A 23-year-old man from Gods Lake Narrows has been arrested in connection with the 2013 killing of 15-year-old Leah Anderson of Gods Lake Narrows, RCMP said July 26.
The man, who was not named because he has yet to be charged, was arrested Wednesday by RCMP Major Crime Services.
“We put out a plea to the community in the hopes that we’d get to this point,” RCMP Major Crime Services Staff Sgt. Todd Doyle said in a press release. “This arrest is significant. Investigators have been working since Jan. 6, 2013 to get justice for Leah. She was a young girl with a bright future, which was violently stolen from her. This is far from over, but this is a good day.”
Manitoba RCMP used their social media accounts July 18 to reveal new information about Anderson’s in killing and to appeal for anyone with information about what led to her being found dead on a snowmobile trail two days after leaving her house for the skating rink.
The condition of Anderson’s body when it was discovered Jan. 6, 2013 led to rumours that she had been attacked and killed by a wolf or dogs but RCMP dismissed that speculation when they confirmed they were investigating her death as a homicide.
Anderson was home for the holidays from Frontier Collegiate Institute in Cranberry Portage when she was killed and winter roads into the community were not yet open, meaning her killer was likely in the community when RCMP arrived to investigate a few hours after her body was found.
The RCMP said last week that Anderson’s killer was male and that he knew her. They said it was immediately apparent to investigators at the time that she had defended herself against her attacker and that several suspects had been ruled out through investigative techniques including polygraph tests. RCMP also received voluntary DNA samples from several community members and conducted numerous interviews.
CBC reported last March that there were rumours Anderson went to a party the night of her death and that when her boyfriend went there he wasn’t allowed in. CBC was also told that a resident of Gods Lake Narrows had told people that he had murdered someone, but he said that he was only kidding and that he and Anderson had had a secret relationship that ended several months before her death. The man also told CBC he had been questioned by RCMP twice and passed a lie detector test.
Leah’s mother Sally Anderson and several friends and family walked from Thompson to Winnipeg in August 2015 in memory of Leah, who used to live in Thompson before her father Gilbert Duke was murdered in 2003 when she was six years old. After that, her mother moved with her four children to Winnipeg but struggled with addiction and her children were placed into foster care. Leah and her siblings moved to Gods Lake Narrows when she was 10 years old after her aunt and her aunt’s husband took custody of them.
