In the spring of 1982, a sense of unease settled over Montreal following the discovery of a horrific crime. On April 27th, the dismembered body of 19-year-old Murielle Guay, a female CEGEP student, was found by a pedestrian in a wooded area of Mille-Îles, northwest of the city. She had been missing since April 17th, when she was last seen at the Bar América on St-Laurent Street in the company of a new male acquaintance.
The grim discovery sent shockwaves through the community, and the brutality of the crime left investigators with a deeply disturbing case to unravel. The investigation into her death would soon be linked to a pattern of violence that extended far beyond the city of Montreal.
The focus of the investigation quickly turned to an American fugitive named William Dean Christensen, who was in Montreal at the time of Murielle's disappearance and death. Christensen, a man with a history of violent and sexual crimes, had been erroneously released from a Montreal prison just two weeks prior to the discovery of Murielle's body. The same day Murielle's remains were found, the decapitated and dismembered body of another woman, 27-year-old Sylvie Trudel, was discovered in a downtown Montreal apartment. Christensen was immediately identified as a suspect in both murders, and Canadian authorities issued warrants for his arrest. However, by the time the warrants were issued, Christensen had already fled back to the United States, launching a multi-state manhunt.
While Christensen was apprehended in the United States in December 1983 and subsequently convicted and sentenced for other violent crimes, including murder and rape in Pennsylvania and Maryland, he was never brought to trial in Canada for the murders of Murielle Guay and Sylvie Trudel. Although he was charged in the mutilation deaths of the two women in Canada, those charges were apparently dropped. In August 1984, Canadian authorities reportedly closed their file on the Montreal murders, citing Christensen's life sentence in the United States. William Dean Christensen died of natural causes in prison on October 31, 1990. Despite the strong suspicion surrounding Christensen, the murder of Murielle Guay officially remains an unsolved case, a lingering cold case with the Sûreté du Québec. The narrative of her death is a chilling account of a young life cut short and a prime suspect who, despite a long history of violence and a trail of victims, was never brought to justice for this specific, brutal crime.
