Just before she disappeared while taking a walk in Quebec City on February 17, 2008, Marilyn Bergeron told her parents that something horrible had happened to her and she felt unsafe — but she refused to elaborate.
Quebec City Police ServiceTheories about Marilyn Bergeron’s disappearance range from suicide or foul play to her voluntarily starting a new life.
On Feb. 17, 2008, Marilyn Bergeron told her parents she was going out for a walk. Almost two decades later, she still hasn’t returned.
Bergeron, who was 24 at the time of her disappearance, had recently moved back into her parents’ home in Quebec City, Canada, after telling them that she no longer felt safe living alone. She would not elaborate further.
Police suspect that Bergeron died by suicide, but due to her unusual behavior before she vanished, her parents think foul play was involved. What’s more, there have been multiple unconfirmed sightings of Bergeron in and around Quebec over the years, raising the possibility that she may have left of her own accord to start a new life.
Whatever the case may be, the search for Marilyn Bergeron continues to this day.
Marilyn Bergeron’s Odd Behavior Before She Vanished
In late 2007, Marilyn Bergeron was a typical 24-year-old woman. She worked as a sales assistant at a music store, lived in an apartment in Montreal, and had dreams of becoming a flight attendant. But that December, something happened that changed Bergeron’s cheerful and optimistic demeanor.
Around Dec. 10, her friend Jonathan Gauthier met her at her apartment so they could go to a party together. However, he was shocked to find her sitting in the dark, looking “extremely sad.” They went out as planned, but during the party, she “became anxious,” as Le Journal de Montréal reported in 2017.
Quebec City Police ServiceMarilyn Bergeron was 24 years old when she mysteriously vanished in Quebec City.
“Arriving at her house, she burst into tears,” Gauthier said. “She was really sad and was afraid of something. She was inconsolable. She didn’t want to tell me… I asked her if she had witnessed a murder. She said, ‘No, it’s worse. Jo, you can’t even imagine what I’ve been through.’ I tried to get her to talk for three or four hours. I felt like she didn’t want to put me in danger.”
Bergeron also denied that she’d been raped, but she otherwise refused to reveal why she was so upset.
The next month, she admitted to her parents that she was afraid to live alone. Her mother questioned her, asking if she was in debt or had gotten into trouble with drugs, but Bergeron again denied both. However, when her mom asked if she’d been assaulted, Bergeron started to cry.
Then, on Feb. 10, 2008, Marilyn Bergeron left her Montreal apartment suddenly and moved back in with her mother and father in Quebec City. She returned to Montreal twice to pick up her belongings, but by Feb. 16, she was back at her parents’ house for good.
The very next morning, she vanished.
A Mysterious Disappearance And The Few Clues Left Behind
On the morning of Feb. 17, 2008, Marilyn Bergeron told her parents she was going for a walk. She left her ID at home, carrying only a credit card with her.
Around 11 a.m., an ATM camera captured Bergeron trying to withdraw $60 in cash. As her card declined, she looked over her shoulder several times before hurrying away.
Quebec City Police ServiceThe last photo of Marilyn Bergeron, taken at an ATM on the day she vanished.
Then, at 4 p.m., Bergeron bought a cup of coffee at a cafe 12 miles from her parents’ house. That was the last confirmed sighting of Marilyn Bergeron. Her parents reported her missing that evening, but the police weren’t able to find a trace of her aside from the ATM footage and her credit card statement. After purchasing the coffee, Bergeron’s card was never used again.
Despite a massive search and plenty of publicity surrounding Bergeron’s disappearance, nobody came forward with any tips. For nearly two years, Bergeron’s family and law enforcement alike assumed that the young woman was dead.
Then, in 2010, one couple’s story gave Marilyn Bergeron’s loved ones a glimpse of hope.
What Happened To Marilyn Bergeron?
In the spring of 2010, a Quebec couple happened to see a news report about Bergeron’s disappearance. They were shocked to see that she looked familiar.
Three months earlier, in December 2009, they’d been awakened in the middle of the night to a young woman knocking at their door. She was crying and asked if she could use their phone, so they’d let her inside. When nobody answered the call, the woman asked for directions and promptly left.
The couple said the woman had looked just like Marilyn Bergeron.
If she really was Bergeron, the sighting would confirm that she was still alive nearly two years after she went missing, supporting the theory that she vanished to start a new life.
Bergeron FamilyWhen Marilyn Bergeron allegedly appeared on a stranger’s doorstep in December 2009, she had blonde hair, not brown.
Over the years, various other residents have also come forward to report sightings of Bergeron. One man claimed he’d seen her frequently in Ontario, where she was living with a partner. And regular customers at a restaurant in the area said they’d seen her inside at least once. However, none of these sightings were ever confirmed, and neither the police nor Bergeron’s family has laid eyes on her since February 2008.
“If she has a new life and wants to be left alone, we will respect that,” Bergeron’s mother, Andrée Béchard, said at a 2022 news conference, as reported by the CBC at the time. “We may have lost her. But if we lost her… we need to put an end to this nightmare.”
“Since the beginning of Marilyn’s disappearance, I’ve always kept the same story,” Béchard told Le Journal de Montréal in 2017. “My daughter was scared, she experienced a tragic event, and she was unable to talk about it… A terrible secret haunted her.”
Although it’s now been more than 17 years since Marilyn Bergeron disappeared, her loved ones remain hopeful that she’s still out there somewhere. They believe that advancements in technology and new police techniques may bring an end to their nightmare one day soon — for better or for worse.
“Dead or alive,” said Béchard, “we want to know.”
After reading about the disappearance of Marilyn Bergeron, discover the story of Vasile Gorgos, the man who vanished for 30 years and returned home with no memory of where he’d been. Then, go inside the perplexing disappearance of Bobby Dunbar.
