On February 17, 2008, 24-year-old Marilyn Bergeron left her family’s home in Quebec City, Canada, saying she was just going for a walk. She never came back. Hours later, she was seen on an ATM camera in Loretteville, trying to withdraw $60, and later that afternoon, at a Café Dépôt coffee shop in Saint-Romuald. After that, Marilyn vanished without a trace.
A Talented and Curious Young Woman
Marilyn Bergeron was born on December 21, 1983, in Chicoutimi, Quebec. Her family later moved to La Haute-Saint-Charles in 1998. She was creative and curious from a young age.
At just ten, she started taking music lessons and later joined extracurricular music programs at Neufchâtel High School. Her mother, Andrée Béchard, remembered that Marilyn was “always trying to get a band together.”
Marilyn loved languages too. She spoke both French and English fluently, had learned some Spanish and was starting to study Russian. Her parents said she was open-minded and fascinated by different cultures. Though she could be a bit reckless as a teenager, she was bright and full of dreams.
After high school, Marilyn studied media arts and technology at Cégep de Jonquière, then took classes at Cégep régional de Lanaudière’s Joliette campus.
She later moved to Montreal in 2005. There, she worked as a sales assistant at Steve’s Music Store, did freelance sound editing for local TV stations and trained in finance at Industrial Alliance. She once told friends she hoped to become a flight attendant and move out west someday.
Trouble in Montreal
Things seemed to be going well for Marilyn—until early 2008. Suddenly, she started telling her family that she no longer felt safe in Montreal. Something had happened, she said, but she wouldn’t say what.
Her mother remembered Marilyn’s words clearly: “When I come home, I’ll tell you why.”
On February 10, 2008, Marilyn abruptly left her Montreal apartment on Hochelaga Street. She returned to her parents’ house in Quebec City, leaving behind most of her life. Over the next few days, she made a couple more short trips back to Montreal to get her belongings. By February 16, she had moved home for good.
But it was obvious something was deeply wrong. Her sister Nathalie recalled Marilyn crying on the phone and asking, “Is there light at the end of this tunnel?” She didn’t want to talk about what scared her, only saying she could never return to Montreal.
When her mother gently asked if it had to do with drugs, money or a relationship, Marilyn said no. Then Andrée asked, “Were you assaulted?” Marilyn said nothing—she just cried. Her mother urged her to talk to a psychologist if she couldn’t talk to her family.
The Day She Disappeared
On February 17, Marilyn said she was going out for a walk. It was her first day truly settled back home. She wore a long black coat with gray fur trim, suede boots and carried a black backpack. She left behind everything, except her credit card.
At 11 a.m., security footage showed Marilyn at a Caisse Populaire ATM in Loretteville. She tried to take out $60, but the transaction was declined. The footage shows her looking nervously behind her several times, as if she thought someone was following her.
Almost five hours later, at 4:03 p.m., she bought coffee at a Café Dépôt in Saint-Romuald—about 20 kilometers away. The clerk later said she looked sad and seemed in a hurry to leave. No one has seen her since.
The Search Begins
When Marilyn didn’t come home that night, her parents contacted the Quebec City police (SPVQ). Officers tracked her bank card to the ATM and the coffee shop. The family began searching on their own—posting flyers, contacting the media and offering a $10,000 reward.
Her parents weren’t allowed to see the ATM footage at first because police thought it would be too upsetting. When they finally saw it, her mother said Marilyn looked “helpless.”
Crime journalist Claude Poirier, who later covered the case in his Poirier Enquête series, suggested Marilyn might have been glancing at a car parked nearby. He believed she could have been watching someone outside the ATM.
Though she could have walked the distance between her home and the Café Dépôt, her family believed someone had driven her there. Police released the ATM video a year later, asking if anyone who gave Marilyn a ride that day could come forward.
Unconfirmed Sightings
For two years, there were no solid leads. Then, in 2010, a man from Hawkesbury, Ontario, told Poirier he’d seen Marilyn in town many times over the past year. He claimed she lived there with a younger man and often changed apartments. Even restaurant staff said they thought they’d seen her.
Still, nothing was confirmed.
Over the next several years, Marilyn’s family repeatedly asked the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to transfer the case to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) or the Montreal police, believing they could dig deeper into her life in Montreal. But every request was denied.
While the family said the Quebec City police had “done their best,” they were frustrated that investigators treated the case mainly as a disappearance or possible suicide. “They never wanted to consider foul play,” the family said.
New Information in 2017
By 2017, Marilyn’s parents were still fighting for answers. They hired former provincial justice minister Marc Bellemare as their lawyer.
At a press conference, Bellemare said, “There are certainly people who know things about what happened to Marilyn. What we want is to find Marilyn. That’s our goal.”
The reward was raised to $30,000, and a private tipline was opened for people afraid to contact police directly.
That same year, a friend from Marilyn’s past came forward. Jonathan Gauthier, who had known her from college, revealed chilling details. He said that in December 2007, he met up with Marilyn in Montreal.
“When I arrived, she was sitting in the dark, listening to music,” he said. “She wasn’t the same person.”
They went to a party but something there upset her. Back at her apartment, she broke down crying. Gauthier asked if she had been ra_ped or seen a mur_der. She said no—what happened was “worse” than that.
“You can’t even begin to imagine what I’ve been through, Jo,” she told him. She refused to explain, only saying she didn’t want to put him in danger.
A Late-Night Visit in 2022
In October 2022, Bellemare shared another strange account. A man from Hawkesbury said that one cold December night in 2009, around 2 a.m., a young woman knocked on his door. She was shivering, wearing just a light jacket, jeans and high heels. Crying, she asked to use their phone to call someone.
The couple gave her a towel and let her make the call but she didn’t seem to reach anyone. Then she asked for directions to a nearby street and left after thanking them.
Months later, when they saw a report about Marilyn’s disappearance, they realized the woman looked just like her—though she had blonde hair at the time. Marilyn’s family confirmed she sometimes dyed her hair blonde.
At the 2022 news conference, Marilyn’s mother said she believed that woman was her daughter. “If she has a new life and wants to be left alone, we will respect that,” she said.
More than a decade after she disappeared, Marilyn’s story still draws attention. In 2023, Russian poet Dmitry Bykov even dedicated a long poem to her memory.
Sources
https://www.ucfiles.com/Files/1045.php
https://int-missing.fandom.com/wiki/Marilyn_Bergeron
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/marilyn-bergeron-update-1.6632655
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/marilyn-bergeron-update-1.6632655
