An automated teller machine (ATM) security camera in Loretteville recorded her attempting to withdraw money early in the afternoon; she was last seen almost five hours after leaving home at a coffee shop in Saint-Romuald.

Her family, who has put up a reward for information leading to the resolution of the case, believes she may have instead met with foul play.

Shortly before her disappearance she had moved back to Quebec City from Montreal, where she told her parents, without being specific, that something had happened there and she no longer felt safe living on her own.

[2] Due to this, and the jurisdictional limitations of the SPVQ, the family has repeatedly petitioned the provincial Ministry of Public Security to order the case file transferred to either the Montreal police or the Sûreté du Québec, both of whom they feel could make more progress; the request has been refused.

In 2017, a friend who knew Bergeron in Montreal confirmed that she had grown increasingly fearful and reclusive there in the two months before her disappearance.

[3] Marilyn Bergeron was born in 1983[1] in Chicoutimi; the family moved to the Quebec City borough of La Haute-Saint-Charles in 1998.

[4][b] Early in 2008, Marilyn began telling her family that she no longer felt safe in Montreal and wanted to return to Quebec City.

[9] On February 10 of that year, she abruptly left her apartment on Hochelaga Street in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood of Montreal, and returned to her parents' house.

[8] Andrée Bechard confronted her daughter about what had happened in Montreal that so perturbed her that she had to return home so quickly and leave behind her life there, apparently for good.

[10] When Marilyn failed to return home by that evening, her family reported her missing to the Quebec City police, who were soon able to track her banking records to the ATM and the coffee shop.

They also began their own efforts to locate her, searching the city themselves, and printing up and distributing flyers with a picture and other information about Marilyn, including a distinctive Pegasus tattoo on her upper right breast visible when she wore low-cut tops.

[12] While it is possible that she could have walked the entire 25 kilometres (16 mi), the shortest route between her house and the Café Dépôt, her family believes it is most likely that she was driven by someone, or hitched a ride.

When police released the ATM video on the anniversary of Marilyn's disappearance a year later, they asked if anyone who might have driven her that day could remember it and come forward.

In January 2010 Poirier was contacted by a man who claimed to have seen Marilyn in Hawkesbury, Ontario, a predominantly Francophone community just over the Ottawa River from Quebec.

The former had province-wide jurisdiction and a reputation as Quebec's most capable law enforcement agency; the latter could investigate in Montreal, where they had come to believe Marilyn's friends and acquaintances from her life there might know more that might be helpful in resolving the case.

"In this case, whenever required, the Sûreté du Québec offered its full cooperation and support to the Quebec City Police Service", an MPS spokeswoman told Journal Metro.

[14] At that same news conference, the Bergerons announced that the reward for information leading to Marilyn's whereabouts had been increased to CAD$30,000.

Bellemare announced also that he was setting up a tipline for people whom he believed might have useful information but did not want to contact the police directly.

They were accompanied by a man who had had some conversations with Marilyn during her last months in Montreal that went into further detail about why she felt she had to leave that city and return home so abruptly.

Another resident had told Quebec police that one cold and rainy night in December 2009, he and his wife were awakened by a knock on their door at 2 a.m. A young woman was there, wearing only a light jacket, white T-shirt, jeans and high heels, inadequate protection from the weather.

[17] The Hawkesbury man had told Quebec police about the encounter later in 2010; this account had not been made public before the news conference.