Stéphane Gauthier was a 12-year-old boy living in Montreal when he left a home in the Plateau area on December 21, 1982, intending to meet his mother and stepfather. Friends who had been with him earlier that afternoon reported being followed on the walk back toward Messier Street; one account described a brown taxi and another mentioned three people in a white van. Stéphane never reached his parents and two days later, on December 23, his body was found in an isolated field in the industrial area of Anjou, several miles from where he had last been seen.

He had been sexually assaulted and strangled; one report says his own gray turtleneck sweater was used to strangle him. His pocket money was reportedly still on him, suggesting robbery was not an apparent motive. Investigators examined possible leads including people known to the family and compared crime-scene DNA with at least one potential suspect, but no person has been charged in connection with the abduction, sexual assault, and murder. Advocates say biological evidence remains and have urged consideration of newer forensic techniques such as investigative genetic genealogy, which, as of reports through 2025, had not been used in this case.

Does anyone have memories from the Plateau or Anjou in December 1982, or information about the brown taxi or white van that could help the investigation?