The mother of a three-year-old girl missing since Sunday from Montreal’s LaSalle borough has been arrested.
Rachel-Ella Todd, 34, appeared at the Valleyfield courthouse on Monday evening to be charged with child abandonment.
Hours after the charges were laid, several police officers were deployed to Pointe-Claire, in Montreal’s West Island, to search for three-year-old Claire Bell.
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Search crews with flashlights and police dogs canvassed the shore of the Saint Lawrence River near the Stewart Hall Cultural Centre on Lakeshore Drive before officers were sent west towards the Pointe-Claire Yacht Club.
No trace of the girl was found in either location, though the search continued into the night, according to Montreal police (SPVM).
Montreal police officers were on scene to support Quebec provincial police, which is leading the investigation.
On Tuesday morning, the girl’s mother appeared in court wearing a red shirt and a grey blanket draped over her shoulders.
Following the appearance, Crown prosecutors confirmed that more charges could follow, depending on what investigators uncover as they search for Bell, 3.
“For now, we don’t know what happened to the little girl,” said Crown prosecutor Lili Prévost-Gravel. “We have the police officers still investigating, so we want to make sure that nothing more tragic is going on.”
As a result, the Crown has opposed Todd’s release, citing the “gravity of the crime.”
She was transferred to the Leclerc jail for women in Laval before returning to court on Wednesday.
Prévost-Gravel confirmed Todd has no previous criminal history, and a request has not been made for her to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Where is she?
Bell was last seen on Sunday at 9:45 a.m. near her home on Newman Boulevard in Montreal’s LaSalle borough.
The toddler was reported missing by her mother at 3:30 p.m. in Coteau-du-Lac in the Montérégie region.
Jean-Raphaël Drolet, a spokesperson with the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), explained that the mother “came [into a store] to say that they didn’t have the child anymore, that they lost her; they didn’t know where she was.”
In response, the SQ deployed helicopters, drones and ground search crews in the hopes of finding Bell.
At 2 p.m. Monday, police confirmed they had found a dead dog on the side of Highway 30 in Vaudreuil-Dorion, west of Montreal.
Officers said the dog matched the description of a brown, long-haired chihuahua belonging to the missing toddler. As such, police have expanded their search to the Vaudreuil area.
‘This is going to get ugly,’ says mom in video
The circumstances surrounding the toddler’s disappearance remain unclear.
Injuries to the mother’s legs have led investigators to suspect she may have gone into a wooded area, according to Noovo Info.
Police say they still don’t know what Todd did for several hours leading up to her reporting her child missing.
A video published on the mother’s TikTok account on the same day she reported her daughter missing shows her holding her daughter in her arms, visibly angry.
“You try that again and this is going to get ugly,” Todd says in the video as her daughter looks into the camera.
The caption on the video says, “Have you come up against a mother with nothing to lose????”
It’s not clear who her remarks were directed at.
Collections paused
Recycling and garbage collections in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Vaudreuil-Soulanges, Saint-Lazare and Hudson have been paused to allow police to conduct their searches.
“We want to find the girl quickly,” said Drolet, adding that the search perimeter is large, complicating efforts. “We are putting many resources into finding the girl as soon as possible.”
The SQ is asking residents in LaSalle and Coteau-du-Lac to check their properties for signs of the missing girl.
The force also shared footage of the mother’s car, a grey 2007 Ford Escape with a yellow “Baby on board” sign in English hanging in the rear window and the licence plate K50 FVE, in the hopes of jogging people’s memories and aiding investigators with the timeline of events.
Bell is described as 0.90 m (3 ft) in height and 16 kg (35 lb) in weight.
She has brown hair and brown eyes. She speaks English.
She was last seen wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with a pink collar, gray pants and no shoes.
Anyone with information on Claire Bell’s whereabouts is asked to call 911 or the Sûreté du Québec’s confidential criminal information centre at 1-800-659-4264.
No Amber Alert
An Amber Alert has not been issued in this case, as the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) says it does not meet the necessary criteria of suspected abduction.
An Amber Alert is only issued when all three of the following criteria are met:
- The police have reason to believe that the missing child (someone under 18 years of age) has been abducted;
- The police have reason to believe that the physical safety or the life of the child is in serious danger;
- The police have information that may help locate the child, the suspect and/or the suspect’s vehicle.
