Court files reveal frantic effort to find Quebec girl’s killer
MONTREAL • When nineyear-old Cédrika Provencher disappeared while playing near her Trois-rivières, Que., home in 2007, investigators quickly focused their attention on a red Acura TSX seen in the vicinity by a witness and captured on a security camera.
It was a strong lead that soon led them to a local man in his late 20s, a manager at a packaging company run by his father.
Jonathan Bettez was one of six people in Quebec who drove a red four-door 2004 Acura matching the suspect car’s description, with chrome handles and sevenspoke rims. And, police allege, he was the only one whose alibi for the night of Cédrika’s disappearance could not be confirmed.
Eleven years after the disappearance that transfixed the province, and nearly three years after her remains were discovered, no one has been charged. Bettez, now 38, is facing trial on child pornography charges, and newly unsealed court documents in that case detail the elaborate — but ultimately unsuccessful — measures investigators employed to tie him to Cédrika’s death.
Cédrika had been riding her bike the night of July 31, 2007, with instructions to be home by 8:45. She was wearing a lime-green sundress over her bathing suit, green flip-flops, a pink and mauve Timex watch and a burgundy Supercycle helmet, her mother would tell police.
When she failed to return on time, her mother immediately went looking for and then called around to her friends’ homes. By 9:20, she called the police to report her daughter missing, launching an intensive search.
Over the summer, the family appealed for help, posters of her freckled face covered trees and utility poles and donations poured in to fund a reward. Within a week, police said they had already received 500 tips from the public.
But the documents unsealed this week, following a request to the court by La Presse and Radio-canada, show that investigators had almost from the start focused attention on Bettez.
They first met with him Sept. 6, 2007, when he confirmed he owned a red Acura and said they could inspect it, but it was at the garage. Later that month, he gave a written alibi for July 31, saying he had played nine holes of golf in the afternoon before driving to his parents house to tend to their plants and swimming pool while they were out of town. Upon arrival, he said, he saw that his aunt was already there, so he returned to his apartment, where he was living on his own. His aunt told police she never saw Bettez that day.
After a hunter discovered Cédrika’s remains in December 2015, police obtained warrants to install hidden cameras in Bettez’s home and workplace and to tap the phones of his family and friends, hoping that the discovery of Cédrika’s remains would prompt him to say something.
The documents allege that Bettez used a computer at his workplace to download child pornography. They say he used such online nicknames as Lurethem and Pantyguy to access files of girls, mostly aged between eight and 12, engaged in sexual acts.
None of the allegations have been proven in court. Bettez was arrested in 2016 and he has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges of possessing and accessing child pornography. He is not charged in relation to Cédrika’s disappearance.