RIVIERE-OUELLE, Que. - To Nancy Michaud, Riviere-Ouelle was a peaceful farming community on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River where citizens never thought to lock their doors.

But townsfolk fear the tranquillity of their picturesque village has forever been broken after police found Michaud's lifeless body in the basement of an abandoned, dilapidated house a few kilometres from her home.

Police say somebody dragged Michaud, who worked as a political aide to a high-profile provincial cabinet minister, from her house in the middle of the night while her two young boys slept.

Riviere-Ouelle native Francis Proulx, 29, was charged Monday with first-degree murder in her death.

"He's a bit special," Marielle Gamache, a friend of Proulx and a local church official, said of the accused.

"We will definitely be impacted by this. It will stay in our memories for a long time.

"We see things happen elsewhere, but we never think that something similar could happen here."

Police say Proulx may face other charges, including kidnapping, confinement and robbery, when he appears in court Tuesday in Riviere-du-Loup.

Michaud, 37, was an aide to Natural Resources Minister Claude Bechard in the area about 140 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.

She was a very popular, public figure who was raised in the sleepy village, which is home to 1,200.

Gamache called her a "dynamic" woman who worked in several domains, including local television, a communications firm and the school council.

"(She) was very well known and very appreciated as well," Gamache said.

She last saw Michaud on Thursday evening at a local political function.

"I left at 5:30 and she was still there," she said. "I never thought it would be the last time I would see her."

Police say there was a violent struggle as Michaud was abducted from her two-storey home early Friday morning.

Acting on a tip from a pair of local teens, police found Michaud's body Sunday in the basement of the vacant house, which belongs to one of Proulx's aunts.

Police say a masked individual was caught on camera withdrawing money from bank accounts belonging to Michaud and her husband at a nearby automated teller shortly after she was kidnapped.

Stunned neighbours, meanwhile, are struggling to cope after the killing.

They say Michaud was a dedicated mother to her boys, aged 18 months and six years old, and a longtime community volunteer who will be sorely missed.

"She never left for two minutes without her two children," said Dominique Gagnon, who lives next door to Michaud's house.

He said it was heart-rending to watch Michaud's husband, Daniel Casgrain, try to console his crying six-year-old son as police scoured their home Friday morning, hours after her disappearance.

"It's very sad," said Gagnon, who works with Casgrain in nearby peat-moss fields.

"Why kill a woman like Nancy, the mother of a family, 37 years old, for $1,000 or $1,500?

"We will never forget this."

Another neighbour, who did not want to give his name, said Michaud could often be spotted walking with her boys through town.

"She was a fantastic person," he said. "This is a disaster."

Guy Boutin, who lives beside Proulx's apartment in the town's whitewashed presbytery, says the town will never be the same.

"Before... nobody cared, nobody locked their houses, their doors," said Boutin, who did not know Proulx.

"That's probably going to change now. People will be more afraid of strangers."

Gamache, meanwhile, said Proulx's grandmother, who raised him as a child, lives five doors from Michaud's house.

She has known Proulx since he was very young and described him as a loner.

Gamache said he was recently employed at a wood-flooring factory in Cap-St-Ignace, but has been out of work for a while.

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