A woman has been accused of murdering and committing an indignity to the body of a girl who went missing from west Edmonton, and a man is accused of helping.
The Edmonton Police Service has charged two adults in relation to the death of the eight-year-old girl, whose body has not been found.
On Monday evening, police in the west end stopped by to check in on the wellbeing of a child at a home near 87 Avenue and 165 Street.
Police said the child was nowhere to be found and began investigating.
There were “suspicious circumstances” and EPS said the homicide section took over early the next morning. Police did not elaborate on what exactly prompted homicide detectives to join the case.
Leona Furgason called 911 earlier this week after hearing a rumour a child may have been seriously injured or was dead.
She said her nephew told her he showed up at the apartment where the child was allegedly injured and saw an unconscious girl with a head wound in a bedroom and a dent on the wall.
“Then he wanted to run for his life, basically, and wasn’t able to for two hours,” she said, adding her nephew later told her what he witnessed. They don’t know what happened to the girl after that.
At this time, the eight-year-old girl has not yet been found but is believed to be dead, Edmonton police said on Friday.
“Multiple EPS units have since been engaged and are working closely with external agency partners, including the RCMP, to locate her and investigate her death,” police said.
The family of the girl wept as they spoke about the child on Friday after hearing it had gone from a missing person case to a homicide investigation.
“She was a ray of sunshine,” said the grandmother of the victim, who Global News can not identify because of a publication ban.
FULL STORY: https://globalnews.ca/news/9659969/edmonton-missing-girl-homicide-april-2023/
