By: S.M. 

Published 05/28/20

The Unsolved Murder of Melissa Ivy Chaboyer

Murdered Saturday, November 26, 2005 in Thompson, Manitoba

Melissa Ivy Chaboyer was a 35-year-old Métis woman and single mother to her 17-year-old son, Anthony. For the last 8 to 10 years of her life, she was a loving foster mother to 20 to 30 children. She often supported the children long after they were in her care, and happily helped them with housing and other needs as if they were her own. Melissa’s greatest joy was her family, and she was close to both her parents. She especially enjoyed spending summers at the cottage. Everyone was there. They called her Lissa.

Melissa worked full time with developmentally challenged adults, and throughout the year, she worked 3 to 4 jobs at a time to supplement her income and support herself and her children. For over a decade, in the months of October and December, she worked as a part-time taxi operator for North Star Cab in Thompson, Manitoba, so that she could spend a little extra on Christmas gifts for her children.

It was a Friday night on November 25, 2005. Melissa had just finished visiting her mother when she started the graveyard shift in the most violent city in Canada.

Melissa was driving a white cab - North Star Cab number 302.

Shortly after midnight, in the early hours of Saturday, November 26, she was dispatched to a call at the Thompson Arena (C.A. Nesbitt Arena), located inside the University College of the North. The caller and number of passengers was unknown. 

Several minutes later, Melissa called her dispatch and said she was going to stop at the Ramada Hotel (now called The Burntwood Hotel)- a standard two-storey establishment at the intersection of Cree Road, with a green roof, green awnings, and a sports bar called the Regal Beagle Tavern.

The hotel was only a 1.2 km drive from the Arena.

It is still unknown if Melissa actually went to the Thompson Arena, picked up any passengers, or if she stopped at the Ramada/Burntwood Hotel. 

All we know is that by 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 26, Melissa had a fare and two people in her cab. She was travelling eastbound. She passed what was then the Vantis (now Assiniboine) Credit Union ATM vestibule at the rear entrance of the City Centre Mall, and drove into the parking lot beside the south doors of the mall.

What happened is unknown, but this is where it ended. 

Melissa Ivy Chaboyer was stabbed to death, in the frigid early morning hours, by the two passengers in her cab.

Melissa’s killers fled on foot across a field, east of the City Centre Mall parking lot, then disappeared in the direction of the Eastwood area of Thompson. 

If Melissa did in fact stop at the Arena and the Bruntwood, then the total distance to the location where she was murdered was only 2.3 km - less than a 10 minute drive.

Just before 1 a.m. another longtime Thompson cab driver, Ken Rhodes, was in the North Centre Mall parking lot, adjacent to the City Centre Mall parking lot. He noticed the glow of Melissa’s taxi top light. Soon after, her body was discovered on the pavement outside of her cab.

On the day of Melissa’s murder, hundreds of Thompson residents attended a memorial in the City Centre parking lot, and a vigil in the evening. Thompson’s three taxi companies closed from 3 p.m. until 7 a.m. the next morning. The cabs lined the lot, bumper to bumper, to give attendees a place where they could warm up. It was below freezing. A few restaurants donated coffee. 

Melissa’s family was devastated. Her friends and the entire Thompson community mourned with them.  “She was one of the gentlest drivers in the whole industry,” said North Star Taxi manager Jas Gills. “If someone didn’t have the money, she’d smile and say, ‘pay later.’ She never would have gotten into a dispute with someone.”  

As a direct result of Melissa Chaboyer’s murder, the City of Thompson amended its taxi bylaw in 2006. All taxicabs in Thompson are now required to be equipped with cameras.

There has been much speculation about the motive for her murder; it was early on a Saturday, and Melissa would have had several hundred dollars in her fare. However, the RCMP has never confirmed those suspicions – a move her father, Milton, feels is “pertinent.” 

Nearly 15 years later, Melissa’s brutal, senseless murder remains unsolved. 

Over the years, the case has changed hands at least four times; it’s now “mostly” managed by the Winnipeg RCMP, which is about 700 km south of Thompson. Her father collects tips and submits them to police, but according to a CBC interview, the family has felt “left in the dark” throughout the investigation. The Chaboyer family’s loss is a never-ending heartache, and 15 years without justice in Melissa’s murder is a long time. Still, they have hope that one day the right tip will come in. 

"We go on in life believing these things can't happen to us, but it did and it just isn't fair. A father is supposed to protect his little girl and I feel I'm failing my girl so that is why I'm asking you again please help us,” said Milton Chaboyer in a 2011 Thompson Citizen interview. "We need to put Lissa's soul to rest by closing this tragic chapter of our lives."

There is a $14,000 reward for information about Melissa Chaboyer’s murder. Her father is offering $10,000 of his own money, while Manitoba Crime Stoppers has established a reward of $4,000 cash - double its standard maximum reward of $2,000.

There are no suspect sketches available for the individuals who murdered 35-year-old Melissa Ivy Chaboyer. The killers know who they are, and chances are, others know too. It’s never too late to do the right thing.

Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477) and remain anonymous.

Any information helps. 

Sources & Links

Manitoba Crime Stoppers

CBC - Missing & Murdered: The Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls

Taxi Library

Thompson Citizen - Nov. 24, 2011

Winnipeg Sun - Feb. 27, 2012

Maclean’s - Canada's worst violent crime problem is in Thompson, Man. Nov. 19, 2019.

City Centre Mall - Location

Thompson Citizen - Jan. 2, 2020 (Photo)

Thompson Citizen - Nov. 24, 2011

Last Updated: 04/28/20