The victim has been identified as Richard Blanchet, who was not known to police.

Sunday morning, cops used a search dog to comb the forest and several gravel driveways leading to the small hobby farm north of Cantley, Que.

A police helicopter also circled the property several times, suggesting that cops were still looking for the suspect, who may have fled on foot.

Montreal-based Sgt. Ronald McInnis said fly-overs are a standard part of investigations, so police can take aerial photographs. He confirmed cops still do not have a suspect.

As they picked up bits of evidence and placed them in labelled, brown paper bags, another crime scene specialist used a metal detector around a cluster of large boulders.

Both panes of the sliding glass doors of the green-sided home were smashed.

The investigation began as a suspicious death after police responded to the call around 1:15 p.m. Saturday afternoon.

A member of the dead man's family who found the victim.

Local cops called in their provincial counterparts who sent in major crime investigators around 10 p.m. Saturday night.

By morning they knew the death was a homicide -- the region's second in as many weeks.

The property is reasonably well-kept, with several outbuildings -- a garage and a barn. There is neatly stacked firewood in front of the home as well as a fenced garden area, outdoor lighting on motion detectors and a Quebec flag atop a flagpole.

There are a few homes in the rugged, rural area, which is teeming with black flies, but no one who talked to QMI Agency claimed to know Blanchet, or had even seen him before.

One man, along with a young woman, who stopped his truck to speak with officers said he knew the victim. The pair was whisked off to a police mini-bus and interviewed.

The woman said Blanchet lived alone.

Blanchet's body has been sent to Montreal for an autopsy. The results will be ready by the end of the week.