The man found dead this week northwest of St. Albert was the victim of a targeted act, say police. St.
The man found dead this week northwest of St. Albert was the victim of a targeted act, say police.
St. Albert, Morinville and Edmonton police are on the hunt for suspects this week after discovering a dead man near Township Road 540 and Rural Route 263 south of Villeneuve and north of Big Lake Tuesday.
A local resident found the adult male body and reported it to the police at about 8:26 a.m., said Cpl. Hal Turnbull of the RCMP’s K Division.
“He was off of the road,” Turnbull said of the body, but he was not sure if the body was in a ditch or forested area. (Satellite images of this area suggest it to be a farmer’s field.)
Morinville RCMP arrived and secured the scene and the body for an investigation. Edmonton’s chief medical examiner autopsied the body Wednesday and ruled the death a homicide, i.e. that the man died of man-made, not natural, causes.
Police have determined the victim’s identity and cause of death, but are holding back these and other facts as releasing them now could affect their investigation, such as by influencing a suspect, Turnbull said.
“It was targeted,” he said of the death, and it was not a random act.
“There’s no risk to the public at this time.”
K Division’s Major Crimes Unit in Edmonton is heading up the investigation, assisted by officers from the Morinville and St. Albert detachments and the Edmonton Police Service.
Police cleared the crime scene Tuesday and are not currently seeking the public’s help in this investigation, Turnbull said.
Morinville Staff Sgt. Riz Suleman said this was the first homicide that had happened in his detachment’s area since he took command of it a year and a half ago.
The Gazette’s records suggest that the last time a homicide victim was found near Villeneuve was in 2001, when a resident found the body of Edmonton woman Kelly Dawn Reilly near Rural Route 264, just off Secondary Highway 633.
