Winnipeg man arrested in kidnapping of mother, child
Woman had stopped car to help stranger
WINNIPEG • A suspect police had been seeking in an alleged kidnapping of a Manitoba woman and her twoyear-old daughter has been arrested.
RCMP say Michael Stephen Klimchuk, 62, of Winnipeg was safely arrested Sunday morning by the Winnipeg Police Service and is now in the custody of RCMP in Portage la Prairie.
Mounties said the woman was driving with her child near Portage la Prairie late Friday afternoon when she stopped to help a stranger who was allegedly pretending to need help on the side of a road, but she was then ordered to drive to Winnipeg.
Cpl. Julie Courchaine told a news conference on Saturday that police were in the process of issuing an Amber Alert when the woman called to say the suspect had fled the vehicle and she and her daughter were safe in Winnipeg's Polo Park neighbourhood.
Courchaine said neither the woman nor the child were physically hurt.
RCMP have alleged the incident was connected to another earlier Friday afternoon when police were called to a hotel parking lot in Portage la Prairie, west of Winnipeg, for a report of a man in a van who was acting erratically and possibly taking drugs.
Courchaine said police spoke with the man briefly before he put the van in gear, rammed a police vehicle, drove toward officers, and then rammed the police vehicle again before taking off.
A chase had to be abandoned when the van, which was allegedly stolen from Winnipeg, drove into oncoming traffic on Highway 1, Courchaine said.
Not long after, a 911 call came in from a person living just east of Portage la Prairie. The call got disconnected.
“But a male and a female voice could be heard before the phone went silent,” Courchaine said.
Courchaine said the woman also managed to call her husband. He, too, called 911. Investigators spoke with him and also found the van abandoned, and they put the separate pieces together.
“She was driving in the area, saw this male in distress on the side of the road, pulled over to assist him, at which point he jumps in. She was able to make a call to her husband as well as that 911 call to us,” Courchaine explained.
Courchaine said although the woman did not know the suspect, he was known to RCMP.
“This was an extremely difficult situation and we would like to acknowledge the victim, who did everything she could to keep herself and her child safe,” she said.
RCMP in Manitoba tweeted a surveillance camera image of the suspect Friday night, who they said they were trying to identify in connection with “a serious incident near Portage la Prairie,” but there was no mention of the alleged kidnapping.
When asked about the delay in releasing the information, Courchaine told the news conference it took time for police to connect the various elements.