An underage male has been charged with murdering a man he knew at a townhouse complex in a neighbourhood near West Edmonton Mall.
Police responded on Friday, April 3, just after 9:3o p.m. to the Thorncliff neighbourhood, where a man was found injured in a townhouse in a large complex near 82 Avenue and 175 Street.
Edmonton police said a 52-year-old man was taken by EMS to hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. A “male youth” was arrested on scene, police said. His age was not disclosed.
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An autopsy was done on Tuesday, when the medical examiner confirmed the man died as a result of a homicide. How he died was not disclosed.
The youth has since been charged with second-degree murder. Due to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the boy can’t be identified but police said he was known to the victim.
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EPS said it is also withholding the identity of the 52-year-old man and his cause of death for investigative purposes.
Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to call EPS at 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone.
Anonymous information can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online.
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A man is in life-threatening condition after being stabbed inside the emergency department waiting room at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton on Friday evening.
Edmonton Police Service said officers who were already at the hospital saw two men fighting around 6:15 p.m. and intervened.
A 42-year-old man suffered serious, life-threatening injuries and was treated at the hospital.
Police said the other man was found with three-edged weapons, who has since been charged.
In a statement posted to social media, Matt Jones, minister of Hospital and Surgical Health in Alberta, said police and hospital staff quickly de-escalated the “unsettling” situation.
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“Their actions helped ensure the safety of those present and provided timely care to the victim,” he said.
“We recognize that incidents like this are unsettling. No one, patients, staff or physicians, should feel unsafe in our hospitals.”
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Sarah Hoffman, the Opposition NDP health critic, said in a post on X that about 50 people, including doctors, nurses and other patients, witnessed the attack, and called the incident terrifying.
“Tonight, a patient was stabbed while waiting for care in the Royal Alex emergency waiting room. About 50 people witnessed the attack … from doctors to nurses to other patients. It was violent and terrifying,” she wrote.
Hoffman said the incident comes weeks after the Opposition called on the United Conservative government to address pressures in emergency departments.
“Over a month ago, we called on the UCP to debate the state of emergency department care in our hospitals and do something about it,” she wrote.
“To the patients and staff who witnessed this: you deserve better. To the patient who was attacked: you should be safe in our hospitals.”
Police have not released further details about the suspect.
A man has been arrested and accused of robbing a downtown Edmonton liquor store and trying to stab several police and transit peace officers who discovered him allegedly drinking in an underground transit station afterwards.
Both incidents went down the evening of Sunday, March 1.
The Edmonton Police Service said two of its officers, along with a transit peace officer (TPO), were patrolling the underground Corona LRT Station on Jasper Avenue and 107 Street, when they came across a man openly consuming alcohol around 10:30 p.m.
EPS said when the man was approached, he pulled out a knife and unsuccessfully attempted to stab the officers. No one was injured and the man was arrested.
“While we are grateful that no officers or members of the public were injured, this incident serves as a stark reminder of the dangers all levels of law enforcement face on a daily basis,” said EPS Insp. Jon Morrison.
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Shortly after taking the man into custody, EPS officers determined the suspect was involved in a liquor store robbery about six blocks west, near 113 Street and Jasper Avenue, about half an hour before he was found drinking at Corona Station.
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“This is also an example of how crime and disorder continue to impact all corners of our city; from the business that was robbed, to the LRT patrons who may have felt unsafe during their commutes, to the officers on proactive duty who were attacked with a weapon,” Morrison said.
“This is why we must continue to have a proactive presence in public spaces.”
Morgan Banman, 33, is charged with two counts of attempted murder, three counts of assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and robbery.
Anyone with any information about this or any other crime is asked to contact the EPS at 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone. Anonymous information can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online.
Edmonton extortion fears remain: ‘People are still out there’
The discovery of a loaded handgun ditched in a public space frequented by families and young children has left residents in the west Edmonton neighbourhood of Secord feeling disturbed.
“That’s absolutely staggering to hear that something like that would happen in an area like this,” Trina Finkle said as she walked her dogs in the area of where the gun was found.
“That just makes me feel very uneasy.”
Edmonton police said a man and his daughter were walking near a pond in the neighbourhood last Wednesday, when the girl kicked a blue rag on the ground.
Underneath the rag was a loaded 9mm handgun. The father immediately called police.
The pond is surrounded by walking paths, a basketball court, and green spaces.
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Christopher Nelson, whose house backs out into the same area, saw police investigating the discovery.
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“Our online community then began to speak about it,” Nelson said. “Somebody mentioned that they had found a firearm.”
Both Finkle and Nelson say apart from small crimes every so often, their community is a very safe and quiet area.
“Even when it’s really, really cold you still see families out,” Finkle said. “They’re tobogganing, kids are playing, it’s just a beautiful place to live but it’s just really surprising.”
During their investigation, police obtained security footage from three days earlier on the morning on Mar. 8, showing a man getting out of a white car while carrying a blue rag.
“It is concerning, but Secord literally is very safe,” Nelson added. “It’s a very close-knit community, all of us have our cameras, we talk all the time, we don’t have any kind of incidences like this.”
“Finding a firearm in a public space can be alarming, especially when children are nearby. Thankfully, no one was injured,” said EPS Staff Sgt. Dan Furman.
“If you ever come across a firearm, ammunition or explosives, do not touch or move the items. Do not attempt to transport them to a police station yourself. Instead, call police so officers can safely secure them, which is exactly what this family did.”
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Police are asking residents in the community to check both their security and dash cameras from the early morning hours between 5 to 6 a.m. on Mar. 8.
Anyone who may recognize the person or vehicle is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
Leduc RCMP continue to investigate after a car pulled up to another on Highway 2 and a driver was fatally shot.
At around 2:50 p.m. Saturday, RCMP say a white or grey dirty pickup truck was seen pulling up beside a black 2012 Honda Civic on the highway near Township Road 490.
Soon after, police say the pickup truck drove off at high speed.
The Honda Civic pulled over to the side of the road.
According to investigators, the driver was shot and killed.
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Cpl. Matthew Howell, a media relations officer with the RCMP, confirmed to Global News that the driver of the Honda Civic was not alone, but could not elaborate further on the number of occupants or their age.
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Mounties have yet to reveal the identity of the victim, and are still working to identify the suspect vehicle.
It is unclear if the suspect and victim knew one another.
The highway was closed for several hours but it has since been reopened.
Alberta RCMP’s major crimes unit is asking anyone who may know any information or who may have dashcam video to call Leduc RCMP or Crime Stoppers.
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Convicted murderer Mark Twitchell, who made international headlines for mirroring his crimes to that of the serial killer TV show Dexter, has been denied temporary leave from prison to visit his parents.
The Parole Board of Canada, in a decision Thursday, said Twitchell is making behavioural progress in prison and would be a manageable risk if given leave.
But the parole panel denied his application, noting, “We must also remain cognizant of the possible psychological impacts on the victims from you visiting the city in which they reside.”
Twitchell is now incarcerated at the medium-security Bowden Institution in central Alberta, serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in the death of Johnny Altinger in 2008.
Undated photo of Johnny Altinger, who was killed by Mark Twitchell in Edmonton, Alta. in 2008.
Global News
During his 2011 murder trial in Edmonton, court heard Altinger thought he was going to meet a woman he met online when he showed up at a garage rented by Twitchell in southeast Edmonton’s Mill Woods area.
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Twitchell, an amateur filmmaker, clobbered Altinger and stabbed him in the chest before dismembering his body and dumping it in the sewer.
He was convicted in 2011 after his trial heard that investigators found a document on his laptop that detailed the murder in graphic detail and spoke of his desire to become a serial killer like the fictional character Dexter Morgan.
The garage Twitchell rented was also dressed up as the plastic-wrapped “kill room” to match the one on Dexter.
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At the parole board hearing, Twitchell continued to downplay the TV show’s inspiration for his crimes, saying that he became detached from reality when writing a script for a psychological thriller he was working on.
“I tried so hard to craft a convincing character who saw murder as a vocation,” he told the board. “I thought I needed motives and ideas for this figure to sell the audience fully that the fiction was, in fact, based on reality.”
He said he then started going down a “rabbit hole” and began to wonder about the experience of what killing would be like.
However, he said the Dexter influence was “massively overstated” during his trial and outside influences didn’t play a big role in the lead-up to his crimes.
Twitchell said he did not do any research or watch videos online on how to kill someone. He admitted during the hearing that he did not know the definition of a snuff film — a film depicting an actual killing — until someone brought it up during the police investigation.
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He said that several months before killing Altinger, he started living a double life, lying to his then-wife that he was holding a steady job instead of pursuing the film career she did not support.
He was also having an extramarital affair.
Twitchell described himself as going through an existential crisis that brought with it a deteriorating self-worth and an “erosion of my moral compass.” He said he began compartmentalizing and escaping into fantasies that involved his film work.
He acknowledged that he had always been a selfish person, but said violence is naturally not part of his character.
During his trial, court heard that Twitchell lured another man to the garage before killing Altinger. He tried to subdue the first man, Gilles Tetreault, but Tetreault managed to fight back and flee.
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Twitchell has said he did not intend to hurt the men, but wanted them to participate in a publicity hoax to help them get an online buzz going about a movie he shot.
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He told his trial that he never explained the hoax idea to Tetreault, because he decided to scare him instead by pretending he was actually being attacked. He said he did explain the prank to Altinger, but it made him mad. Twitchell said he stabbed Altinger in self-defence.
“When it came to my hoax project, it was not so much about informing anybody about it and that was a giant red flag,” Twitchell told the parole board Thursday.
“(It was) a delusion I needed to hang on to in order to continue my crime process.”
The parole board noted that Twitchell displayed narcissistic tendencies when he was first incarcerated and writings were found that were violent in nature.
Twitchell described the writings as “toxic emotional soup” and was unable to process what was going on at the time.
He said he then started therapy and continues sessions with the same psychologist. He said therapy has given him a more realistic understanding of his actions and the effect they have on other people.
“I’m an entirely different person,” he told the parole board.
The parole board said denying Twitchell leave would not affect his ability to foster the positive relationship he has with his parents. It noted that he has only asked for private visits with his wife in prison, not his parents.
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Twitchell said that if the temporary leave were granted, it would also help him in his effort to go from a medium-risk assessment in prison to a minimum one.
In turn, that would allow him to pursue a carpentry program in minimum security.
“I don’t deserve to be forgiven,” Twitchell said. “But I would really like a shot at redeeming myself.”
More than a dozen robberies occurred when people were trying to sell items on Facebook Marketplace or Kijiji over the course of a month in Edmonton, leading to three arrests.
The crimes are also prompting the Edmonton Police Service to issue a reminder on ways to stay safe when selling second-hand items.
In the last month, police said they’ve received approximately 15 reports of personal robberies during Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace sales of higher-priced items, such as cellphones and brand-name clothing.
In each case, police said a suspect posing as a buyer meets up with the seller and evaluates the item(s) for sale, before being joined by at least one accomplice.
Together, the suspects robbed the seller of the item — sometimes threatening the victim and, in one case, reportedly pulling out a firearm.
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In initial reports last month, the robberies occurred in the Duggan neighbourhood of southwest Edmonton.
However, in more recent weeks, reports have since come from multiple areas of the city.
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Police are now warning people to be vigilant when arranging online sales meetups.
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“We always advise caution when meeting up with strangers,” said Staff Sgt. Ivan Dascavich with the EPS Investigative Response Team.
“Meet in a safe, public location, such as the EPS Buy and Sell Exchange Zones, bring a friend, and above all, trust your instincts. If something feels off at any point, abandon the sale.”
The Edmonton Police Service has dedicated areas in four police station parking lots equipped with video cameras to record the exchange of online purchases.
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Police said the initiative originally began in 2020 as a pilot project at the southwest division in Windermere but due to its overall success, the project has been expanded:
Northeast division station – 14203 50 Street
Southeast division station – 104 Youville Drive East
Southwest division station -1351 Windermere Way SW
West division station – 16505 100 Avenue NW
That said, while the areas are brightly lit and have video cameras, police cautioned the feeds are not monitored 24/7 and the stations are not open overnight, so people still need to be mindful of their personal safety.
After the spree of recent robberies, Edmonton police said they arrested three teenage boys on Jan. 31. They were each charged with theft under $5,000.
More information about online buying and selling safety and EPS Buy and Sell Exchange Zones is available on the EPS website.
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