Police seek possible witness in search for Ariel Kouakou
Montreal police are trying to contact a possible witness in connection with their search for 10-yearold Ariel Kouakou.
Investigators are hoping to speak to a woman who was in the northend riverside park where the boy was last seen March 12.
“We’ve received 400 tips over the course of this investigation, but we recently received one that was quite particular,” Insp. Ian Lafrenière told reporters Friday.
“Someone told us (a few days ago) that a woman was seen smoking a cigarette inside the park and along the riverside between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. That’s well before the last witness saw Ariel at 2 p.m.”
Lafrenière stressed that investigators doubted that even should she step forward, the woman could help police find the missing boy, “but she could help us understand what was happening (in that time period) and perhaps tell us if there were children playing in the area, if children were playing along the edge of the ice.”
The search for Kouakou continues and police divers as well as occasional aerial sweeps by the Sûreté du Québec’s helicopter are carried out along the length of the Rivière des Prairies in an effort to find any trace of the boy, Lafrenière said, adding that police divers had been deployed in the search just two weeks ago.
The police spokesperson acknowledged that any information provided by the woman “would probably be very circumstantial for us. But it might help us answer the question (the boy’s) family continues to ask — what happened to Ariel?”
Police continue to favour the theory that the boy ventured onto the then frozen river and fell through the ice, Lafrenière said, adding that further searches of the river by the force’s nautical patrol and divers were scheduled to be carried out.
Lafrenière said the boy’s family had been informed of the existence of a potentially new source of information in the search and was being kept up to date on the progress of the investigation.