Quebec mother facing murder charges in France for son's death
A Quebec woman is facing murder charges in France, 17 years after her young son died — in Montreal.
Marie-Christine Bujold, 58, has been charged by French authorities with killing her son Jean-Patrick Géraud, who died in 2002. He was three years old.
According to the Montreal police investigation, Bujold found her son dead in his bed the morning of Nov. 8, 2002, in the neighbourhood of Lachine.
The cause of death wasn't obvious, according to a coroner's report obtained by Radio-Canada's Enquête.
But the boy hadn't been sick. The coroner's report says police officers found clues at the scene, including a wet towel beside the boy, that suggested to them he had drowned in the bathtub.
The pathologist who performed the autopsy couldn't determine a definitive cause of death. The coroner who examined the circumstances said it was "nebulous, at the least."
Montreal police investigated and closed the file because the cause of death couldn't be determined.
For more than a decade, Julien Géraud, the boy's father who is also a French citizen, tried to get French authorities to investigate his son's death. Because his son was also a French citizen, the case can be heard in France.
"[Jean-Patrick] was his first child," said Florence Rault, Géraud's lawyer.
"He fought for him and feels like he needs to keep fighting until justice is served."
Bujold was charged with murder in France three years ago. No court date has been set, and she told Radio-Canada she has never been informed of those charges.
"The case is closed. If I had been charged, it would have been in Quebec. My son died in Lachine," she said.
Dad found out 3 days later
Géraud was in Quebec on a visit when his son died. He said Bujold, his ex-partner, never told him.
The exes were locked in a custody battle at the time of the boy's death. Géraud found out his son died three days after the fact, from a court-appointed psychologist.
"'I have news, and it's bad. Jean-Patrick is dead,'" he said she told him.
"I felt the colour drain from my face."
The police report details the toxic relationship between Géraud and Bujold.
An expert assigned by the court suggested Bujold was trying to alienate the boy from his father, said Rault, his lawyer.
French experts say boy drowned
Two pathologists were assigned by the French court to look into the death, and they came to a conclusion — Jean-Patrick drowned.
They arrived at that conclusion after finding signs of asphyxiation in cells from the boy's lungs, which they determined could only have been caused by drowning. Their findings have not been tested in court.
Bujold most likely won't be at the trial when a date is set, because the extradition process hasn't started yet.
"There was already an investigation in Canada with Canadian witnesses, a Canadian police service, on Canadian soil and there was a decision to not lay charges," said criminal lawyer Rose-Mélanie Drivod.
She explained those factors could make the extradition process more difficult.
Rault, Géraud's lawyer, criticized the investigation into Jean-Patrick's death, saying the Quebec's criminal justice system didn't fully do its job.
"What was done in the country of origin was not only incomplete, but it's inexplicable because an investigation should have been conducted more seriously than it was."
