Three days after she was killed in front of her supermarket co-workers, Clémence Beaulieu-Patry’s friends made their way to the Montreal courthouse to see the only suspect in the case be charged with first-degree murder.

Handcuffed with his head tilted downward, 19-year-old Randy Tshilumba wore a grey long-sleeve t-shirt and faded jeans as he was led into the courtroom by correctional officers on Wednesday.

His eyes scanned the courtroom, but he sat in silence and barely reacted as he was arraigned. He was in and out within a matter of minutes, and no plea was entered.

The group of friends, who had huddled together before entering the room, shook their heads and left together in tears. They held hands and wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders as they rushed out of the courtroom.

Beaulieu-Patry, 20, was a half-hour away from finishing her shift at an east-end Maxi supermarket Sunday night when it’s alleged Tshilumba stabbed her to death.

While co-workers gathered around her on the floor, trying in vain to keep her alive, a suspect fled on foot.

Police spent the night interviewing roughly 30 people who were present, and released screenshots of a suspect taken from surveillance camera footage to the public on Monday.

They fielded more than 80 calls from Montrealers in the 48 hours that followed, and raided Tshilumba’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve apartment late Tuesday night. He did not resist the arrest, police said. Investigators spent Wednesday morning at the apartment, where they could be seen leaving with large paper bags filled with items that had been seized.

Tshilumba and Beaulieu-Patry, only a year apart in age, had gone to high school together at École secondaire Louis-Riel, but police couldn’t confirm the nature of their relationship, or if they had been in touch more recently.

During Wednesday’s brief court appearance, Crown prosecutor Sonia Lebel asked Quebec Court Judge Denis Lavergne to impose two conditions on Tshilumba while he is detained and waiting for his next court appearance.

Lavergne agreed and ordered Tshilumba, who has no previous criminal record, not to communicate with any of Beaulieu-Patry’s family. He also can’t be in touch with one other person who was named in court, though Lebel wouldn’t comment on why or what the person’s connection is to the case.

Beaulieu-Patry’s friends had welcomed the news of the arrest earlier on Wednesday morning, but were quick to point out that it doesn’t change the fact that their friend is gone.

“It helps to know that (the suspect) isn’t walking around anymore,” said close friend Gabriel-Shawan Raymond-Ponce. “But of course it doesn’t bring Clémence back.”

Raymond-Ponce, 19, described Beaulieu-Patry as someone who was always smiling, who loved life and always knew what to say when others were going through hard times. He’d known her for seven years after they met in their first year of high school.

“She would never hurt anyone, and I don’t know why anyone would have wanted to hurt her,” he said.

She had recently started studying at Collège de Maisonneuve and wanted to become a social worker, Raymond-Ponce said. The two had grown closer in the last three years after Beaulieu-Patry started dating his best friend.

Many of Beaulieu-Patry’s Facebook photos are of her and her boyfriend. The two were like a fairy-tale couple, Raymond-Ponce said, hitting it off after meeting at a party two years ago.

What he and his friends want most now, he said, is to know why it happened, why anyone would take her life.

“She was loved by everyone,” he said.

Raymond-Ponce said he last saw Beaulieu-Patry Saturday night, when their group of friends all had dinner together. She seemed absolutely fine, he said, smiling as always.

“It’s not like we got to say our goodbyes,” he said. “It’s not like she died after being sick … No one was ready for this to happen, no one was ready for her to leave us like this.

“It’s been three days that we’ve been waking up in the morning hoping that she’s going to send us a text message, that it’s not real, that she was lost somewhere and that she’s back.”

Tshilumba’s case returns to court in two weeks.

jfeith@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jessefeith