Woman charged in Merchant Hotel death

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This article was published 26/04/2011 (4354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police have charged an 18-year-old woman after a stabbing death last Wednesday outside a North End hotel.

The death of 42-year-old Sheila Fontaine last week was the city’s ninth homicide of the year.

Fontaine was standing outside the Merchants Hotel at 541 Selkirk Ave. last Wednesday night.

Police said a verbal fight broke out between Fontaine and another group of women, and ultimately resulted in the fatal stabbing.

People who were nearby when it happened held a suspect there until officers arrived.

The suspect has been in custody since that night, and police confirmed her arrest six days later.

Officers still have to interview more people in connection with the death. Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Natalie Aitken said further arrests may be pending, though she said no one else was in custody today.

“The motive of exactly what had transpired between these two groups, that is something that we’re still exploring,” she said.

She said later: “How these individuals knew each other is still something we’re looking at, whether or not it was brief occurrence early on in the evening and whether or not they knew each other at all, in fact, is something that we’re still looking at.”

The Free Press reported a hotel employee turned over a knife to police after the stabbing.

Aitken said she didn’t have information suggesting the death was gang-related.

Teya Winter-Spence of Winnipeg is charged with manslaughter.

She’s at the city’s Remand Centre. Anyone with information on the stabbing is asked to call police at 986-6508, or 786-8477 (TIPS).

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca