More than a year after their passing, the coroner who investigated the deaths of two young sisters murdered by their father is saying Quebec provincial police took too long to call an Amber Alert.
The disappearance of sisters Romy and Norah Carpentier in July 2020 lead to a massive manhunt outside of Quebec City, which gripped the entire province.
The bodies of the girls, aged 6 and 11, were found three days later.
Martin Carpentier was in the middle of a divorce with the girls’ mother, a fact the coroner believes pushed him over the edge. Carpentier killed his two daughters with a blunt object and then died by suicide.
“Every minute, every second counts in a disappearance,” said coroner Sophie Régnière during a press conference in Quebec City Wednesday morning.
Régnière said the police suspected the girls could be in danger as early as 6 a.m. on July 9th, but didn’t issue an Amber Alert until 3 p.m. — a serious error, she said.
“They should have at least called the media of a disappearance notice of any kind,” she said.
Régnière’s report includes seven recommendations. Among them, she calls on the public security ministry to review the criteria for issuing an Amber Alert and to create a specialized unit dedicated to missing persons within the Sûreté du Québec (SQ).
“The Sûreté du Québec conducted two debriefings after (the tragedy),” Chief Inspector Patrice Cardinal explained.
As a result, the SQ decided to call Amber Alerts more readily. In 2020, there were two, while this year, there were six.
One of the other concerns highlighted in the report is that it took investigators a long time to determine the girls were missing because they couldn’t find out if they were in the hospital. Staff wouldn’t cooperate due to confidentiality concerns.
The coroner wants the government to change the law to make it easier to share information in the case of an emergency.