Manitoba

Winnipeg's Brady Road landfill reopens after police investigation

The City of Winnipeg reopened the Brady Road Landfill  Monday, one week after it was closed for a police investigation after a woman's body was found at the site. 

Site previously closed following discovery of woman's body last week

Red dresses hang on a fence next to a sign at an entry to a landfill.
Red dresses and signage that reads 'we are not trash' hang on a fence leading to Brady Road landfill in south Winnipeg on Jan. 6. The landfill recently closed again after a woman's body was discovered, and was re-opened Monday. (Alexia Bille/Radio-Canada)

The City of Winnipeg reopened the Brady Road Landfill  Monday, one week after it was closed for a police investigation after a woman's body was found at the site. 

Staff at the city's Brady Road Resource Management Facility discovered remains there last Monday afternoon, police said last week. Police said at that point they considered the circumstances around her death suspicious, but hadn't classified it as a homicide.

The 33-year-old woman was identified as Linda Beardy, a member of Lake St. Martin First Nation and a mother of four. 

Surveillance video showed Beardy climbing into a commercial garbage bin on the day her body was found. She was not seen getting out before the bin was emptied by a garbage truck and taken to the dump, Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth said at a Thursday news conference.

An autopsy later confirmed she sustained injuries consistent with what would result from being stuck inside a garbage bin as it was handled by a truck, Smyth said Thursday.

Smyth said investigators remain open to pursuing any other information that might come in from the public about Beardy's activity before she was seen getting into the bin, but "right now there is no evidence to support homicide."

"I'll sum up this way: this is a tragedy," Smyth said on Thursday. "It's garnered a lot of attention and concern across the country. And investigators and WPS personnel, they've worked around the clock to try to find some answers here."

A demonstration was held outside the police headquarters over the weekend. 

Protesters have called for further investigation into Beardy's death, as well as further searches at the site for the bodies of other missing Indigenous women.