Suspect charged with first-degree murder 10 years after Jenique Dalcourt killed in Longueuil

Longueuil police have arrested a 35-year-old man in connection with a decade-old murder case, the force announced Wednesday.

The man who has been suspected of having killed Jenique Dalcourt, a young woman who was beaten to death in the fall of 2014 in Longueuil as she returned home after work was charged with first-degree murder.

The Longueuil Agglomeration Police Service (SPAL) confirmed Wednesday that Michael Mcduff-Jalbert, “the only person targeted in this arrest warrant,” was arrested Tuesday and appeared Wednesday at the courthouse to face the charge.

In order to protect the judicial process, the SPAL did not want to comment on the nature of the new elements which allowed the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) to lay charges in this case, more than nine years later.

The chief inspector of the SPAL, Pierre Duquette, however explained at a press conference that “specific methods in the field of forensic sciences have allowed them to progress in this investigation and to obtain additional elements allowing to the DPCP to file charges against the suspect.”

“Our priority has always been to seek the truth in this matter in order to offer answers to Jenique’s family, to allow them to begin their grieving process,” Duquette said, assuring that resolving this matter was part of of SPAL’s priorities “from the very beginning.”

“The SPAL spared no effort and used all the resources at its disposal to ensure that charges were filed in relation to the murder of Jenique Dalcourt and that her murderer be brought before the courts to answer the charge of murder in the first-degree filed against him,” he mentioned.

On Oct. 21, 2014, Dalcourt, then aged 23, was brutally killed with an iron bar while she was walking on a cycle path in Vieux-Longueuil, after work.

The suspect, who was 26 years old at the time, was arrested a few days after the murder, but was released before appearing in court. No charges were brought against him due to lack of sufficient evidence.

At the time of his initial arrest, Longueuil police claimed that the suspect had acted alone for a motive that had not been revealed.

The DPCP looked into this case again in 2015, but once again, no charges were brought against the suspect due to a lack of evidence.

On Wednesday, Duquette thanked Dalcourt’s parents, her mother Monique Dalcourt and her father John Gandolf, for the resilience they have shown in recent years.

He also praised the collaboration of the various police officers and civilian employees who worked directly or indirectly in this investigation, as well as that of the DPCP and specialists from the Laboratory of Judicial Sciences and Forensic Medicine.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews