'I said so': Mother of 2 girls killed by father reacts as Quebec coroner criticizes police response
CBC
Amélie Lemieux said she was relieved to have a coroner confirm what she already knew — police didn't do everything they could to find her two daughters before they were killed by their father.
"I said so. What I named, what I knew deep down, someone confirmed it. I'm not crazy, not everything that could have been done was done," she told Radio-Canada.
In a report released Tuesday, coroner Luc Malouin said the 2020 search for Romy and Norah Carpentier was marked by numerous delays by police decision-makers who failed to fully grasp the urgency of the situation.
He said the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) erred in not quickly launching a ground search for the young girls after they and their father, Martin Carpentier, went missing after a car crash on the evening of July 8, 2020.
"I now know everything I wanted to know … The only questions I'll never have an answer to are 'Martin, why did you do it?' and 'my girls, what did you go through?'" said Lemieux.
Lemieux is working with her lawyer to reach a settlement with the SQ. She says she was kept in the dark and had to dig for the truth.
Though she says no amount of money can bring her daughters back, the police failed her.
"I've been paying my taxes since I was 18 and I've been paying their salary," said Lemieux. "So I expect them to be there when I need them."
"I needed them once in my life and they let me down, so I want a refund."
Malouin said he couldn't understand why a search-and-rescue team wasn't called in right away. He said the Québec Association of Search and Rescue Volunteers (AQBRS) and the Service de police de la ville de Québec (SPVQ) were available.
"Somewhere in the hierarchy there was a lack of planning, that much is clear to me," Malouin told reporters Wednesday.
The AQBRS has 19 teams of search-and-rescue volunteers covering all of Quebec's territory. Its president, Guy Lapointe, said he was waiting for the call to deploy his team out of Quebec City when he heard of the crash on the news.
To his surprise, the search-and-rescue team was only called the following day.
"We thought we were going to be deployed during the night because when there are children involved I think it's really urgent," he said.
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