The parents of young Ariel, Fredéric and Noëlla Kouakou, agreed to collaborate with the Réseau Enfants-Retour to produce a new portrait of their son disappeared 6 years ago.
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The Returning Children Network has decided to relaunch the disappearance case today by disclosing a new portrait of young Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou, who would be 16 years old today.
On March 12, 2018, a 10-year-old boy took advantage of an educational day seemingly like any other to visit a friend.
The walking distance is around ten minutes. For the first time, his mother grants him a privilege: that of leaving home to move around the neighborhood, without accompaniment. After all, her child is a pre-teen, who has all the makings of a top of the class.
However, this simple permission was transformed into a nightmare of a lifetime.
Six years to the day, the Returning Children Network is relaunching the case with a new portrait.
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The Returning Children Network offers this portrait of young Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou who would be 16 years old today.
Today is a very difficult day for Ariel's family. Six years is a very long time, shared Mélanie Aubut, general director of Réseau Enfant-Retour.
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The initiative to reveal photo aging is mainly to inform the public of the facial appearance that Ariel would have today. We hope to have clues, information that can advance the investigation.
A quote from Mélanie Aubut, general director of the Returning Children Network
The case of young Ariel was the most publicized disappearance case of the last ten years in Montreal.
At the time of the disappearance, the interim director of the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM), Martin Prud'homme, had deployed all the means at his disposal to find the young boy. An Amber Alert was triggered without even having all the criteria (such as the make of a vehicle or a license plate), in order to quickly inform the public and provide the description of the incident. child.
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The interim director of the SPVM, Martin Prud'homme had deployed all the means at his disposal to try to find young Ariel. (File photo)
Land and aerial searches, as well as in the Rivière des Prairies, were carried out over the following three weeks. received. In a quadrangle of a few kilometers, Montreal police investigators also visited around twenty people registered in the sex offender registry in order to question them.
Despite everything, the efforts yielded no results.
Pascal Robidas' report
During a press scrum, young Ariel's mother, Noëlla, for her part, launched a heartfelt cry to the general public.
I haven't slept for four days…I miss my son, she said on March 16, 2018.
Following this cry from the heart, an entire community mobilized, not only in the Ahuntsic neighborhood, but throughout Montreal. Research evenings between volunteers had been organized. The public was shocked by this disappearance.
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A vigil organized for Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou on March 16, 2018. (Archive photo)
Although surveillance cameras in residences and businesses make it possible to knowing that Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou entered the Parc des Bateliers, he was never seen leaving again. The SPVM still favors the theory of accidental drowning to explain his disappearance.
The level of the Rivière des Prairies was high, the current very strong and above all, the ice cover was fragile.
For its part, the family of the child always believed that he had been kidnapped, the child's body having never been found to confirm the theory of drowning.
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Two signs were put up at the time in the hope of finding the boy. (Archive photo)
When you don't have a definitive answer, for a parent… It's impossible to lose hope, concluded Ms. Aubut of the Returning Children Network.
