Body of missing 3rd teen from Hutterite community recovered

The body of a third teenage girl has been recovered after a group of people from a Hutterite colony were swimming and canoeing on the swollen St. Mary River in southern Alberta last week.

Two teenage girls drowned June 10 and efforts were underway to find the third teen. RCMP said the body of the third girl was recovered today around 3 p.m. in the river.

"Our thoughts are with the family, friends and community members during this difficult time," said RCMP Sgt. Kevin Wright in a release. "I would like to thank everyone involved for their tireless efforts over the past week during this tragic time."

The teens were all from the Spring Valley Hutterite Colony of about 100 people.

'Lovely, hardworking, compassionate sweethearts'

Shauna Keeler, an educational assistant with the Westwinds School Division, has taught with the colony for 13 years.

She spoke with the Calgary Eyeopener Friday, while the third teen was still missing.

"[The colony is] absolutely devastated and it's particularly poignant to them that [the third girl] has not been found," Keeler said.

Keeler choked up when describing what the lost teens were like, saying it was hard because they almost seemed like her own daughters.

"They were lovely, hardworking, compassionate sweethearts. They meant a great deal to the colony and to their parents and to those of us at the school," she said.

At the time, CBC News learned that a group of older teens, including four boys and around six to seven girls, were canoeing on the river as they often did in the Spring Coulee area southwest of Lethbridge. It appeared as though the strength of the swollen river caught them off-guard.

One of the girls was located and pronounced dead at the scene while the two others were swept down river. Lethbridge Search and Rescue worked through the evening to find the two missing girls.

On June 11, at about 6:30 a.m., a second teen was located and pronounced dead, and the search for the third girl continued throughout the past week.

Karl Peterson, chair of Alberta Colony Educators, told CBC News at the time that the colony's deep faith would likely carry them through an incredibly difficult period.

"I've been through this before with deaths on colonies, and if you talk to the parents, they'll tell you straight up that, 'I believe heaven just got another angel today,'" he said.