No comfort

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Michael Michener's body was found floating in the Lachine Canal on May 8, but his mother, Lorna Mariott, only found out on July 4. Since then she's been unable to find out what happened to her son--or even see his body.

Michener's neighbours told Mariott that someone placed a 911 call when the 36-year-old schizophrenic was shouting and banging doors in his apartment building. But police have no record of a 911 call, and refuse to say if he was ever pursued or taken into custody that night or afterwards, due to confidentiality constraints.

Mariott was denied permission to see her son's body after it was recovered from the canal. According to Maurice Bélanger of the Montreal Morgue, "We had a positive identification of Michael, and we are not equipped to deal with people who get sick and panic when they see and smell a corpse like this,". Bélanger adds that it will take six to seven months before the investigation is complete. The death is classfied as a "possible drowning."

"I was not permitted to see the body. How do I know what happened to him?" says Mariott. "I need to see him. They think he's a nobody, but he had a family." : --Noemi Lopinto

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