Vincent Turcotte was a 21-year-old man from La Malbaie, Quebec, whose disappearance became the focus of an extensive search in the Clermont area of Charlevoix in early May 2020. Although the police event associated with his disappearance is dated May 3, the Sûreté du Québec states that Vincent was last seen late on the evening of May 2, 2020, in the Parc des Berges area of Clermont. His disappearance was reported to police the following day.
Local reporting later described Vincent as having spent part of the evening with longtime friends near the river before leaving the area on his bicycle. He did not make it home, and later that night his bicycle was discovered near the Rivière Malbaie. The discovery immediately raised concern because Vincent himself was nowhere to be found, and his family had reason to fear for his health and safety. At the time, Vincent was described as approximately 6 feet 1 inch tall and 160 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. He had a spiderweb tattoo on his left knee and a pharaoh tattoo on his right hand. He was believed to have been wearing Adidas jogging pants, a black long-sleeved sweatshirt bearing the green words “Les beaux projets,” an orange knit cap, gray Nike Air Jordan shoes and a dark blue Jansport backpack.
Within hours of Vincent being reported missing, the area surrounding the Parc des Berges and the nearby bicycle path became the center of a large search operation. Police officers and a canine team searched the grounds, while subsequent efforts expanded to include officers on foot, all-terrain vehicles, boats and a Sûreté du Québec helicopter. Because Vincent's bicycle had been located close to the Rivière Malbaie, particular attention was directed toward the river and its banks. SQ divers entered the water and searched beneath the surface, while aerial crews repeatedly surveyed Clermont, La Malbaie and the river corridor from above. The Canadian Coast Guard also assisted, concentrating some of its efforts along the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, and a private company volunteered drone support to examine the surrounding area from the air. Friends, relatives and members of the community joined in the effort as well, creating a broad search that extended beyond the initial police operation. Despite the number of people, equipment and specialized resources deployed, no confirmed trace of Vincent was found during those crucial first days. Police publicly said they did not know what had happened and were not excluding possibilities as the investigation continued.
The search continued for more than a week, with investigators examining trails and areas around the Parcours des Berges that Vincent may have traveled after leaving his friends. Officers continued searching the Sentier des Lunes area, while divers had repeatedly examined portions of the Rivière Malbaie. By May 12, the Sûreté du Québec suspended the intensive ground operation, explaining that the investigation itself remained active and that physical searches could resume if weather and river conditions became more favorable. Vincent's family and friends did not stop searching. They continued organizing volunteers and appealing to residents to look carefully along waterways, beaches and surrounding terrain for anything that might be connected to him. Information gathered during the following weeks increasingly focused attention on the river. Local reporting stated that Vincent's orange hat was eventually found near the Camping Au Bord de la Rivière area, while his backpack and gray shoes remained objects that searchers hoped to locate. His family urged members of the public not to dismiss seemingly insignificant objects, believing that even a shoe, telephone or piece of clothing could provide an important clue.
As the weeks passed, Vincent's family arranged additional specialized searches of the Rivière Malbaie. Volunteers and professional search personnel examined deep sections and holes in the river in an attempt to determine whether Vincent might have entered the water after leaving the Parc des Berges. The Service d'évacuation médicale d'urgence du Québec, or SÉMUQ, spent several days conducting an intensive examination of the river after money was raised to support the effort. During that operation, searchers reportedly examined the river's deep pools and investigated an underwater fissure more than 20 feet below the surface, prompting the Sûreté du Québec to send personnel to the location. The searches nevertheless ended without finding Vincent. By July 2020, his relatives had reached the painful point of suspending the intensive volunteer effort. Family members publicly said that the evidence available to them led them to consider an accidental fall into the river and drowning to be the most likely explanation, with the possibility that the current could have carried him farther downstream. That remained a family assessment rather than a confirmed determination by police, and no remains were recovered to establish what had happened. Nearly one hundred people were reported to have participated in searches along the river and surrounding terrain during the first months of the case.
Vincent's disappearance has never received a confirmed resolution. More than five years later, reporting in 2025 continued to describe him as missing, and people close to him were still trying to generate attention that might bring forward new information. A longtime friend, Claudia Boivin, publicly expressed hope that renewed attention to the case would lead to additional investigation or someone finally coming forward with information about the night Vincent vanished. The Sûreté du Québec's missing-person notice continues to identify the case under event number 265-200503-001 and asks that information capable of helping locate Vincent be provided confidentially to its criminal information centre. His case therefore remains the story of a young man who spent an evening with friends beside the Rivière Malbaie, rode away on his bicycle and then seemingly disappeared within a short distance of a place that was searched repeatedly by police, divers, aircraft, volunteers and his own loved ones. His bicycle was found, searches of the surrounding land and water produced no definitive answer, and theories about an accidental fall into the river have never been conclusively proven. The enduring overview of the case is painfully simple: Vincent Turcotte was 21 years old when he vanished from the Parc des Berges area of Clermont in May 2020, an enormous search followed, but no confirmed evidence has yet established where he went or what happened to him, leaving his family and friends without the certainty they have sought for years.Last Seen: May 3, 2020
