Anthony Collin Williams

The last time anyone is known to have seen Anthony Collin Williams alive, he was at Bar Le Starter in the Montreal borough of LaSalle, Quebec. It was around midnight on the evening of February 20, 2011. What happened in the hours after he left the bar remains a mystery, but it ended in a brutal homicide more than 150 kilometers away from where the 38-year-old man was last seen. His case has been marked by a tragic discovery and a long, frustrating delay in simply giving him his name back.

The following day, February 21, 2011, a horrific discovery was made in the Mauricie region of Quebec. On the edge of a forest along Route 155 in the small, rural municipality of Grandes Piles, north of Trois-Rivières, a body was found. Police would later reveal the victim had been killed and the body was found burning. The remains bore marks of violence, but the identity of the male victim was unknown. The location was a remote, wooded area, far from the bustling city where Williams had spent his last known hours.

Unaware of the grim finding in Grandes Piles, Anthony’s mother grew increasingly worried when she could not contact her son. On February 24, 2011, three days after the unidentified body was located, she officially reported him missing to the police. For two full years, the Williams family lived with the uncertainty of a missing loved one, while provincial police investigators worked to identify the man found along the highway. The two separate cases—a missing person from the Montreal area and an unidentified homicide victim from Mauricie—were not immediately connected.

The breakthrough came in February 2013, two years after Anthony's disappearance. The Sûreté du Québec (SQ), the provincial police force handling the homicide investigation, announced they had finally identified the victim as Anthony Collin Williams. The identification was made possible through DNA evidence after his profile was added to a police data bank. An SQ spokesperson noted at the time that such delays can happen, as DNA samples are not always immediately taken or entered for every missing person report. Police also stated that Williams, who was a resident of Châteauguay, was not known to have a criminal record.

With the victim finally identified, the focus of the Sûreté du Québec's investigation shifted entirely to finding his killer or killers. The central questions remain unanswered: why was Anthony Williams targeted, and how did he get from a bar in LaSalle to a remote roadside in Grandes Piles? Investigators have not publicly released a cause of death, other than to say it was a homicide and there were signs of violence. They have also not named any suspects or persons of interest in the case.

Years have passed, but the investigation into the murder of Anthony Collin Williams remains open. As of May 2026, his case was featured in a gallery of unsolved Montreal-area cold cases, a stark reminder that his family is still waiting for justice. The Sûreté du Québec continues to ask for the public’s help and believes that someone may hold the key piece of information that could solve the crime. Anyone with information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is urged to contact the Centrale de l’information criminelle of the Sûreté du Québec at their confidential tip line: 1-800-659-4264.