Where's Marilyn?: A decade later, family of missing woman pleads for systemic review

Have you seen Marilyn Bergeron? A decade after Marilyn Bergeron vanished without a trace, her family is appealing for a review of the case and law enforcement practices.

Before leaving the house on February 17, 2008, Marilyn Bergeron said goodbye to her mother. Wearing a long black overcoat with faux fur trim, she said she was going for a short walk, and would be back in a few hours.

Ten years – 87, 600 hours – have passed, and Bergeron’s family still steadfastly awaits her return from this mysterious errand.

“I remember her spirit,” said Bergeron’s sister Nathalie. “Shortly before she went missing, that spirit was gone. She seemed very concerned, very afraid. That’s why we’re not giving up on her.”

The family has meticulously retraced Marilyn's steps: the stop at a Desjardins ATM in Loretteville to withdraw money (the transaction was declined), her venture to the south shore of Quebec City, where she stopped by a Café Depot for a drink.

From then, the trail runs cold. A week after moving to Quebec City to live with her parents, Bergeron, 24, vanished without a trace.

The passage of a decade doesn’t read like an anniversary to the Bergeron family – it’s an unfortunate milestone, a needling reminder that the answers to their questions just aren’t there.

“The reality after ten years – maybe she’s deceased, and that would be a hard reality,” Bergeron said. “But I’d rather know than keep going like this.”

In the time following the disappearance, the family hasn’t stopped trying to stimulate the search effort.

Aside from security footage pulled from the ATM the day of the disappearance – which depicts Marilyn cautiously glancing over her shoulder several times – authorities have not found any tangible leads or indication where she may have gone with only a credit card in hand.

At the time, police temporarily withheld the ATM footage from the Bergeron family because of its "distressing" nature.

This is the last known image taken of Marilyn Bergeron, inside of a caisse populaire where she attempted to withdraw $60 from an ATM. At the time, police referred to the footage as "distressing." 

Last year, the family hired Lawyer Marc Bellemare to help them assemble information.

“I said ‘okay, what can I do?’ I’m not a policeman, I’m a lawyer,” Bellemare explained. “So we decided to talk to the public and tell them they can talk to me. I’m not the police – it’s all confidential.”

More than 80 separate calls came in after Bellemare’s appeal, many of them generating false leads, or tentative links to people and places in Montreal.

“Marilyn lived in Montreal, she worked at Steve’s Music [store] in Montreal, all her friends were in Montreal, all her network was in Montreal. All the stories took place in Montreal – we know something special happened here,” he said.

There were reports of a sighting in Hawkesbury, but no proof to back it up.

Some missing persons cases have been solved, exceptionally, after 30 or 40 years, according to Pina Arcamone of the Missing Children’s Network.

But the absence of hard facts makes it difficult for family to obtain closure, even if they believe they’ve made peace with the worst-case scenario.

“Families are realistic,” she said. “They understand that maybe something terrible has happened to their child – they just need to know.”

In the ten years since the disappearance, the Bergeron family said they've been stonewalled by authorities on a number of occasions. They petitioned to the National Assembly to create a specialized provincial squad to handle disappearances – it was unsuccessful.

They’ve appealed for the creation of a Quebec-based DNA database that could potentially link people through familial matches, to no avail.

And most importantly, according to Bellemare, the family wants the investigation transferred to the Surete du Quebec, so their outreach, expertise and extensive resources can be utilized to make a break in the case.

For the last decade, the case has simmered in the hands of Quebec City police. It’s been revisited by investigators several times, with no yield.

“They did their best – thank you – but now, we look forward,” Bellemare said.

According to data collected by the family, the SQ has taken charge of 108 missing persons dossiers in the last 10 years, compared to only 23 for Quebec City police.

More than an estimated 3000 adults go missing on an annual basis in Quebec.

But unlike other Canadian metropolises like Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa, the Bergerons explained that, in Quebec, there is no squad dedicated exclusively to cracking cold cases of this nature.

In a press conference Sunday, the family and their arsenal of supporters seized an opportunity to call for procedural reviews and more progressive tactics.

For example, a more rigid approach to forensic analysis in missing persons cases – preserving and publishing applicable security footage immediately, and testing a missing person’s belongings for fingerprints and useable DNA.

This also includes a revision of the missing persons database at the Federal level, which Nathalie Bergeron is currently working on.

“We have one in Canada, it’s called ‘Canada’s Missing,’ and it’s similar to the system in the U.S. – but it’s lacking some missing people,” she said. “I just know how critical it is to have the picture of the loved one anywhere you can put the person.”

This year, the Bergeron family released an age-progression portrait of Marilyn depicting what they believe she’d look like now, at 34.

The public issuing of the image during Sunday’s press conference is necessary, Bergeron said, because family members cannot currently access online missing person profiles in order to update them. Information databases are only accessible to coroners or law enforcement agents.

The Bergerons are also offering a $30,000 reward to anyone with substantial information about the case – but the reward will be revoked in May.

At that point, the family plans a commemorative march in Quebec City, where supporters will retrace Bergeron’s last known steps. And until then, there's hope that the public appeal will be a step forward in the inquiry.

“The family deserves to stop searching,” Arcamone said. “They wake up every day asking, ‘is today the day I may get answers?’”

With a renewed social media presence, and armed with a spread of fresh "Missing" posters, the Bergeron family is hopeful that, at the very least, this is an opportunity for law enforcement to “do better.”

“It would be so nice to be proud of Quebec and say ‘you’re doing so many things that nobody else is doing' – unfortunately, it hasn’t been the case,” Bergeron said.

“Things that are simple and should’ve been done are still outstanding. This is a place where we can make progress, and why aren’t we trying?”

Anyone with information regarding Bergeron's disappearance is urged to contact Quebec City police at 1-418-641-2447, or toll-free at 1-888-641-2447.

Alternatively, the Bergeron family's search initiative can also be contacted toll-free at 1-800-840-1526, or by visiting www.trouvermarilyn.com