Montreal police creating new unit to help crack hundreds of unsolved murders

The Montreal police service is creating a new unit specialized in cracking unsolved murders.

A father of three shot at close range. A 24-year-old beaten brutally to death. A five-year-old and her mother, found murdered in 1988.

These are just a few of hundreds of unsolved murders Montreal police’s bolstered cold case unit will prioritize solving, says Montreal police Cmdr. Melanie Dupont.

“I think it can give answers to the families who are waiting since a long time,” Dupont told CTV News.

The SPVM says there have been 2,643 murders in the city since 1975.

Nearly 800 are still unsolved.

Six investigators have been assigned to these cases since 2019, but their time is split working on other murders.

Now, that’s changing.

The SPVM is hiring 10 new investigators to create a unit of 16 officers working full-time to find answers.

For advocate Stephane Luce, who runs Meurtres et Disparitions Irresolus du Quebec, it’s good news.

“I think it’s time to serve the families that are seeking answers, you know regarding their lost ones,” Luce says. “And now with genealogical genetics, there’s so much they can do.”

New technology is helping police across Quebec crack cold cases. Recently, Longueuil police solved the murder of Montrealer Sharron Prior 50 years after she was killed using new DNA testing techniques.

In the past, police could only match DNA samples to those in their system, Dupont explains.

Now, they have access to other databases from sources like DNA testing websites.

“We can have the [family tree.] We can isolate a potential suspect, and it can [help us] find the person who did that,” Dupont says.

The team should be up and running by May, and will prioritize cases that are more likely to be solved. For example, if witnesses are alive or evidence is stronger, all in the hopes hundreds of families will finally get closure.