Wilton Lubin

Wilton Lubin was a 12-year-old boy living in Montreal’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood in the autumn of 1984. His family knew him as a boy who, despite sometimes staying out late, always came home. They also knew he depended on medication for anemia; without his regular dose of folic acid, he was at risk of cardiac arrest. This medical need made his family certain from the beginning that he would never have intentionally run away from home for any extended period.

On the evening of Thursday, November 1, 1984, Wilton disappeared along with his 8-year-old friend, Sébastien Métivier. The two boys had gone to a hobby workshop in the basement of the Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus church at the corner of Adam Street and Desjardins Avenue. They were last seen standing outside the church together. When neither boy returned home, their frantic parents reported them missing. In the initial days and weeks, police treated the case as a runaway situation, a theory bolstered by several reported sightings of the boys at arcades, restaurants, and even selling chocolate bars in St. Eustache. The boys' families, however, never believed it, pointing to Wilton's medical condition and Sébastien's habit of always phoning his mother, no matter where he was.

The runaway theory was tragically shattered a month later. On December 2, 1984, a duck hunter discovered a body on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, near Île Charron. It was Wilton Lubin. He was still dressed in the navy blue sweatshirt, blue nylon jacket, jeans, and white running shoes he had been wearing the day he vanished. An autopsy revealed the horrific nature of his death: he had been strangled, his throat was cut, and his body had been thrown into the river. Investigators estimated he had likely been killed two to three weeks before his body was found, placing his death near the time of his disappearance.

The discovery of Wilton’s body transformed the investigation and sent a wave of panic through Montreal. Police divers searched the river and surrounding islands for any sign of Sébastien Métivier, but he was never found. The boys' disappearance was not an isolated event. On the very same day they went missing, a 4-year-old boy named Maurice Viens was lured into a car in another part of the city. His body was found six days later in an abandoned house. The police began to suspect that a serial predator was at work, eventually linking Wilton’s murder and the disappearances of Sébastien and Maurice to a string of other unsolved child murders from the 1980s and early 1990s.

Over the years, the investigation into Wilton’s murder has explored several leads without resolution. In 1984, police questioned a taxi driver who behaved strangely during interrogation, but they lacked the evidence to charge him. Another person of interest, a man with an intellectual disability, reportedly confessed in 1987, but that lead also went nowhere. The families of both Wilton and Sébastien have criticized the initial police response, believing the early classification as a runaway case cost investigators precious time. The pain for the families has been a constant presence for decades. "It’s been 29 years we are living this," Sébastien's mother, Christiane Sirois, said in a 2013 interview. "It has to stop."

As of November 2025, the murder of Wilton Lubin remains an unsolved cold case. The investigation was eventually handed over from the Montreal Police to the Sûreté du Québec’s cold case unit, which continues to examine the cluster of child murders from that era. Sébastien Métivier is still classified as a missing person, his fate officially unknown. The killer who ended Wilton’s young life has never been brought to justice, leaving a wound in the heart of a family and a city that has never fully healed.

Anyone with information about the murder of Wilton Lubin or the disappearance of Sébastien Métivier is urged to contact the Montreal Police at 514-393-1133 or the Sûreté du Québec at 514-598-4141.