Missing Quebec girl, 3, found safe after bizarre disappearance that led to charge against mother

The Father’s Day disappearance of three-year-old Claire Bell was bizarre from the start, and as the frantic search for the missing Montreal girl stretched into its fourth day the escalating strangeness of the case was pointing to a dark ending. But then came joyful news. Claire had been found alive. The missing girl was found by police in eastern Ontario, about 150 kilometres from her home in Montreal, on Wednesday afternoon. She was found in the St-Albert region after a strange and shifting investigation and large, intensive ground and air search. As the news broke, some signs pointed to a parental dispute, perhaps designed to coincide with Father’s Day or perhaps fuelled by other concerns and desperation. The case had galvanized the public. Claire’s mother was already under arrest. There was a dead dog and a mysterious witness described as a farm woman wearing an apron, the Montreal Gazette reported . Hundreds of police and specialized civilians were scouring woods and highway ditches over a huge area, all while a flurry of dramatic social media posts preceding the disappearance showed the erratic mother variously upset, sad and angry . It was Sunday morning, Father’s Day, around 9:45, when Claire was last seen in Montreal, with her mother in the LaSalle borough, where they reside. Something distressing happened at some point in the next few hours. News that tiny Claire was missing was revealed about six hours later when her mother, Rachel Todd, 34, stopped her SUV at a roadside fireworks and souvenir store about 55 kilometres west of where Claire was last seen. Police said she told an employee she had lost her child and didn’t know where she was. An employee told CBC the woman ran into the store in a panic and said she couldn’t remember what happened. The mother’s 3:30 p.m. statement at the store on St-Emmanuel Rd. in Coteau-du-Lac triggered a police investigation that quickly grew to a large search growing incrementally in scope and seriousness. Five hours later, the Sûreté du Québec, the province’s provincial police force, issued a public alert announcing Claire was missing. Police included a photo of the girl, with her brown curly hair, kneeling outdoors while drawing on an easel, a coloured marker gripped in each of her hands. She is described as three feet tall, wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with a red collar, grey pants and no shoes. “Loved ones,” the release said in French, “have reason to fear for her health and safety.” “Our specialist teams are currently deployed across various sectors to carry out intensive research,” the police added on X two hours later.  “All necessary resources are being mobilized to find the child as quickly as possible.”

#disparition de Claire Bell 3 ans, de LaSalle, vue pour la dernière fois hier vers 11h00 dans le secteur du boul. Newman, LaSalle. Nous ignorons où elle pourrait se trouver. *Il n'y pas d'Alerte Amber car les critères ne sont pas rencontrés*https://t.co/SAlW8E2x5C pic.twitter.com/v0hICDXm2p— Sûreté du Québec (@sureteduquebec) June 16, 2025

The search for Claire continued for days, stretching from an apartment in Montreal, believed to be where Todd lived, west through rural terrain and highways and into Ontario. On Monday afternoon, the search took a darker tone when a dog matching the description of Claire’s pet, Hazel, a Chihuahua, was found dead in a Montreal suburb near Highway 30, which is a direct route between Montreal and the fireworks shop. The cause of the dog’s death has not been released. Police asked the public for information from anyone who might have seen a grey 2007 Ford Escape with licence plate number K5O FVE on Sunday. The vehicle has a yellow “baby on board” sticker on the rear windshield. Hours before Claire’s disappearance, she appeared with her mother in an alarming selfie video posted online on TikTok. Speaking English, through gritted teeth, staring intently into the camera and holding Claire tight to her chest, Todd spoke one line: “You try that again, and this is going to get ugly.” The video has text overtop saying “I know more than you think” and underneath, it is captioned: “Have you come up against a mother with nothing to lose????” followed by five hashtags: #motherhood #threat #energywork #narcissist #magic. The context of the video is not known, and police did not comment on it, but the social media account where it is posted has been reported to investigators. The video, like many others on her TikTok feed, are now accompanied by comments from viewers about the case, including “Where is Claire?” “Where’s your daughter?” “Dieu voit tout” (God sees everything), and “Dit aux policiers où se trouve ta fill” (Tell the police where your daughter is). Many commenters speculated on what might have happened, little of it pleasant. Older videos on the same account include Todd discussing personal struggles. One video, posted a week ago, has text over top that asks “Does anyone know where trauma meets reality?” In it, she says: “After a year and a half of survival mode, six months of investigation, and an entire life burnt to the ground, my nervous system can finally feel safe with just existing, again, so that’s a relief. I’m a little disappointed I wasn’t able to manifest more clarity as to why an environment that felt so safe to me for my entire adult life suddenly became a threat. But it’s a relief to know that I’m not entirely nuts, so, baby steps.“ Police were concerned with what they learned. The Journal de Montréal reported Todd did not take her cell phone with her when she left, meaning police could not use it to backtrace her movements. She also allegedly left her apartment through an emergency door which was not covered by a surveillance camera. Late on Monday, Todd had a lengthy interview with police and was arrested and charged with child abandonment. The allegations do not accuse her of purposely harming Claire but allege she abandoned the child, which put her health in danger. On Tuesday she appeared in court through a video link from a police station where she was being held. The hearing was short. The Crown opposed her release because of the seriousness of the charge and the unresolved search for Claire. Todd wore a red shirt with a grey blanket over her shoulder. She said little but nodded as the judge explained the proceedings and what was to follow. “For now, we don’t know what happened to the little girl, for now we have the police officers still investigating,” Crown prosecutor Lili Prévost-Gravel told reporters afterwards. “So, we want to make sure nothing more tragic is going on.” Todd has no prior criminal convictions. A police search of her cell phone, according to Journal de Montréal, suggested someone used it to search for children’s urns and funeral arrangements. It was heartbreaking news. Todd recently worked in the restaurant industry. Colleagues at a restaurant she worked for said she left about two weeks ago but declined to say why. Family and friends said police have asked them not to talk publicly about the case. “We just want her home,” a family friend told Postmedia when asked about Claire. Claire’s father, Matthew Bell, had not spoken publicly about the case but was posting online messages asking for the public’s help in finding Claire. He is described as a 35-year-old professional chef, suggesting he and Todd might have met through their involvement in the food industry. According to Bell’s Facebook profile, the two were engaged in 2021, although recent TikTok posts by Todd suggest they might have since separated. That, along with the apparent vitriol in Todd’s videos helped fuel speculation over a parental feud. One message Bell posted said: “Claire is still missing. Three years old. Very timid and quiet. Any and all information is needed.” On Wednesday, provincial police gave a glimpse into something they say took place in the six-hour gap between Claire being seen at her apartment and her mother’s report that she was missing, but rather than solving mysteries it creates new ones. Investigators said they were looking for a woman described as an important witness in the disappearance. Police wanted to speak to a woman who lives on a farm either in the Montérégie region or in Ontario who speaks English and French and was wearing an apron with the word “Abondance” on it, which is the French word for abundance. Officers said the woman met the missing girl’s mother on Sunday prior to the mother reporting Claire missing. That offered hope, with an idea that perhaps the mother passed Claire to her before reporting her missing. Perhaps she was hiding Claire. Late Wednesday afternoon came an enormous development: Police said that Claire was seen alive with her mother in eastern Ontario before she was reported missing. Sgt. Eloise Cossette said Claire was spotted around 2 p.m. in the region around Casselman and St-Albert municipalities in Ontario, which is about 100 kilometres — an hour’s drive — from the fireworks store. The timing of the sighting would have given Todd time to backtrack to the fireworks store to make her report. That shifted police attention. Sure enough, the police announced Claire had been found alive. She was discovered by drones near Highway 417 by Ontario Provincial Police at 3:06 p.m. “It is the best scenario we could have imagined,” Cossette told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “She’s been found, she’s alive, she is conscious.” The OPP said she is being examined by medical personnel as a precaution. The girl’s father posted a message on Instagram following the news. He wrote: “Thank you everyone. Please allow me and my family to take this time for with our girl.” National Post with reporting by Harry North and Kalina Laframboise, Montreal Gazette   Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.