City man sought in homicide arrested in Vancouver
A suspect wanted in connection to the death of a Montreal woman found slain in Edmonton has been arrested in Vancouver.
Gregory Christopher Tessman, 49, was nabbed Tuesday evening at a homeless shelter on East Hastings Street, Edmonton police said in a news release.
He is charged with second-degree murder in the strangling of Valerie Maurice, 29, of Montreal.
Police responding to a call Aug. 31 at a home near 144 Avenue and 88A Street found her body.
Edmonton homicide Det. Bill Clark on Tuesday afternoon said Tessman rented the suite.
In 2006, Tessman was charged with sexually assaulting and threatening to kill an Edmonton escort in a Daysland motel, about 132 km southeast of Edmonton. He appeared in Killam court and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment. He was eventually sentenced to 42 months in jail for sexual assault and was handed a 10year firearms prohibition.
Project Kare, the police task force that at the time was formed to investigate the slayings and disappearances of people who led high-risk lifestyles, many of them Edmonton-area prostitutes, was notified of Tessman’s 2006 arrest.
Clark said Kare has now been notified of Tessman’s second-degree murder charge.
He added that surveillance shots released of Tessman were captured last Thursday at a nearby supermarket, the day Maurice’s body was found.
Investigators issued a Canada-wide warrant, believing Tessman may have fled to Victoria, B.C., over the weekend.
Clark commended and thanked a friend of Maurice’s who dropped her at the apartment the night she was killed for coming forward to police.
Investigators said Maurice was known to have travelled frequently between Montreal and Edmonton.
Maurice’s killing is the city’s 36th homicide of 2017, although police do not include a fatal police shooting during a traffic stop and a fatal hit and run.