ARREST IN KILLING
Homeless man held
Ottawa police have arrested a homeless man who is believed to have known his alleged victim in the fatal daytime attack against Christian Science librarian Elisabeth Salm.
Tyler Hikoalok was arrested by police Sunday afternoon. He was expected to appear in court Monday where he will be formally charged with murder for the brutal slaying and sexual assault that put the downtown core and community on edge just days ago.
Salm, 59, a librarian at the Christian Science Reading Room, was found bloodied, beaten unconscious and half-naked inside the office of the drop-in space at 141C Laurier Ave. W., near Elgin Street, around 12:30 p.m. Thursday.
Salm was taken to hospital and kept on life support before succumbing to her injuries Friday. It was the city ’s 13th homicide of the year.
Police believe Salm likely arrived at the reading room sometime before 10 a.m. on Thursday morning — the reading room’s opening hours are listed online as being from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
She was found by a co-worker around 12:30 p.m. Detectives had appealed to the public for any information on anyone who might have interacted with Salm during this time or in the hours and days before.
Hikoalok, from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, is a member of the hip-hop collective Tr1be Music, which runs a studio program to “to help Indigenous artists break into the music industry.”
The group participated in a tour of Ottawa-Carleton District School Board schools in April, where Hikoalok went into area schools speaking to students and performing.
He raps as "Ty Millz”. According to the group’s website, the Inuit man was put into foster care and taken from his community at the age of nine.
Salm had been a librarian at the centre since 2011, a job where volunteers are typically alone and people from all walks of life can drop in.
Hennie Buckshi, the clerk at the First Church of Christ, Scientist on Metcalfe Street, which operates the reading room, told this newspaper that Salm, her longtime friend, was “the sweetest.”
“She’s just always so loving, just looking at everyone in a very helpful way. There couldn’t be anybody better than that."
Salm grew up in Ottawa, attending Merivale High School before she studied geology at Carleton University. In recent years she sang as a soprano in the Ottawa Brahms Choir and updated its website, but filled much of her time in the reading space, where Christian scientists are ready and willing to discuss their faith. She is survived by her husband, siblings, extended family and the Christian Scientist community in Ottawa.
Just hours before Hikoalok’s arrest, Sunday service at the First Church of Christ, Scientist was marked by the congregation for the first time since learning of the violent attack against the beloved member. At the Metcalfe Street church, blocks away from the crime scene, members openly wept during Sunday’s sermon.
Readings were led by two women elected by the church who paid tribute to Salm through scripture. They told of visiting “Sister Elisabeth” in hospital Thursday as she clung to life.
“Her breathing increased during this reading. She would have heard this lesson and it resonated with her,” they said of Bible passage John 8:12: “I am the light of the world.”
“She knows she was, and is, a child of the light, and not of the darkness at all,” they said.
After the sermon, fellow parishioners, still visibly upset, asked for privacy.