Autopsy on woman found dead in sap tank inconclusive

BIG SIX TOWNSHIP – An autopsy Monday on the body of a Quebec woman found inside a 4-foot-deep sap tank at her family’s maple syrup operation in St. Aurelie proved inconclusive.

Authorities have theorized that Claudette Cloutier, 43, of St-Joseph-de-Beauce, Quebec, was overcome by chemical fumes while cleaning the tank.

The state Medical Examiner’s Office said the autopsy yielded no immediate determination as to cause of death and that the case would be studied further.

Cloutier’s death was reported to the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department on Friday after her husband, Viateur Giroux, found her body.

Giroux told wardens that he went to work Monday while his wife remained behind at the couple’s sugar operation across the border in Maine to scrape and clean three 20-foot-wide, 4-foot-deep tanks. Giroux said his wife planned to return home later in the week.

Giroux said he went to St. Aurelie to check on Cloutier when she failed to return home Friday. He said he found his wife in the bottom of one of the sap tanks and thought at first that she was asleep. He said he climbed into the tank and discovered that she was dead.

Authorities believe Cloutier lost consciousness and died last Monday or Tuesday from the solvent vapor or from lack of oxygen in the tight quarters. The three sap tanks were close together in the same building and had straps and boards partially covering their tops.

Cloutier had been wearing a dust mask. Also in the tank was a plastic container that had disintegrated, a brush and some solvent.