The motorist accused of fatally hitting another driver on Highway 15 and fleeing allegedly tried to disguise the vehicle borrowed from her mother and actively sought by the police.
Stéphane Taillon, 53, was fatally struck by a gray Hyundai Accent on September 15, 2022 after an exchange of sudden overtaking with the latter. However, the car never stopped after the impact.
Numerous surveillance cameras were viewed in the following days in order to trace the offending vehicle. Images had even been broadcast in the media.
The sought-after automobile had a few distinctive signs: damage to the rear bumper, six-spoke hubcaps on the wheels and rust on the rear passenger side fender.
Four days after the hit-and-run, Laval Police Department detective sergeant Maxime Dumouchel was able to get his hands on surveillance videos from a building in Montreal, where it was possible to observe the Hyundai Accent waiting for a red light shortly before the collision, he testified at the jury trial of Alexandra Gagné-Faucher.
Alexandra Gagner Faucher, accused of involuntary manslaughter and hit-and-run, at the Laval courthouse.
Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montréal / Agence QMI
The police officer then managed to decipher a few letters on the license plate and was able to find matches with vehicles corresponding to the one sought.
The owner of one of these Hyundai Accents particularly piqued the curiosity of the police. The mother of the accused, Nancy Gagné, confirmed that this vehicle belonged to her.
SD Dumouchel therefore went to his residence in the Rosemont district of Montreal and saw the vehicle parked on the side of the street.
However, the vehicle did not have hubcaps.
“But there were six traces of rust, like the imprint of a wheel cap. It really caught my attention,” he testified Friday morning at the jury trial of Alexandra Gagné-Faucher.
Detective Sergeant Maxime Dumouchel noticed traces of rust in the shape of a hubcap on the wheel of the Hyundai Accent.
Photo submitted as evidence
And if the bumper was not damaged, almost new stickers had been stuck where the damage was, noted Maxime Dumouchel.
“What a coincidence!” he said, specifying that cracks could be detected.
He finally saw rust in the same place as on the car observed by the surveillance cameras.
So he and his partner wrote a telesearch warrant for the vehicle in question.
Repairs
The mother of the accused, Nancy Gagné, confirmed to the jury that her daughter had come to bring her the vehicle the day after the collision in a different state from that in which she would have borrowed it.
“She had seen on the internet that you could remove the bumps with hot water,” she explained.
Her daughter also allegedly told her that she broke a hubcap, which is why she bought her new ones.
Then, Mme Gagné saw a report broadcasting photos of the vehicle sought, which “looked a lot like” his own. She therefore filmed the sequence and sent it to Alexandra Gagné-Faucher.
“She told me I was crazy and it wasn’t her,” said M.me Won.
The accused was finally arrested the day after the discovery of the vehicle by SD Dumouchel, five days after the collision.
His trial at the Laval courthouse for manslaughter and fatal hit-and-run is scheduled for a few weeks.
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