A 50-year-old man has been charged with manslaughter for the death of Noreen Tait, RCMP said March 7.
Phillip Soulier of O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation was arrested March 6 in connection with the Feb. 21 death.
Tait, 47, was brought to the South Indian Lake nursing station Feb. 19 with severe injuries from an assault. She was medevaced to a hospital in Winnipeg where she died two days later.
Arla Tait-Linklater, Noreen’s older sister, said at a press conference in Thompson on Feb. 27 that her sister’s death was shocking and traumatic to her whole family..
“Noreen has left a huge void in our hearts,” she said. “The senseless way her life was taken is difficult to comprehend and devastating to the family.”
In the wake of another death that came just under a week after Tait’s, OPCN Chief Shirley Ducharme declared a state of emergency in the First Nation on March 6.
Soulier was remanded into custody following his arrest.