Claude Gauthier linked to Val-d'or castor killing probe

A call in val-d'or just after 7 h on Monday sent police to 3e Avenue after a citizen found a bloodstained knife. Officers first believed a person had been stabbed downtown, but the blood trail led them several hundred meters to a residence on rue du Curé-Roy.

The person at the residence was Claude Gauthier, and police found the dead castor there. The Sûreté du Québec opened an animal-cruelty investigation, informed wildlife protection agents and had made no arrest at the time of the article.

3e Avenue and rue du Curé-Roy

Patrol officers followed the trail through downtown Val-d'Or after the 911 call raised the alarm in a busy area. The knife was left at the scene, and the trail ended at the residence where police say the castor had been brought home.

The sequence changed the case from a possible stabbing into an animal-cruelty investigation. That shift depended on what officers found at the end of the blood trail: a castor, not a human victim.

Claude Gauthier and the castor

The source says the castor was allegedly caught downtown by the resident, then slashed with a knife. It also says the animal is edible and that the occupants likely planned to cook it later in the week.

That detail leaves the inquiry centered on the handling of the animal rather than the original fear of a human assault. For people in downtown Val-d'Or, the immediate takeaway is that police have already ruled out the stabbing scene they first confronted, while the animal-cruelty investigation continues.