be conducted Wednesday in Montreal to determine the cause of death.
Lemay would not comment on whether there were signs of sexual assault or on the nature of the burns.
Police have been investigating the scene since Tuesday afternoon, and Lemay said it could take days to cover the entire area.
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“We have a big, vast crime scene and we have evidence that we’re hoping to find.”
There were many witnesses being questioned, he said, including the group that found the body, and family members who quickly came forward to offer help.
The school has numerous security cameras in the area, including some near the trail, which would be given to police upon request, CEGEP Outaouais spokesman Pascal Laplante said.
On Wednesday night, Leblanc’s friends and family gathered near the edge of the forest where her body was found to hold a vigil.
Her friends sat in clusters on the grass while Leblanc’s relatives stood at the edge of the police tape, crying and hugging each other. Soon after, they joined hands around a giant tree to pray and sing hymns. Many people brought flowers, candles, letters and stuffed animals, as well as a few personal items, such as drumsticks, and set them beneath the tree.
Leblanc’s best friend, Melanie Marcil, 19, came to the vigil with her boyfriend, Francis Boulandier, 21. Both looked sombre.
Marcil said Leblanc had gone into the woods at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday to talk to her ex-boyfriend, who had recently ended their three-month relationship.
When she didn’t come back, Marcil, whom Leblanc shared a locker with, became worried. Marcil and a few friends went looking for Leblanc in the woods, but couldn’t find her.
Boulandier said he was “devastated” when he heard the news that Leblanc’s body had been found.
Lemay confirmed that Leblanc, who was beginning her second year studying humanitarian science, and her boyfriend had broken up recently. The ex-boyfriend was questioned by investigators Wednesday morning, but Lemay said police did not consider him a suspect.
“There are absolutely no links between the ex-boyfriend and the victim,” he said.
Leblanc’s friends and family also don’t believe her ex-boyfriend, who attended the vigil Wednesday, was involved.
“He was such a nice boy,” said Leblanc’s grandmother Huguette, who attended the vigil with her husband Bert, Leblanc’s father Sylvan, and sister Noemie.
Longtime family friend Mylene Beaulm said Leblanc was one of the most positive and kind-hearted people she knew.
“I never saw her down,” Beaulm said. “Whatever happened in life, she’d just take something positive from it.”
Beaulm said Leblanc spent her summer working at a children’s summer camp and at a Tim Hortons.
She loved the arts and could often be found writing poems and playing the drums.
But Beaulm said Leblanc also had a tough side, regularly practicing taekwondo.
“She never backed down.”
Leblanc’s martial arts background led Marcil and Boulandier to believe that she was attacked by a group, not just one person.
Lemay said police are looking at all options in their investigation.
Before police released details of the case Wednesday afternoon, rumours circulated on campus about the death and a connection to a case one year earlier.
In March 2010, a woman was found behind the same school with severe second- and third-degree burns, in an incident police called a suspected suicide attempt.
A passerby discovered the woman, believed to be in her 20s, in the parking lot behind the school.
Police found a gas can, a lighter, clothing and human hair near the parking lot. Upon searching the area, they found no other people.
Lemay addressed the similarities of the two cases, but dismissed the possibility of a link. “Yes, it’s close, it’s just about the same spot, but they’re not related,” he said.
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