Canadian police: 1 suspect in stabbings has been found dead

WELDON, Saskatchewan (AP) — One of the suspects in the stabbing deaths of 10 people in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan has been found dead, and his injuries are not self inflicted, police said Monday as they continued the search for a second suspect.

Regina Police Chief Evan Bray said Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead near the stabbing sites and they believe his brother, Myles Sanderson, 30, is injured, on the run and likely in the provincial capital of Regina. It was the first time police have identified the two as brothers.

“His body was located outdoors in a heavily grassed area in proximity to a house that was being examined. We can confirm he has visible injuries. These injuries are not believed to be self inflicted at this point,” said RCMP Commanding Officer Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, adding they were not sure of the exact cause of death yet.

Asked if Myles Sanderson was responsible for his brother’s death, Blackmore said police are investigating that possibility, but “we can’t say that definitively at this point in time.″

The discovery of the body came on the second day of a massive manhunt for the pair, who are suspected of carrying out a series of stabbings in an Indigenous community and a nearby town, which also left 18 people injured. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the nation’s history.

Authorities have said some of the victims were targeted and others appeared to have been chosen at random on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the town of Weldon in Saskatchewan. They have given no motive for the crimes— but senior Indigenous leaders suggested drugs were somehow involved.

James Smith Cree Nation resident Darryl Burns and his brother, Ivor Wayne Burns, said their sister, Gloria Lydia Burns, was a first responder who was killed while trying responding to a call. Burns said his 62-year-old sister was on a crisis response team.

“She went on a call to a house and she got caught up in the violence,” he said. “She was there to help. She was a hero.”

He blamed drugs and pointed to the colonization of Indigenous people for the rampant drug and alcohol use on reserves.

“We had a murder suicide here three years ago. My granddaughter and her boyfriend. Last year we had a double homicide. Now this year we have 10 more that have passed away and all because of drugs and alcohol,” Darryl Burns said.

Ivor Wayne Burns also blamed drugs for his sister’s death and said the suspect brothers should not be hated.

“We have to forgive them boys,” he said. “When you are doing hard drugs, when you are doing coke, and when you are doing heroin and crystal meth and those things, you are incapable of feeling. You stab somebody and you think it’s funny. You stab them again and you laugh.”

While authorities believe Myles is in Regina, about 335 kilometers (210 miles) south of where the stabbings happened, they have issued alerts in Canada’s three vast prairie provinces — which also include Manitoba and Alberta — and contacted U.S. border officials.

With one suspect still at large, fear still gripped communities in the rural, working class area of Saskatchewan surrounded by farmland that…