Male teen dies suddenly
RCMP forensic unit probe death in Colchester County
An RCMP investigation is under way at a residence on Harmony Ridge Road in Colchester County involving the death of a 16-year-old male.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Mark Skinner told the Truro Daily News that few details are available for release at this time, including the identity of the male and whether he was a resident at 488 Harmony Ridge Rd., where the investigation is taking place.
“Every event we have in relation to a sudden death, the stance we have to take is to investigate it as a homicide until we know otherwise,” he said.
Early Monday morning officers were seen erecting a canopy behind a small, white shed at the back of the residence.
“There is a body,” one nearby resident said, although that individual and other neighbours in the immediate vicinity said they had not heard or seen anything to indicate what had happened.
Skinner said police were called to the scene shortly after 4 a.m. Monday.
Howard Pyne, who lives directly across the road at Harmony Ridge Farms, said he had no inkling of anything out of the ordinary until he got up around 5 a.m. and saw a fire truck stopped at the residence.
Approximately a kilometre down the road from the residence, an RCMP vehicle was standing by at the scene where a car with visible body damage was sitting in a marsh at the bottom of a steep embankment.
Skid marks and other identifying marks indicate that a green Chevrolet Cavalier had slid up over a metal guardrail before ending up at the bottom of the incline among tall weeds and grasses.
Skinner said he had no immediate information to connect the two incidents, nor whether anyone is being investigated or has been arrested in the matter.
Tim Johnson, chief of the Salmon River Fire Brigade, said his members were called out at approximately 3:30 a.m. in response to a single-vehicle motor accident on Harmony Ridge Road.
“We got there and there was nobody there,” Johnson said, of when his crew and later the EHS ambulance arrived at the scene. “We were waiting for the RCMP to show to see if they wanted to tow the vehicle or what they wanted to do.”
Before the police arrived, however, Johnson said he received another call related to a cardiac arrest at 488 Harmony Ridge Rd.
“I was down below at the other scene so I drove up and they had EHS on site with an RCMP officer and he told me that our services were no longer required, we could leave,” Johnson said. “I got to the doorstep and that’s as far as I was allowed to go.”
By late Monday morning, the body had been removed from the scene by the medical examiner and the road has been closed off to through traffic.