By Canadian Press

Police tracked Quebec cold case suspect to cinema, seized drinking cup, trial hears

Jan 25, 2024 | 11:02 AM

A Quebec police officer has told a first-degree murder trial how he and his partner tracked a suspected killer to a movie theatre and secretly took his discarded soft drink cup for a DNA test.

Provincial police Sgt.-Det. Christian Royer took the stand today in the Saguenay, Que., murder trial of Marc-André Grenon, who is charged with the first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault of Guylaine Potvin in April 2000.

Royer says he was sent to Grenon’s apartment in Granby, east of Montreal, in August 2022 after the province’s forensics lab identified him as a possible person of interest in the 19-year-old’s death.

From there, Royer and his partner followed Grenon and a woman to a cinema, where the officer purchased a ticket for the seat next to Grenon’s.

Royer says he and his partner kept an eye on the cup from which Grenon was drinking, which they later seized from a garbage can outside the movie theatre.

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The Crown has said the genetic material on the cup and straws was matched to DNA found at the crime scene 22 years earlier, which led to Grenon’s 2022 arrest.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press