Maurice Viens

Four-year-old Maurice Viens was living with his mother, Francine, and his brother, Alexandre, on Dorion Street in a modest South-Central neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec. On the afternoon of November 1, 1984, the little boy, a male, had just returned home from kindergarten. Without asking his mother's permission, he went out with a friend to play in nearby Rouen Park. The day was a turning point for public safety in Quebec, and Maurice's tragic fate would contribute to the creation of the Missing Children's Network.

At around 1:15 p.m., as Maurice and his friend were playing in an alley a short distance from their homes, a stranger in a car pulled up. He promised the children candy and invited them to get in. While his friend was scared and ran off to alert Maurice’s mother, telling her, "Maurice left with a gentleman," Maurice accepted the offer. His abduction triggered a massive search, with 500 police officers and volunteers scouring the neighborhood. The case immediately gripped the city with fear, a fear that was compounded when it was learned that two other boys, 12-year-old Wilton Lubin and 8-year-old Sébastien Métivier, had also vanished from the nearby Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district later the same day.

The first break in Maurice’s case came three days later, on November 4, when his jacket was found along a road in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, a rural community about 65 kilometers northeast of Montreal. The search area was immediately expanded, with the Sûreté du Québec joining the Montreal police. The investigation took a bizarre turn when a businessman, dubbed "Mr. X" by the media, came forward claiming to have extrasensory perception. He described visions of the boy with a man on a narrow country road near a railway line and a dilapidated building.

Following the man's psychic lead, a hypnotherapist who had worked with him went to the location he described. On November 6, 1984, inside an abandoned house in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, he made a horrifying discovery: the battered and partially nude body of Maurice Viens. An autopsy later confirmed that the child had died from severe blows to the head and had endured a brutal beating before his death; his back, buttocks, and legs were covered in bruises. There were conflicting reports about whether he had been sexually assaulted.

The investigation into Maurice's murder was complex and fraught with unusual circumstances. "Mr. X," the man who led police to the body, immediately became a person of interest, though he was never charged. Over the years, the investigation focused more intently on a primary suspect named Jean-Baptiste Duchesneau, a taxi driver with a heavy criminal record for violent crimes against children, including the 1974 killing of a seven-year-old girl. Duchesneau lived near the other two boys who disappeared on the same day as Maurice. In December 1993, while serving a sentence for sexual assault, investigators scheduled a polygraph test with him regarding the disappearances. The day before the test, Duchesneau committed suicide in his prison cell.

The disappearances of Maurice Viens, Wilton Lubin, and Sébastien Métivier sent a wave of shock and panic across Quebec. Wilton Lubin's body was found in the St. Lawrence River on December 2, 1984, but Sébastien Métivier has never been found. Police have long believed the cases are connected and possibly the work of a serial killer active in the Montreal area during the 1980s. The brutality of the crimes and the fact that three children were taken in one day left a lasting scar on the community.

Decades later, the murder of Maurice Viens remains unsolved. As of late 2023, the case is still open and resides with the Sûreté du Québec's cold case unit. Books and documentaries, including "Novembre 84," have been produced, examining the police investigation and the lingering questions surrounding the deaths and disappearances that terrified a generation of parents. Despite a prime suspect being identified, no one has ever been convicted for the murder of four-year-old Maurice Viens, and his family has never received justice.