Winnipeg police to analyze if bones found on riverbank are human
CBC News | Posted: September 17, 2014 11:17 AM | Last Updated: September 17, 2014
Police will have boat out during river dragging to monitor search
Bones have been found on the shoreline of the Red River in Winnipeg.
At this point, it hasn't been determined if they are human. They are being analyzed by the police service's identification unit.
Police said the bones were recovered Tuesday afternoon near where Annabella Street meets the riverbank in the Point Douglas neighbourhood.
- Tina Fontaine, 15, found in bag in Red River
- Winnipeg effort to drag Red River for bodies gains momentum
The bones were found by a group combing the riverbank as part of an effort to find evidence in cases of missing aboriginal women.
"We were kind of nervous about it," said Jo Seenie, a search organizer who discovered the bones.
"We didn't want to touch anything … because we just wanted to make sure if it was something, that we just kind of back off and let the police unit take over."
Seenie said searching is important for her and others.
"This is our people, this is our women. this is something that has been ignored for too long and the issue of missing and murdered has always been at the bottom of the barrel and we need to make sure it's always on the forefront because there's a war in this country on our women and we need to make sure the voices are heard from these families."
The same group of volunteers will begin Wednesday afternoon to drag the river as part of their search, which was prompted by the discovery of Tina Fontaine's body in August.
The 15-year-old girl's body was found in a bag pulled from the river near the Alexander Docks — close to where the bones were found Tuesday.
The push to drag the river came from Bernadette Smith, who has been searching for her sister, Claudette Osborne, since she went missing in 2008.
"When Tina Fontaine was found in the river I put a post on Facebook saying that the river needs to be dragged. Kyle Kematch, who is also searching for his sister, said 'lets do it' and a community member from Ontario — Percy Ningewance —came forward said, 'I'll help with the drag. I've done it before,'" Smith said.
"From there, Percy did a timeline of when we should start, what the drag would look like, what equipment we needed. He sent a diagram [and] my husband made the dragging pole and my sister's company donated the chain.
"People came forward saying, 'I have a boat.' The community has really come together for this."
A group doing a test drag of the river on Tuesday — the same day the bones were found — pulled out dentures, Smith said.
And a Saturday test run, aimed at training the boaters, turned up a piece of a pillow case that looked like it had blood on it, she said.
"Beautiful spot spoiled"
Jordan Van Sewell, who lives nearby, said he watched police collecting the bones and taking photographs of the site Tuesday.
He said it's upsetting to think about what might have happened there.
"It's a beautiful spot, arguably the best view of the city and to think that it's been spoiled, that people are using it for nefarious purposes, it's disturbing. But I guess it's typical of the 21st century," he said.
Van Sewell said it would be heartbreaking to learn the site, up to now, could have been the final resting place for someone who met a violent end.
"[It] just seems such a tragedy that we have to do this," he said.