Family gets closure as Montreal woman’s alleged killer identified using DNA

The family of Catherine Daviau is still trying to come to terms with police finding her killer 17 years later.

When 26-year-old Catherine Daviau was found dead in her Rosemont apartment in December 2008, her younger sister Genevieve says she never gave up hope that her killer would be found.

“I knew since 2008 that one day I’d get that phone call,” Daviau told Noovo Info reporter Marie-Christine Bergeron. “That call came last Monday.”

Last week, Montreal police (SPVM) announced they concluded that a career criminal by the name of Jacques Bolduc was the killer and that DNA samples allowed them to map out a DNA sketch, which they were then able to match to relatives of their suspect.

“We had a sample,” the SPVM’s Diane Seguin told the press this Friday. “We did the genealogy, our genealogist did the research, and then we were able to provide the investigators with a name.”

But it was too late to prosecute Bolduc — he died in prison in 2021 while serving time for an unrelated crime.

But for Genevieve Daviau, just getting the news was a big relief.

“It was a tough moment, but a difficult one,” she said. “Just seeing his photo was disturbing.”

“It’s hard to come up with words to describe the emotion,” Daviau says, “but I think it was anger.”

The SPVM theory is that Catherine had placed a classified ad to sell her car.

Police now think Bolduc set up an appointment, only to use it as an excuse to assault and kill her. He then set fire to the apartment.

“We always thought it was a possible scenario,” she says, but agrees that both cell phone location technology and DNA science weren’t as advanced back then to track the suspect.

Genevieve is now thankful for the SPVM investigators who have always supported her family.

“They were always present, ready to answer our questions,” she said.