Relief in Canada after arrest over stabbings

OTTAWA: Police have arrested the second and final suspect over the stabbing spree that saw 10 people killed and 18 wounded in a remote indigenous community, two days after the first suspect was found dead.

A pickup truck in a ditch surrounded by a dozen police cars pointed to a dramatic end to a four-day manhunt across the vast Prairies region.

It also offered relief to a nation distressed by one of modern Canada’s deadliest incidents of mass violence.

“Myles Sanderson was located and taken into police custody,” police said on Wednesday (local time). “There is no longer a risk to public safety relating to this investigation.”

Authorities also thanked the public for “providing pertinent information about potential sightings” of the fugitive.

An hour before Sanderson’s arrest, police issued an alert about a man armed with a knife in a stolen white Chevy Avalanche nearby, making a link to the stabbing case and urging locals to shelter in place.

Following the arrest, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said it was “relieved that Myles Sanderson is in police custody”. Now, it added, “the healing process begins”.

A massive manhunt for two brothers believed to be responsible for the killings on Sunday had spread across Canada’s west-central prairies. It focused at one point on Regina, Saskatchewan province’s capital, 300km to the south, and then back to the James Smith Cree Nation – in response to reported sightings.

On Monday the search turned up the body of 31-yearold Damien Sanderson in a grassy field in the Cree community.

Authorities said he probably had been killed by his 32year-old sibling, who remained a fugitive until his arrest near the town of Rosthern in Saskatchewan – about 100km west of where the stabbings occurred.

Myles Sanderson has a history of explosive violence that led to 59 past convictions, and is also wanted for breaching parole in May after serving part of a sentence for assault and robbery.

But with no known motive for the latest attacks, relatives of victims spoke out on Wednesday about their “nightmare” and called for answers from authorities.

Mark Arcand said the killings that claimed the lives of his sister Bonnie Burns, 48, and her son Gregory Burns, 28, were a “horrible, senseless act”. “We’re broken,” he said, describing emotions of anger and sadness. “It still feels like it’s a nightmare.”

The Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service has released the names of the deceased victims – six men and four women aged 23 to 78 years old.