Mother charged with child abandonment as search for missing Quebec toddler continues
Rachel-Ella Todd, 34, appeared in court Tuesday, will return Wednesday
The mother of Claire Bell, a three-year-old girl reported missing on Sunday, will remain in detention as she awaits her next hearing at the Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., courthouse Wednesday.
Rachel-Ella Todd, who turned 34 on the eve of Claire's disappearance, was arrested and charged with child abandonment late on Monday.
Todd appeared in court via videoconference from a Vaudreuil-Dorion police station Tuesday morning. She's scheduled to make an in-person appearance Wednesday, at the request of her lawyer, Olivier Béliveau.
The charge alleges that she abandoned Claire and put her life and health in danger. If found guilty, the maximum sentence is five years in prison.
Todd has no criminal record, said Crown prosecutor Lili Prévost-Gravel, speaking to reporters outside the courtroom. She added that the Crown is objecting to Todd's release while she awaits further court proceedings. She will be transported to a women's detention centre today.
"We don't know what happened to…the little girl," said Prévost-Gravel. "For now, we have the police officers still investigating so we want to make sure that nothing more tragic is going on."
A video posted by Todd in the hours before Claire's disappearance has surfaced on TikTok. Radio-Canada has confirmed the account belongs to her.
In the short video, Todd is holding Claire and speaks into the camera saying: "You try that again and this is going to get ugly."
The caption says, "Have you come up against a mother with nothing to lose????"
CBC does not know the context in which the video was filmed. Quebec provincial police said it is not commenting on the video.
Search for Claire continues
The search for the missing toddler is still underway Tuesday with a focus on Highway 30, between Highways 20 and 40, said Sûreté du Québec (SQ) spokesperson Jean-Raphaël Drolet Tuesday afternoon. According to the charge sheet, prosecutors believe Todd abandoned Claire in the general area around Coteau-du-Lac.
Police are discouraging citizens from conducting their own searches as they might destroy tracks and confuse the SQ's efforts. They've also asked several surrounding municipalities to put a hold on garbage and yard waste recycling collection as investigators continue to search for clues, in what Drolet calls a "normal procedure for this kind of operation."
"We want to find the girl quickly, so we put many resources to find the girl as soon as possible. This is hard because we have a large area and we want to have some information from the public," he said.
Notably, investigators are asking the public to reach out if they spotted a vehicle with the licence plate K50 FVE between 9:45 a.m. ET and 3 p.m. ET Sunday. The vehicle also has a yellow "Baby on board" sticker on the top right corner of the rear windshield.
Claire was last seen at her residence near Newman Avenue in Montreal's LaSalle borough Sunday morning, around 9:45 a.m. ET. The girl is three feet tall, weighs 35 pounds and has brown eyes and brown hair.
She was last seen wearing grey pants and a long-sleeved shirt with pink around the collar, police said. She's likely barefoot, police added.
According to police, Claire was reported missing by Todd a few hours later at a store in Coteau-du-Lac, about 50 kilometres west of Montreal.
An employee of the store said the woman drove her car into the parking lot and ran into the store in a panic. CBC News is not identifying the employee because she is not authorized to speak on behalf of the store.
The employee said the woman said she'd lost her child and couldn't remember what happened. Another employee then called 911.
During her questioning by police Monday, Todd didn't seem lucid and made confused remarks which complicates the work of investigators, according to Radio-Canada's sources.
Their sources also say an analysis of Todd's phone revealed searches for children's funeral urns, as was first reported by the Journal de Montréal Tuesday.
On Monday evening, police announced they had found a dead brown Chihuahua around Highway 30 in the Vaudreuil-Dorion area.
The dog matched the description of the one thought to be with the girl when she was last seen. Police are still working to confirm that it's the same dog.
If you're affected by the details in this story, you can find mental health support resources in your province or territory.
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With files from Sarah Leavitt, Melissa François and Lauren McCallum