25-07-2025
How volunteer sleuths from Rhode Island solved the disappearances of two Quebec men
By Jesse Feith
After speaking with Robert St-Louis's daughter, Bill McIntosh's first thought was to search for her father along the eastern bank of the Mille-Îles River, near where he lived in Laval.
But as McIntosh explains, the depth there wasn't right. Most of the river's edge was only a few feet deep, far too shallow to hide the Jeep Cherokee St-Louis drove when he vanished in 1988.
Where St-Louis was known to fish across the river in Deux-Montagnes, he learned, was much different. Near a popular boat ramp, the bank drops steeply by about 70 feet.
Last weekend, McIntosh and his diving partner used sonar devices to locate St-Louis's vehicle there. They then retrieved a small U-shaped bone believed to be a mandible.
While the remains need to be officially identified, it was the second of two cold cases the small diving group from Rhode Island is believed to have solved while visiting Quebec this month.
'It's been a humbling experience,' McIntosh, 54, said this week while packing from the trip. 'We're just grateful we were able to bring two people home in your country.'
McIntosh, a hockey club owner and coach, and his partner Dan Pritchard, a former police diver from Australia, are the duo behind the non-profit Exploring with a Mission.
They began working together in 2023, sharing their search efforts on YouTube. They focus on searching waterways for missing people whose vehicles were never recovered, under the assumption that the cars are likely submerged in bodies of water.
They estimate there are up to 100,000 discarded cars in North American waters and 3,000 people reported missing along with their vehicles. So far, they have successfully located missing individuals in Australia, the U.S., and Canada.
Travelling with an RV, boat trailer and their equipment, they arrived in Quebec in early July with a list of a dozen cold cases carefully mapped out by region.
Once here, they were helped by a local non-profit, Meurtres et Disparitions Irrésolus du Québec (MDIQ). The group connected them with surviving family members and helped bridge any language barriers.
'They've done excellent work,' Stéphane Luce, who heads the MDIQ, said this week. 'And I think there are many, many other waterways that could be searched in Quebec to try to find more cars, possibly with people in them.'
The diving team's first success during its trip came on July 10 in Pierreville, a small municipality in the Mauricie region.
Yvon Guévin, a 75-year-old former town councillor, was reported missing in 2014 after leaving his home in his 1989 Jeep Cherokee, accompanied by his dog, a Miniature Pinscher named Costaud.
The team met with Guévin's family to better understand his habits and what McIntosh calls a person's 'natural circle': their usual commute from work, say, or places they were known to visit
After speaking with a local fisherman, the team learned Guévin would often take a specific drive along the St-François River. Along the route, McIntosh noticed that an intersection led to a steep embankment without a guardrail.
'It was a standard accident scenario,' he said. 'You turn six inches off the road, and you're in the river.'
The team entered the water with their sonar equipment and, within minutes, located Guévin's car. Pritchard emerged soon after with the license plate matching his missing person report.
Police later retrieved the car from the river and authorities are working to confirm the remains found inside. Guévin's family and friends watched the scene unfold, sharing fist bumps and hugs.
'They were just happy to finally have an answer after all of this time,' McIntosh said.
The team also traveled to Louiseville to conduct searches for Mélissa Blais, a 34-year-old mother missing since 2017, and to Maniwaki to look for Christine Thibault, a 63-year-old missing for 16 years.
Searches were inconclusive in both cases, but they checked every possible location the families suggested. Sometimes that alone can be comforting for families, McIntosh said.
'It gives them an answer as to where they aren't,' he said. 'They won't drive by a body of water every day and think, 'Is dad in there? Or, is my grandfather in there?''
At the site in Deux-Montagnes where they found St-Louis's car, they also located several other vehicles in the river. Police have since retrieved three and say they do not believe they are related to other disappearances or homicides.
The team's findings in such a short timeframe have raised questions about why Quebec police departments were unable to solve the cases earlier.
McIntosh noted that most police departments use older sonar equipment that may not allow them to locate vehicles as effectively. He says he gave the Sûreté du Québec one of his sonar set-ups before leaving, 'so that they have additional tools to start building on.'
After media coverage of their success in Quebec, the team received inquiries from several families across the province. They've now added a handful of other local cases to their list, and intend on returning to search for them.
'What we're trying to teach everybody is that there are vehicles everywhere in our waterways,' McIntosh said. 'And many of them hold secrets.'
