TERREBONNE - Surete du Quebec divers are plumbing the depths of the Mille-Iles river in Terrebonne as they resume a decade-old search for a missing teenager.
Julie Surprenant was 16 when she vanished on Nov. 16, 1999.
She was last seen getting off a bus in Terrebonne just metres from her home, but she never made it to her house.
Officials say they wanted to wait until the information they received had been validated before devoting time and resources to a new, full-scale search.
"About 15 people are working at this site, some on a barge, some in the water," said SQ officer Benoit Richard. "Our specialists think it is worth their while to be here."
Julie's father Michel spent Monday at the scene, observing the search.
"I am trying to keep my emotions in check, but there is hope," said Surprenant.
Since his daughter's disappearance, Surprenant has waged a battle for tougher sexual offender laws, and tighter restrictions on parole.
He marked the tenth anniversary of Julie's abduction by demanding Quebec create a special missing persons task force.
Prime suspect confessed to nurse in 2006
Police long suspected that her neighbour, Richard Bouillon, had abducted the girl, but could never prove anything.
However earlier this year a nurse came forward and said that in 2006, Bouillon told her that he had killed the teenager, then put her body in a sports bag and thrown it into the river near a church.
Bouillon died at the age of 52, on June 22, 2006, at Laval's Cite de la Sante Hospital. He had been serving a six-and-a-half year sentence for rape, molestation, sexual assault and drug-trafficking.
The nurse had been legally prevented from disclosing the deathbed confession until ordered to do so by a coroner's inquest.
Police made a cursory search of the area in January of this year but did not turn up any sign of Julie.
