Missing children: Two fathers united in heartache
‘This is starting to look like Julie’s story,’ Surprenant says of Ariel
Nearly 20 years after his daughter disappeared, Michel Surprenant still keeps a light on in his backyard each night. The small light, fastened atop a five-foot lamp post, is symbolic for him — a sign to Julie that he’s still waiting for her, he says, wherever she may be.
But it also represents how Surprenant has chosen to cope. When a person disappears, he says, you have two choices: become consumed by what he calls “the reality” of the situation — the police investigation, the theories of what happened — or focus on hope and whatever positives you can.
For a decade, he shared his approach with other Quebec families, becoming a public face of sorts for disappearances in the province. When he left that role in 2014, he wasn’t sure he would ever get involved in another missing person case. He has his own burden, he says, and is still working through it.
Then, in mid-March, he read the headlines about Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou. He saw the 10-year-old’s smiling face on newscasts and in newspapers. He saw Ariel’s parents, too, trying to stay strong.
As the days went by, and more details emerged, Surprenant felt the need to reach out to them.
“There were no clues, no leads, nothing,” Surprenant said over a coffee in Terrebonne this week. “I said to myself, ‘This is starting to look like Julie’s story.’ ”
Surprenant met Ariel’s parents at their home in Ahuntsic-Cartierville soon after, and has since been by their side at news conferences, offering support and guidance. He has been struck by the resilience the boy ’s father, Kouadio Frédéric Kouakou, has shown throughout.
“I told him to do everything he can to stay active,” Surprenant said. “That’s all you can do. As long as you stay active, you’re feeding your hope.”
Julie Surprenant, 16, disappeared on Nov. 15, 1999. She was last seen by a bus driver, getting off at a stop near her home in Terrebonne.
From early on, police suspected Surprenant’s upstairs neighbour, a man named Richard Bouillon. He had a history of violent crimes, including sexual assault, and was under probation at the time. Officers questioned him, but had nothing to charge him with.
The search for Julie continued. More details would only emerge in 2011.
Five years earlier, in 2006, Bouillon fell terminally ill. On his deathbed, he confessed grim details to a nurse: he had raped several boys and girls, he told her, and had kidnapped, raped and killed Julie Surprenant. He put her body in a sports bag with bricks and dropped it the Rivière des Milles Îles, he said.
Given the new information, police searched the river. Surprenant stood by as they did, but Julie’s body was never found.
During a public inquest into Julie’s “probable death” in 2012, Quebec coroner Catherine RudelTessier concluded Bouillon was likely involved.
“The Surprenant family’s disappointment at not being able to know the truth is understandable,” she wrote.
Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou was last seen on March 12. He walked to a friend’s home, but found he wasn’t there. That same day, a woman spoke to him in Parc des Bateliers beside Rivière des Prairies. Security footage shows him entering, but not leaving the park.
Montreal police have said they’re convinced Ariel drowned in the river when he got too close to the snow-covered waterfront. His father, however, maintains his son was abducted.
“The hope is still alive,” he said during a news conference last week, shortly before unveiling new search efforts. “We have great hope.”
For Surprenant, seeing the parents out talking about their son’s disappearance is encouraging. As difficult as it can be, he said, it’s a necessary step.
“If the story dies, any information about it also dies,” he said. “You need to keep the story alive to give the information a chance to come out.”
After Julie’s disappearance, Surprenant dedicated himself to doing just that. He pushed for changes to the code of “professional secrets” that governs nurses and for broader access to Quebec’s sex offender registry.
He stayed active, advocating for the causes, and found strength in his oldest daughter, Andréanne. In the meantime, he kept processing Julie’s disappearance.
“You digest it, digest it, digest it,” he said. “Then at one point, you’re able to accept it. It can take months or years, but you can get there. You’ll always be sensitive to it, but you learn to live through it.”
But he still has difficult days, he added. He feels a sharp pang of anguish every time he hears of a missing child, and took it especially hard, in 2015, when he learned hunters had found Cédrika Provencher’s remains.
And as often as he has been told he needs to, he hasn’t mourned. In his eyes, doing so would mean “closing the door.” It’s the same reason he never wanted a tombstone made for his daughter.
Instead, he and Andréanne asked the town of Terrebonne to consider a commemorative monument where Julie was last seen. To mark 15 years since she vanished, it was unveiled in 2014: a sculpted bowler hat, like the ones she often wore, resting on a plaque in her memory. Fresh flowers were planted around it this week.
Asked how he sees Julie’s disappearance today, Surprenant hesitated. There are things he has come to terms with that he never thought he would, he said. He’s more rational than he once was, more serene.
“But Julie, wherever she is, is still waiting to be found,” he said. “No matter the state she’s in, she’s waiting for us to find her.”
Surprenant, at 64, is in the middle of moving. He’s selling his home in Terrebonne to live somewhere more secluded, near a lake, where he can slowly ease into retirement.
His plans aren’t finalized yet. He bought a piece of land and intends to build. But, he said, one thing he knows for sure — somewhere on his new property, he will install a lamp post and, on top of it, a light will always be left on.
Julie, wherever she is, is still waiting to be found. No matter the state she’s in, she’s waiting for us to find her.
MICHEL SURPRENANT