Ontario Provincial Police have charged an elderly man from Northern Ontario in connection with a 50-year-old homicide cold case of a woman from the same community.
Police say they arrested 78-year-old Remi Gregory Iahtail on Wednesday in Attawapiskat and charged him with manslaughter and rape in the homicide death of 21-year-old Helen Carpenter, also of Attawapiskat. Ms. Carpenter was found dead in the community on Oct. 23, 1973. The charges fall under Criminal Code provisions at that time.
“For 50 years, the family of Helen Carpenter and the community of Attawapiskat have been seeking answers concerning Helen’s death,” Detective Inspector Shawn Glassford, of the OPP’s Criminal Investigation Branch, said in a statement Thursday.
“Now, with the advancement of DNA technology and a focused investigation, the OPP have made an arrest in this case,” he said. “The family and community can now learn the truth about what happened in 1973. Our thoughts are with Helen’s family and the entire community.”
DNA technology was also credited with leading to the conviction earlier this month of Joseph Sutherland, 62, who had confessed to the high-profile 1983 sexual assaults and killings of two Toronto women. Mr. Sutherland, of Moosonee, Ont., confessed after investigators demanded a sample of his blood for genetic testing, court documents showed.
As with Ms. Carpenter’s death in Attawapiskat, the investigation into the deaths of Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour had stalled until DNA technology made a breakthrough possible. In the latter investigation, police were able to use a technique known as investigative genetic genealogy to determine that DNA evidence left at the crime scene by the killer had to belong to Mr. Sutherland or one of his brothers.
Mr. Sutherland was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and will serve a life sentence, with no possibility of parole for 10 years.
OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson wouldn’t say Thursday what DNA technology was used that led to Mr. Iahtail’s arrest in Ms. Carpenter’s death but he said it was not the same technique used in the other case.
Attawapiskat is an Omushkego Cree community along the Attawapiskat River on James Bay in Northern Ontario. Ms. Carpenter was the sister of former chief Mike Carpenter, who died last year and often spoke about his sister’s unsolved murder, said Grand Chief Leo Friday of the Mushkegowuk Council.
The OPP said it started reinvestigating Ms. Carpenter’s death in 2019 after the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Mr. Iahtail is scheduled to appear in Cochrane court on Nov. 22.
Willow Fiddler