Melissa Ivy Chaboyer was a 35-year-old Métis woman living in Thompson, Manitoba, when she was killed during an overnight taxi shift in the early morning of November 26, 2005. She was a single mother and foster parent who worked several jobs to support her family. One of those jobs was driving part time for North Star Cab, work she reportedly took on in part to supplement her income and provide for the children in her life.
On the night of Friday, November 25, Chaboyer began a graveyard shift behind the wheel of a white North Star taxi, cab number 302. Shortly after midnight, she was dispatched to pick up a fare at the Thompson Arena. Investigators were never able to establish publicly who placed that call or how many people were originally supposed to be picked up. A few minutes later, Chaboyer contacted her dispatcher and said she was going to stop at the Ramada-Burntwood Hotel. It remains unclear whether she actually reached the arena, whether the passengers were collected there, or whether she made the reported hotel stop.
By approximately 12:30 a.m., however, RCMP investigators believe Chaboyer had two passengers inside her cab. She drove eastbound into the parking area behind Thompson's City Centre Mall, passing a bank entrance as she entered the area. Somewhere in that parking lot, the two passengers attacked her. Chaboyer was stabbed to death and left on the ground outside her taxi. The two people believed responsible immediately ran from the scene, crossing a field east of the mall parking lot and heading in the direction of Thompson's Eastwood area.
Just before 1 a.m., another Thompson taxi driver noticed the illuminated top light of Chaboyer's cab in the area. Her body was discovered on the pavement outside the vehicle soon afterward. Investigators were left with an extremely narrow window in which the killing had occurred, but the identities of the two passengers remained unknown. Police have never publicly established exactly where the pair entered the cab or disclosed a confirmed motive for the attack. Robbery has been discussed over the years as a possible explanation because Chaboyer was working a late taxi shift and could have been carrying fare money, but RCMP have not publicly confirmed robbery as the motive.
The killing deeply affected Thompson's taxi community. Residents gathered for a memorial and vigil, and the city's taxi companies temporarily stopped service as drivers and community members mourned. The case also prompted lasting safety changes. In 2006, Thompson amended its taxi regulations so that taxicabs operating in the city were required to have cameras, a measure directly associated with the circumstances surrounding Chaboyer's murder.
Despite the belief that two passengers carried out the stabbing, investigators have never publicly identified either person. No suspect names or usable suspect sketches have been released, and no arrest, criminal charge, trial, or conviction has been publicly reported in connection with Chaboyer's killing. The investigation has passed through multiple investigators over the years, while her family has continued appealing for anyone with information to come forward. Manitoba Crime Stoppers continues to list the case as an unsolved homicide and states that RCMP are still investigating, leaving the two people who fled from the City Centre Mall area unidentified and the murder unresolved.
