Police say they have arrested two men, aged 18 and 20, in connection with a major building fire in Old Montreal that killed a mother and daughter last week.
A suspicious fire broke out in a three-storey, 100-year-old building on Notre-Dame Street last Friday, killing Léonar Geraudie, 43, and her seven-year-old daughter Vérane Reynaud-Geraudie, both from France.
The building housed a restaurant on the main floor and a hostel upstairs.
In an update Friday afternoon, major crimes unit Cmdr. Jean-Sébastien Caron said the 20-year-old is suspected of using an incendiary device to set the fire while the 18-year-old allegedly drove the getaway car.
Both suspects were arrested Friday, one in the Saint-Laurent borough and the other in the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough.
Police said both suspects are known to police, but it is too early to say whether they are associated with a gang.
Caron said investigators will continue working to find the person who orchestrated the fire.
“We know there’s somebody calling the shots so we want to get that person,” he said.
Both suspects are detained and Quebec’s Crown prosecutors’ office will decide what charges might be brought forward against them in the next 24 hours.
“We’ve treated this case as a murder case from the beginning, but obviously the decision will be made from the Crown prosecutor,” said Montreal police Insp. David Shane.
According to police, there were 25 people inside the building at the time of the fire. They said 23 made it out.
More than 200 officers have worked on the investigation, which is ongoing, police say.
Security footage obtained by Radio-Canada shows a hooded person wearing all-black clothing and a mask kicking in the restaurant’s side door minutes before the fire broke out.
Since the deadly fire, Radio-Canada has obtained two videos from a security camera overlooking the front of the restaurant. The first one shows a masked person breaking into the building through its main floor, minutes before the fire broke out.
Two days later, another video emerged showing a person leaving the building, with the fire burning on the main floor. The person then takes out a phone and seems to capture images of the fire before leaving the scene.
Police have declined to comment on the videos, adding they would not publicize details about the cause of the fire and search for possible suspects.
On Tuesday, Quebec’s chief coroner ordered a public inquiry into the deaths of the two victims of last week’s fire. It’s the second coroner’s inquiry into a suspicious fire at an Old Montreal building in just over a year and a half.
In March 2023, a fire in a building on Place D’Youville killed seven people. Both buildings at the heart of the inquiries are owned by Émile-Haim Benamor.
Given their similarities, Coroner Géhane Kamel, who is presiding over both inquiries, could eventually decide to combine them.
On Tuesday, police arrested three people in connection with shots fired at another building owned by Benamor in Old Montreal.