RCMP have arrested a 19-year-old Wabowden man and charged him with first-degree murder in the until now unsolved slaying of 14-year-old Heather Mallett, also from Wabowden, almost three years ago on June 9, 2011.
Tara Seel, a civilian spokesperson for RCMP "D" Division in Winnipeg, said in an e-mail April 17 that the suspect was charged April 16 but police will not release his name because he was under 18 at time of the murder and cannot be identified under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He is being held in custody and his next court appearance is to be in youth court in Thompson April 24.
An autopsy conducted in Winnipeg positively identified a body found in Wabowden June 9, 2011 as being that of 14-year-old Mallett and her death was immediately treated as a homicide. The cause of her death has never been made public by police.
Mallett was reported missing to the RCMP early on June 9, 2011, after she had not returned home. RCMP issued an appeal for pubic assistance to locate Mallett on the afternoon of Thursday, June 9, 2011, after she was reported missing by a family member earlier that day. Mallett was last seen on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at about 10 p.m. and did not return home that night.
RCMP described her as 5'8", 135 lbs with brown hair and brown eyes. RCMP said she was last seen wearing blue jeans, a white tank top underneath a grey/black plaid shirt.
Police were informed about the body around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 9, 2011, and found the remains of a recently deceased female, they said. Her older 18-year-old sister, Kaynina Mallett, made the discovery.
Among Heather Mallett's other survivors from the close-knit Wabowden community is her grandmother and guardian, Mary Ann Kristjanson. Heather Mallett's mother died in 2007.
The community, with a population of 550 in 2011, according to Statistics Canada census figures, is named after W.A. Bowden, who was chief engineer for the federal Department of Railways and Canals. It started out in the early 1900s as a small settlement made up of a few families from Cross Lake and Nelson House and was first located at Setting Lake, which owes its name to freight activity to "set" on shore waiting our bad weather, along the historic Grass River fur trade route.
With the arrival of the railway in the 1920s, the community relocated to its present site on Bowden Lake, 106 kilometres southwest of Thompson, off of Highway 6. Commercial fishing continues to be one of the major sources of employment.
"Because of its existence for some 100 years, family structures are well developed and social functions are continual. The community finds strength in being populated by people of many diverse backgrounds, although the Métis culture is dominant, the province said in a March 2011 community profile of Wabowden. "Many Wabowden families originated in Cross Lake, so there are strong historic ties to that community."
