A 15-year-old boy has been charged in the death of a 16-year-old girl, who was found slain in an open area in Easterville early Friday.
The teen boy is facing charges of second-degree murder and remains in custody, RCMP said in a news release Saturday.
RCMP were called just after 2 a.m. Friday and found the teen, police said.
Easterville is about 460 km northwest of Winnipeg, on the south shore of Cedar Lake, next to Chemawawin Cree Nation. The slaying is the third in the remote communities in less than two months.
A 14-year-old girl was slain in Chemawawin on May 13. A 19-year-old, Kingsley Lachose, is charged with second-degree murder.
He had been having an illegal relationship with the teen, court records show, and defied court orders barring him from contacting her at least twice prior to her death.
Lachose was charged with sexual interference July 22, 2023, after RCMP officers allegedly caught him sleeping in bed with the girl, then 13, when they went to arrest him at a home on unrelated warrants. Officers later witnessed the two kissing.
The charge remains before the court.
A 32-year-old woman was slain in Easterville on May 4. The victim’s cousin, a 35-year-old woman, was seriously injured. Two girls, one 13 years old and the other 14, were charged with second-degree murder.
After the May 13 killing, the First Nation put out a community notice declaring a crisis situation over violence and crime.
The notice said machetes, knives, bear spray and guns are prohibited in the community and that anyone “who causes harm with any of the weapons mentioned will be subject to banishment.”
The notice also mentioned a curfew for 18-year-old residents and another curfew for anyone 17 or younger. Anyone who refuses to shut down a known house party will be subject to removal from the home, said the May notice.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca