(Violet Heathen pictured on the left and Jeanette Chief pictured on the right. RCMP handout)
APTN National News
RCMP investigators from Alberta and Saskatchewan arrested a 59-year-old Alberta man in connection with the murder of two Indigenous women, according to a statement released Wednesday.
The RCMP statement did not release the man’s name, but did say he was arrested Tuesday evening on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the killing of Jeanette Chief, 48, and Violet Heathen, 49.
Investigators with the RCMP’s historical homicide unit in Alberta and Saskatchewan’s historical case unit were involved in tracking down the suspect, the statement said.
After she left the Onion Lake Cree Nation, Chief was last seen in Lloydminster, a municipality straddling the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, around midnight on June 2, 2007. Her body was found on June 6 that same year in a rural area outside of Lloydminster and her death was determined to be a homicide, the statement said.
Heathen’s body was found near Kitscoty, Alta., on Nov. 7, 2009. She had been last seen in Lloydminster on May 15, 2009 and was also from Onion Lake First Nation.
RCMP investigators plan to hold a press conference about the arrest on Thursday in Edmonton.
@APTNNews
