Body found in north Edmonton

EDMONTON -An autopsy for a woman’s body found yesterday in north Edmonton has been scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Police were called to the Lago Lindo neighbourhood just after 11 a.m. on Sunday after a resident discovered the body in an alley behind a small bungalow at 91A Street near 180th Avenue. Police are calling the death suspicious and are not releasing the identity of the woman.

The results of the autopsy, scheduled for 1:30 p.m., will help police determine whether the death is considered a homicide or non-criminal.

On Sunday, yellow tape cordoned off the alley where the body lay, covered by a white tarp. The body appeared to be hunched on its side, the purple soles of running shoes visible.

A resident of the bungalow called 9-1-1 after she went to take the garbage out and discovered the dead body, her husband said.

“She found the body when she took out the garbage,” he said. “We’re a little shook up.”

The body was found just three properties south of three homes destroyed June 20, 2010, when a massive explosion struck the neighbourhood. The blast damaged more than three dozen homes and left four people dead. Three of the deaths were later ruled homicides: Jeanne Cathleen Heard, 47; Craig Donald Huber, 29; and Bradley Warren Winter, 26. Dwayne Richard Poirier, 46, was also killed, though his death was deemed non-criminal.

Nearly eight months later, the neighbourhood is still largely uninhabited. Many of the homes on 91A Street are boarded up or under renovation, others are for sale. Just a few houses away from the scene, neighbours were busily pulling out insulation and damaged framework from their home. They were working at their home until 8 p.m. on Saturday night, but hadn’t heard anything.

The crime scene is remote. The west side of the alley is bordered by an empty field, with a townhouse complex about 50 metres away. The development is on the northern edge of the city.

A resident of one of the townhouses was walking her dog in the area Sunday morning when she was stopped by police. She said she had walked in the same alley the day before. She didn’t give her name, but said the field is often strewn with liquor bottles from loud, late-night parties.

“I moved here two years ago because it’s supposed to be safe,” she said, “First, the explosion, and now this?”

If the death is ruled a homicide, it will be the eighth of 2011, just seven weeks into the new year. In 2010, Edmonton didn’t reach eight homicides until June 6.