Provincial police have arrested a suspect after a woman and a child were found dead in a car on a Quebec highway.
The two deaths are being treated as a double homicide.
Police spokesman Richard Gagne says a man in his 30s was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon in the village of Ste-Florence in the Lower St. Lawrence region. The suspect was arrested in the town, which is about 12 kilometres north of Routhierville, where the two bodies were found Monday evening.
"He will be questioned and then we'll see what Crown prosecutors will decide," Mr. Gagne said.
Police were called to the crime scene after receiving a report about an abandoned car. "When they arrived, police discovered the lifeless body of a woman inside the vehicle," Sergeant Claude Denis said in an earlier interview.
Sgt. Denis said investigators from the major crimes unit were called in and discovered the second body; the second victim is believed to be under the age of 10. Sgt. Denis did not provide any additional information and would not say if the two people were related.
An autopsy will be performed on the two bodies, and police say they will release further details after the victims have been formally identified.
Sgt. Denis added that the vehicle was reported stolen earlier on Monday, just north of Montreal. "We can confirm the vehicle, a 1994 blue Dodge Shadow, was stolen in Laval and the driver drove to the Gaspe region," he said.
Later in the day, it was involved in a hit-and-run just north of Routhierville. That accident occurred less than an hour before the two bodies were discovered.