Teen’s suspicious death probed
Victim found in family home
Police are investigating the suspicious death of a teenager in a north-side home.
Homicide and forensic investigators were called to the Sifton Park Ravine townhouse complex near 132nd Avenue and 47th Street, where a young man was found dead inside early Friday.
Police received the initial call a little before 6 a.m.
Other people were inside the home when officers arrived.
One woman arrived at the townhouse around 8 a.m. visibly distraught, weeping and holding her heart.
On the townhouse’s back landing stood a child’s green lawn chair and an old brown couch.
A black dog named Yoko, who neighbours said was a stray adopted by the victim’s family, ran around the backyard.
Relatives and friends said the home is occupied by a Sudanese-Canadian family, with a mother and three children. The dead person was the middle child.
An older and younger sister also live at home.
Abuk Mawein said she picked up the boy’s mother early in the morning to go to work at a packing plant.
When the mother got a call from her distraught daughter, Mawein drove her home and went into the townhouse.
Mawein said she went down into the basement and saw the young man, identified by neighbours as a 17-year-old, lying on the floor.
Mawein said the boy’s sister found him when she was doing laundry in the morning before school. The sister also saw a gun on the ground, Mawein said.
Mawein said the mother had heard something strange about 1 a.m. “Wow, like yelling,” Mawein said.
The mother got up to find the back door open. She checked the backyard and saw nothing, and since her son’s bedroom was empty, she thought her son had gone out, Mawein said. The boy’s mom shut the door and returned to bed.
Mary Albino, who is originally from south Sudan and lives in one of the complex’s other townhouse units, said she got a call from the boy’s crying mother.
“She said, ‘Maybe someone shot him,’ ” Albino said. “Of course, he’s like my son.”
Albino said she didn’t know if the boy was working or still in high school. “I didn’t really see him fight with anybody. He’s a nice boy. That’s lady’s kid is a really nice kid.”
Neighbours across the street, Eleanor Norquay and son Les, said the boy was always happy and visited them all the time, including Thursday evening before he went for a jog with Yoko.
They said he loved playing football and helping them with their computer. He would also occasionally help a different neighbour with roofing jobs.
“He was always a happy guy,” Eleanor said.
Albino and her husband, Albino Celestino, said they no longer feel safe in the area.
They said someone broke into their unit at 4 a.m. one day in February, not to steal anything but to fight.
Celestino hurt his left wrist and back during the tussle with two intruders down the stairs and hasn’t been back to work since.
“I don’t really feel safe,” Celestino said.
“When something like that (death) happens, it’s really sad,” Albino said.
If the boy’s death is determined to be a homicide, it would be Edmonton’s 23rd of the year.
An autopsy has not yet been scheduled, police said.