✝️ Vanessa Primeau, age 23 – January 23 2020, Montreal, Quebéc, Canada 🇨🇦💔
Vanessa was a vulnerable young woman, who struggled with mental health issues and substance use. Adopted at age 4, she was only 12 the first time she ran away.
Her teenage years were marked by more attempts, and a two-year stay in a youth centre. The help of social workers and mental health specialists, her mother says, helped the family find some stability. By adulthood however, things started falling apart. There were court orders and stays in a psychiatric ward, but there was little the family could do.
From a young age, doctors had diagnosed learning and developmental issues. As she grew older, the family was told to think of her as a 13-year-old. “She was a child in an adult’s body,” her mother says.
Before her death, Vanessa was spending about half her time living with her mother, and the other half staying in shelters or on the streets of Montreal, where she was known by the name “Petit Pied.”
Vanessa became involved in the sex trade. Some say she traded sex for money, others for drugs or a place to stay. She became entangled in abusive relationships with controlling men.
In the grips of drug addiction, her stays at home mainly consisted of sleeping, bathing and eating. The last time Vanessa returned home, she was sporting visible signs of violence: bruises and cuts across her face clearly inflicted by someone else. Her mother asked what happened, but she remained evasive.
A few days later, her mother woke her up to remind her she had a treatment scheduled at the hospital. Vanessa got ready and hurried out. She promised she was heading to the hospital and would be back. She never returned.
Vanessa was found dead in a burning garage. The garage was locked from the outside.
The case remains unsolved.