Homicide victim’s family alleges police coverup

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This article was published 27/04/2016 (3810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police say a slain aboriginal woman was a sex-trade worker who used Facebook and social media to line up johns.

Her family, who hired a private investigator and accessed her Facebook account, says there’s no evidence for that, but say they’ve discovered Simone Sanderson was acting as a police informant in the middle of a gang turf war.

The day after Winnipeg police announced they’ve charged a 28-year-old Lorette man for her 2012 slaying, Sanderson’s loved ones held a news conference accusing the police of a coverup and demanding answers about the way they handled the investigation and treated them.

“We believe there is a coverup,” said Janie Duncan, who was hired by Sanderson’s family in August when they weren’t getting answers from police. “We have serious concerns about the police investigation that led to the arrest of Kyllan Ellis for second-degree murder.”

“We want to acknowledge he is innocent until proven guilty,” said Duncan, who helped to prove the wrongful murder conviction of James Driskell.

In the vacant lot at the corner of Burrows Avenue and Main Street where Sanderson’s body was discovered, the woman’s grandmother addressed media gathered in front of a well-tended shrine.

“I am hurt because I was left out, my granddaughter was labelled and my concerns were not responded to,” said Betty-ann Sanderson.

 She said she was glad to hear of an arrest but until she hears a “guilty” verdict, she will keep pressing the police for answers.

“There needs to be a change with how the police look after missing and murdered women, and no one should have to feel like I do now,” she said.

Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen wouldn’t respond to the family’s allegations or say whether Sanderson was an informant.

 “We worked tirelessly for a long period of time to identify and then ultimately be in the position where we could hold someone accountable and lay charges. We’re very proud of that fact,” he said.

Simone Sanderson’s bruised body was found Sept. 2, 2012, under flattened cardboard, said Duncan. She was lying face-down with a large clump of dried blood in her hair and a large, bloodied rock nearby. The two people who made the grisly discovery told Duncan they were interrogated by police for hours. “They (police) implied that they were involved in the murder but never took any formal statements.”

Duncan said the family has asked to see images from surveillance cameras next to the lot where Sanderson was found, but police have refused.

The investigator said two other witnesses saw Sanderson alive on the afternoon of Aug. 28, 2012, sitting on the front steps of a home at the corner of Charles Street and Magnus Avenue. Duncan said they saw a lone, clean-cut and “well-built” man in his 30s in a tan Ford Crown Victoria arrive. Sanderson got in the car, and they argued. The witnesses wrote down the car’s licence plate number because the driver was “very aggressive,” she said.

After Sanderson’s body was found, the witnesses said they saw the same car near the same corner with a Winnipeg police cruiser. They noted the Crown Victoria’s licence plate and it matched the licence plate they’d recorded earlier, said Duncan. When the witnesses were interviewed during the homicide investigation, the police said the licence number they’d recorded matched a blue Chevy Equinox, not a Ford Crown Victoria. They said the police asked if they wanted to change their story, but they refused. “The witnesses were adamant as to what they saw.”

Duncan said there were cameras set up in front of the Charles Street residence, but police didn’t seize them as evidence.

Before her death, Sanderson told a family member she became a police informant after officers found crack cocaine in her apartment in the spring of 2012, Duncan said. They have the names of three officers she had contact with, including one in the organized crime unit.

In 2013, the police told the public Sanderson was a sex-trade worker and that she was soliciting clients from Facebook and working in that area of the North End as a “hooker,” said Duncan. “We have access to Simone’s Facebook and have found no evidence to date that she was soliciting.”

The arrest of Ellis comes nearly a year after a walk to raise awareness of Sanderson’s homicide, said her aunt Nikketa Campbell. Campbell’s phone number was listed on posters, and she was contacted two months after the walk by an anonymous man with information about the homicide. He said he’d contacted Crime Stoppers and was concerned police were not acting on his tip. Campbell said they played a recording of their conversation with the man for police, who wouldn’t say much other than they were aware of the tip.

“That’s why we got a private investigator, so that we can get some answers,” she said. “Today, we are standing here with the name we knew about last year, and they arrested him. Now we wait to see if this is the killer of Simone Sanderson.”

Police are waiting to find out if there is a DNA match. Campbell said even though someone has been charged with Sanderson’s death, the family will continue to ask questions.

“We know Simone would want us to be doing this because she was a fighter. We don’t just think that she was picked up one day and beaten to death. We know that there’s something that led to that. That’s what we want to know — those facts, those details.”  

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

 

— with files from Erin DeBooy