A mysterious homicide in Laval has police trying to figure out how a 32-year-old woman was shot to death without anyone hearing it and where the killer hid to attack her.

The woman was found dead in her bullet-riddled car on Sunday morning. Her husband found her body a little after 10:20 a.m. in the garage of their home in the city's Chomedey neighbourhood.

She had been shot multiple times, and there were even bullet marks on the walls of the garage.

The husband was home when the shooting happened — but he told police he heard nothing. Neighbours said the same.

"Nobody, even the closest neighbours, nobody heard gunshots at all," Laval police Const. Nathalie Lorrain said.

Sherrill Castelli, who lives near the crime scene, said she did hear a voice, however.

"There was a scream and then it stopped — and then it started up again. And I said, 'Oh, something's very wrong,' " Castelli recalled. "It still has to sink in. It's such a horrible situation."

Const. Lorrain said those kinds of witness statements have led police to a preliminary conclusion: "The shooter had probably a silencer on his weapon," she said.

Husband possibly the target, police say

Investigators are also trying to determine where exactly the assailant was hiding.

"The probabilities are more that he was outside. Once the car arrived and parked in the garage, probably he came out of the bushes and just shot in the direction of the car," Lorrain said.

Detectives think the killer was after someone else and are looking into the possibility the husband was the intended target. But they said it's unlikely the shooting is linked to organized crime.