Chantal Rochon was a 17-year-old woman living in Blainville, Quebec, when she disappeared in June 1988. She had been living in an apartment on rue des Mésanges since February of that year and was known to rely heavily on hitchhiking to travel around the area. She was reportedly last seen near her home on June 11. When she did not return and her whereabouts remained unknown, her mother reported her missing on June 15.
The search ended tragically on June 22, 1988, when Chantal's body was
discovered in a wooded area of Blainville, approximately 500 feet from rue de la Mairie and only a few kilometres from where she had been living. Her remains were already in an advanced state of decomposition when they were found. Although June 22 is sometimes listed in summaries as the date associated with her death, available records establish it as the date her body was discovered rather than conclusively identifying it as the day she was killed.
More recent accounts examining the case have reported that Chantal had been stabbed in the back and that the wound was fatal. The circumstances surrounding where she was attacked and how she came to be in the wooded area remain unclear. The fact that she regularly hitchhiked became one avenue considered in discussions of the case, raising the possibility that she may have entered a vehicle with someone shortly before her disappearance. Other questions have concerned whether she was killed where she was found or whether her body had been moved there afterward. Publicly available information has not established either scenario as fact.
Her disappearance and murder occurred during a period when several young women and girls were killed in the greater Montreal region, leading investigators and the public to consider possible connections among some of the cases. Chantal's murder, however, has not publicly been attributed to any particular offender or conclusively linked to another homicide.
Despite the passage of decades, no person has been publicly identified by authorities as Chantal Rochon's killer. Available law-enforcement information does not report an arrest, criminal charge, trial, or conviction in connection with her murder, nor does it name an official suspect. The case remains classified as an unsolved homicide by the Sûreté du Québec, which continues to seek information that could identify the person responsible and establish what happened to Chantal between the time she was last seen and the discovery of her body.
