Police have DNA link in 2012 murder of woman

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This article was published 13/04/2016 (3824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police said Wednesday they have developed a DNA profile of a male suspect they believe could help them solve the cold-case homicide of 23-year-old Simone Sanderson.

Sanderson’s body was discovered in a vacant lot at Burrows Avenue and Main Street on Sept. 2, 2012, and police now say they believe she was killed on Aug. 26 or 27 that year by a man she met through her work in the sex trade. They believe he drove her to the vacant lot in a small, older model two-door car before killing her.

DNA that investigators recovered from the crime scene point to one man, homicide unit Sgt. Wes Rommel said, and police are asking for the public’s help to identify the suspect so they can compare his DNA with the samples they’ve collected.

“We don’t know who we’re looking for. If we had that, we wouldn’t be here at this point. We’re looking for that individual, whether we can collect their DNA, whether we can compare to that DNA at the scene and hopefully help advance this investigation and move forward,” Rommel said.

It’s the first time since Sanderson’s death that police have released information about when she was killed, the suspect’s car or DNA discovered. Surveillance video footage and witness interviews led police to a partial description of the car the man drove, but they still don’t have a description of the suspect, Rommel said. Police hope the new information will trigger the public’s memory and lead them to more tips about the man responsible.

Rommel said the investigation has progressed in the past three and a half years and new information has come to light recently that has helped police “refocus” the investigation.

“It’s not as if we’ve been sitting idle on this. We certainly have been interviewing a lot of people, doing a lot of things behind the scenes that wouldn’t be recognized,” Rommel said.

Sanderson, an indigenous woman slightly more than five feet tall with long brown hair, was found dead wearing a pink skirt and black sports bra — the same clothes she was last seen alive wearing earlier on Aug. 26, 2012. Her body was concealed on the lot, and Rommel said police have evidence her killer may have returned to the area on subsequent nights after her death.

Sanderson’s family had been vocal about their frustration over the unanswered questions surrounding her death, holding regular vigils and speaking to reporters about Sanderson, whose only son was two years old when she died. Her grandmother, Betty-ann Sanderson, has hired a private investigator, Duncan Investigations, Inc., to look into the case.

The firm posted on its Facebook page earlier this week that police had not interviewed a possible eyewitness to Sanderson’s death.

Rommel said he was aware a private investigator had been hired, and that he had spoken to Sanderson’s grandmother prior to Wednesday’s news conference. He said police would welcome any information about the case that comes forward.

“I understand the anger. I get that. I know that she’s hired a private investigator to get answers for her, to make some inquiries. In terms of that need, clearly she felt a need to do that. I can’t really speak further to that,” he said.

But on her Facebook page Wednesday, Betty-ann posted that she had asked police not to release information about Simone that would label her as a sex-trade worker. She wrote that the family plans to hold its own news conference Thursday.

“We are not listening to the WPS,” she wrote.

The Winnipeg Police Service asks anyone with information regarding this incident to contact investigators at 204-986-6508 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca