Theron Morin still believes his mother's killer can be found. (Facebook/ Prince Albert Police Service)

By Nigel Maxwell

Unsolved murder

28 years later, son continues search for mother’s killer

Oct 16, 2019 | 5:14 PM

Nearly 30 years after his mom’s death, a Prince Albert man is again reaching out for help, hoping someone can help identify her killer.

Theron Morin was only 6 years old when he was told his mother, Jean Marie LaChance, would not be coming home. Her lifeless body was found Sept. 15, 1991, in a wooded area southwest of Victoria Hospital. Morin said he cannot remember his mother’s voice but has other good memories.

“Lots of walking and lots of talking. I was young so I didn’t remember a lot about her,” he said.

Police have said the file remains open and under investigation. Morin said he has been told his mother had gone to a bar at the Coronet Hotel with friends the night before she was killed.

“She was just out being 28 and I was told she left with some blond haired guy but no one in the bar knew who the guy was,” he said.

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Morin said he thinks police are trying their hardest, but added with the popularity of social media, he thought by going public his chances of getting new information may increase. Morin explained for many years he felt angry.

“It’s at the point now where it would be nice to find out for sure what had happened and who did it,” he said.

With Thanksgiving weekend just passed, and Christmas just around the corner, Morin acknowledged the traditional family holidays are never easy without his mother, but added he has learned to deal with it.

“After this long you kinda get used to it and that’s something no one should have to say,” he said. “You go day to day wondering did [police] find something and chances are it’s a no,” he said.

Chris Leader had opened her home to LaChance and the five children, when Lachance and her ex-husband had separated. Leader recalled the memory of being asked to identify her friend’s body.

“You know in the back of your head, it’s says I’m wrong, this can’t be and I’m just gonna look like such a fool when she walks through the door later today. But I wasn’t wrong,” she said.

Leader described her friend as kind, funny, and wore her heart on her sleeve. (Facebook)

Although the facts of the police investigation have not been confirmed for paNOW, Leader said she was told by investigators that LaChance had been stabbed 65 times, and was found wearing only her socks. While admitting her friend was going through a bit of a “wild” phase, Leader could not think of any reason why anyone would want to harm her.

“Police interviewed over 300 people and nobody had a bad word to say about her,” she said.

Leader also confirmed she had also heard LaChance had been seeing leave the bar at the Coronet Hotel with a stranger. She claimed police told her the man was from overseas, and police had said they’d have to go all the way over there and look for him, which would be very costly.

“If they found him he could stand on the front step and say ‘yeah I did it’ and they’d have to apply for extradition, and anything he said before he stepped on Canadian soil would be inadmissable,” she explained

After LaChance’s passing. Leader raised the five children like her own. She said the hardest thing she has ever had to do was tell them their mother was not coming back.

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell