In the spring of 1984, William Neyra was building a new life far from his native home. A 30-year-old man, he had immigrated to Canada from Peru less than two years earlier, arriving in June 1982. He settled in the vibrant, sprawling city of Montreal, Quebec. At the time of his death, Neyra was unemployed, his future an unwritten page. Little is publicly known about his personal life, his family, or the dreams that brought him to a new country, but his journey ended in a violent, unsolved crime that has puzzled investigators for decades.
The last time anyone is known to have seen William Neyra was on April 7, 1984. His vehicle was spotted in front of his residence in Montreal, a detail that offered a final, mundane anchor to his life before he vanished. For two weeks, his absence was not officially noted. On Saturday, April 21, 1984, a missing person report was finally filed with the Montreal police, transforming his disappearance into an official inquiry.
The very next day, the investigation took a grim and definitive turn.
On Sunday, April 22, 1984, Neyra’s body was discovered many miles from his home. He was found along the banks of the Rivière Richelieu in the community of Saint-Mathias-sur-Richelieu, a municipality on the Chambly Basin known for its quiet, scenic landscape. The pastoral setting stood in stark contrast to the violence of the discovery. Investigators from the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force, were called to the scene. They quickly determined that Neyra was the victim of a homicide. Police believe his killer or killers transported him to the riverside location after his death, using the tranquil waterway as a place to dispose of his body.
The investigation into William Neyra's murder was launched in an era that predated modern forensic technologies like widespread DNA databasing, making cases with little initial evidence incredibly difficult to solve. The 1980s were a challenging time for law enforcement in the Montreal area, with several high-profile and complex homicide investigations occupying resources. Despite the efforts of detectives, Neyra’s case yielded no arrests and few public leads. Over the years, the file was passed to the Sûreté du Québec’s cold case unit, a specialized division dedicated to re-examining unsolved crimes.
Without witnesses stepping forward or new evidence emerging, the case has remained frozen in time. There have been no public statements from family or friends, and no memorials or vigils have been reported in the media, leaving Neyra a quiet victim in the public record. His story is one of displacement and unanswered questions: who did he encounter in his final days, and why was his life cut short so brutally?
As of May 2026, William Neyra's homicide remains an open and active investigation. Decades have passed, but authorities have not given up hope that someone, somewhere, holds the key to resolving the case. The Sûreté du Québec's Centrale de l’information criminelle continues to ask for the public's help, believing that even a small, seemingly insignificant detail could be the missing piece of the puzzle. Anyone with information that could help solve this crime is urged to communicate it to the authorities at 1-800-659-4264.
