FREDERIC SERRE
The 1019 Report

Rachel Todd, the 34-year-old mother of a missing 3-year-old who continued yesterday to be the subject of a massive police search in the Coteau du Lac area, appeared before a Quebec Court judge in Valleyfield yesterday where she was charged with one count of child abandonment.

The charge came as suspicion about Todd’s involvement in the child’s disappearance grew in the wake of a disturbing TikTok video she posted on Sunday, the day Todd’s daughter, Claire Bell, disappeared. In the video, where Todd appears holding her child, while angrily telling the camera: “Have you ever come up against a mother with nothing to lose? You try that again, and this is going to get ugly.”

Todd, who is separated from Claire’s father, Matthew Bell, has been held in police custody since Sunday afternoon, when she drove her Ford Escape SUV from her home in LaSalle to the fireworks outlet off Highway 20 in Coteau du Lac and asked an employee to call police, saying she had lost her child and didn’t know where she was. The Sûreté du Québec was immediately called to the scene at about 3:30 p.m., more than five hours after Claire was last seen in LaSalle, where they seized Todd’s vehicle and held her for questioning.

The SQ launched a massive 24-hour search stretching from LaSalle to the entire Vaudreuil-Dorion region, and as far as Lancaster, Ont. The search led two SQ officers to a ditch off Highway 30 near Highway 20 in Vaudreuil-Dorion on Monday afternoon, where they located a dead dog believed to be Todd’s. According to the SQ, the search was then focused on the area where the dog was found.

The SQ issued regular updates on the status of their search throughout the day yesterday, which involved air and ground units, with police even asking local municipalities to delay recycling pickups while the search for Bell continues.