Body of missing Quebec woman found, police say

The body of a Quebec woman missing for nearly a week was discovered in Saint-Jérôme on Tuesday afternoon, according to provincial police. 

A citizen alerted authorities after spotting a vehicle that matched a description police had shared with the public.

Linda Vinette, 61, was found inside the car, stationed near a local park. Her death was confirmed at a nearby hospital.

No traces of violence were immediately apparent, according to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), and her death is not considered suspicious.

A coroner will aid in the investigation.

Vinette, who is from Sainte-Sophie, was last seen alive in Terrebonne last Wednesday, where she had a dentist appointment.

After days of searching, the SQ set up two command posts on Tuesday -- one in Terrebonne and the other in Sainte-Sophie -- in search of answers.

The body of Linda Vinette, 61, was discovered inside a parked car in Saint-Jerome on Feb. 27, 2024. (Cosmo Santamaria / CTV News)

CTV News spoke to Vinette's goddaughter a few hours before she was found. Isabelle Theoret described Vinette as a woman who was in excellent health.

"She has no health issues, physical or psychological," she said.

Calling her disappearance "incomprehensible," Theoret added that search teams had swept all the routes running from the dentist's office to Vinette's home, to no avail.

Later on Tuesday, after Vinette's body was discovered, an SQ spokesperson confirmed police are investigating how she ended up where she did.

"We're going to try to find the reason why she went to Saint-Jérôme, where has she been, so we have a lot of work still to do," said Sgt. Éloïse Cossette in an interview. "[We'll] also look at cameras in that specific area to just confirm that she was alone in the car."