Contributed Cases or Files

VANISHED AFTER GETTING OFF A BUS

File Number: 104200048

Terrebonne, QC, Canada - Surprenant disappeared in November 1999. Her neighbour a repeat sex offender Richard Bouillon was suspected of abducting and killing his 16-year-old neighbour Julie Surprenant, but the authorities had insufficient evidence to charge him.

In 2006, this same neighbour made a deathbed confession to her murder. He described where he had dumped her body, stuffed in a sports bag, into a river in Terrebonne, north of Montreal. "He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I was the one who killed her," "nurse's aide Joanne Dubois testified, specifying that he referred to "Julie.", but Bouillon was never charged.

Even diagnosed with terminal cancer and serving a sentence for unrelated 2003 sexual-assault convictions, lay dying in a guarded hospital room, police investigators had failed to pin the suspected murder on him.

Police divers only searched for the body in September 2011. Ms. Surprenant's body had never been found since she vanished after getting off a bus a few blocks from her home.

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Allore was found in a small body of water

File Number: 104200194

Compton, Quebec - Theresa Allore was a 19-year-old Canadian college student who disappeared on Friday, November 3, 1978 from Champlain College Lennoxville in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

On Friday, November 2, 1978, Theresa choose to return back to her apartment and study instead of going out with friends. She lived about 8 kilometers from the main campus. While there was a bus that would take them to and from campus, if they missed that bus, sometimes students would hitchhike.

It's not known whether or not she hitchhiked that night, but one student did claim to see Theresa at the residence around 9pm. However, this student claims that Theresa failed to show up later to hang out like they had planned. It's important to mention that there was not only a series of sexual assaults occurring on the campus that fall, but also a potential serial killer (or multiple) on the loose in the same area.

When Theresa went missing, no one seemed to notice at first. It was her friends that essentially reported her missing after a week. The police simply suggested that she ran away and someone at the school suggested Theresa disappeared because she had "lesbian tendencies" and would need to see a psychiatrist when she turned up. The college also continued to bill the family of Theresa her tuition and room/board.

Five months later, on April 13, 1979, her body was discovered in a small body of water approximately one kilometer from her dormitory residence in Compton, Quebec. She was in nothing but her underwear.

For years, the Allore family sought answers in the death of their daughter, and eventually hired an investigative reporter in 2002 to help present compelling evidence that not only was Theresa murdered, but that her death could be linked to other unsolved murders in the area. The theory was that the unsolved deaths of 10-year-old Manon Dube (March 1978) and Louise Camirand (1977) could be linked to Theresa's case. Manon Dube went missing in January of 1978 and was found dead (fully clothed) in March 1978 in a block of ice many miles away from where she was last seen.

Since 2002, Theresa's brother, John Allore - who produces the podcast, Who Killed Theresa? - has continued the investigation, identifying 14 other unsolved murders from 1975 to 1981 which may be associated. He successfully lobbied for the creation of a Surete du Quebec cold case unit, which was created in 2004.

Beginning in 2018, John Allore started to focus on other Quebec cases from the 1970s through the present era, cases that further suggest systemic failures in Quebec criminal justice.

In Theresa Allore's disappearance, the man who was in charge of her college residence was never questioned. He disappeared shortly after her death. And soon after, the college shut down that residence. In 2001, the family went to police asking for Theresa's clothes and any belongings found near her body. The police only gave him some jewelry and said there was nothing else. It is believed, but not confirmed, that the evidence has been destroyed.

In 2016, they reopened the case into Theresa Allore's death. While they admit it's still "ongoing," they are only investigating it as a "suspicious death" instead of a homicide. This is despite the fact that the coroner found evidence of strangulation and bruises on Allore's body. Not to mention she was found only in her underwear.

In November 2018 John Allore was awarded the Senate of Canada's Sesquicentennial Medal for his work in victims advocacy for "recognition of your valuable service to the nation." The book Wish You Were Here about the unsolved murder of Theresa Allore was published by Penguin Random House Canada in September 2020.

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Murdered in Vancouver in 1988

File Number: 104200240

Vancouver, British Columbia - Gavin and Sowan were friends when they were killed just six weeks apart in 1988.

Gavin was last seen alive just before midnight on August 12, 1988, when she left a friend's apartment near Broadway and St. Catherine's Street, in East Vancouver. A sex-worker who struggled with addiction, Gavin told her friend she was going to work and would be back in an hour. She never returned, and her partially clothed body was discovered hours later in a lane near Knight Street and East 49th Avenue.

Sowan, also a sex worker, was just 25 years old when last seen, on September 29, 1988, inside an apartment near East 6th Avenue and St. George Street. She'd been struggling with the loss of Gavin, and went out sometime between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Her body was discovered the following day in some bushes near West 24th Avenue and Willow Street.

Vancouver police have added these cases to their cold case website, as they renew an appeal for tips into their 34-year-old murders which took place just weeks apart.

"No homicide case is ever closed until it's solved, and we know there's someone out there with information that can help solve these two murders," Sgt. Steve Addison said in a media release.

VPD's Cold Cases website was created in 2014, and it currently includes profiles of 15 unsolved murders, dating back to 1958. For more details about the murders of Lisa Gavin and Glenna Sowan, including photos, maps and news clippings, visit www.vpdcoldcases.ca

Any update on these cases, please contact us at fileupdate@ucfiles.com