Body of Quebec girl missing since 2007 found in woods, police confirm

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"Now the mourning can begin quietly."

With those heart-wrenching words, Martin Provencher acknowledged, in a Facebook post, that his family's worst fears had proved true – his daughter was dead.

A trio of hunters discovered skeletal remains in the woods near an off-ramp of Highway 40 outside St-Maurice, Que., on Friday and, on the weekend, Sûreté du Québec provincial police confirmed that they were those of Cédrika Provencher.

The disappearance of the nine-year-old, freckled-face, gap-toothed girl on July 31, 2007, gripped Quebec for months and, in the Mauricie region, remained top of mind.

It is believed that, while out bike-riding near her Trois-Rivières home, Cédrika was approached by a man who said he had lost his dog and needed help. The girl's bike was found but she was not – until now.

At the time, police were looking for the driver of a Red Acura, who had also approached other young children offering a reward to find a black-and-white dog.

Police – who were heavily criticized for what was described as a languid initial response to Cédrika's disappearance – have always been tight-lipped about the investigation. But, privately, detectives have also hinted strongly that they have a prime suspect but insufficient evidence to make an arrest.

On Sunday, Martin Prud'homme, director-general of the SQ, said that, with the discovery of forensic evidence, the "investigation has progressed" but refused to say much more, other than "we're at a delicate stage so we have to be careful."

The police chief, who once led the investigation into Cédrika's disappearance, said he personally visited the girl's parents to offer his condolences.

To give a sense of how big the story is in Quebec, consider that on Sunday the all-news network LCN dedicated its programming exclusively to the Cédrika case, with a steady stream of interviews with retired police investigators, psychologists and other families whose children were missing or had been murdered. LCN even had its news helicopter flying over the site of the body's discovery, showing investigators poring over the scene.

A documentary, entitled simply Cédrika, is also slated for release in theatres in 2016, and the producers have hinted that it will reveal new information that could lead to the naming of a suspect. The discovery of Cédrika's body means the cold case of a missing child has now become an active murder investigation. It has also revived painful memories of other, similar cases.

Jolène Riendeau, age 10, disappeared in Montreal's Point-St-Charles neighbourhood when she went to the corner store near her home on April 12, 1999, and her remains were found buried in 2011. No one has been charged in that case but the principal suspect, a repeat sex offender, is serving a prison sentence for other assaults.

Julie Surprenant, 16, vanished after getting off a bus just 50 metres from her home on Nov. 16, 1999. A convicted sex offender, Richard Bouillon, made a death-bed confession to a nurse, saying he had murdered the teen, but the body has never been found.

Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, who became an outspoken victims' rights advocate after his daughter was murdered in 2002, expressed his sympathies to the Provencher family on Facebook.

"I am convinced that the discovery of the remains of Cédrika is only part of the answer that this family has waited for over the past seven years," he wrote.

Mr. Boisvenu also renewed his calls for Quebec to create a registry of convicted sex offenders as a way of preventing the kidnappings and murders of children.

While pleading for privacy to mourn, Mr. Provencher also thanked the public for its unwavering support over the years: "Without you, we would still be at the same point," he wrote on Facebook. "You have helped us cope with another stage in this horrible tragedy."