‘I saw enough,’ says man who found package of human remains on riverbank Saturday-afternoon litter cleanup ends with gruesome discovery; tight-lipped police await autopsy results By: Chris Kitching Posted: 1:00 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 17, 2023 Last Modified: 12:27 PM CDT Tuesday, Apr. 18, 2023 Updates

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Body parts found Saturday next to the Red River in South Point Douglas were sealed, package-like, in orange plastic, the man who made the grim discovery told the Free Press Monday.

Herman Holla wasn’t sure what he was looking at before he backed away, but he knew it was something that required the attention of police.

“I don’t know what they found. I saw enough,” he said of the moment police arrived and inspected the contents.

Holla said he and another man discovered the human remains in a wooded section of riverbank near Curtis Street and Higgins Avenue at about 1:30 p.m.

The rectangular-shaped wrapped object was about the size of a medium suitcase, he said. It was just metres from a secluded gravel path used by pedestrians and cyclists.

In a news release issued Monday, the Winnipeg Police Service confirmed human remains were discovered, but provided no details other than a post-mortem is pending.

Holla said he was picking up litter along the Red as he often does, when he noticed an orange object at the bottom of a slope. He nudged it with his foot.

“I didn’t know what it was,” he said. “It was dense. I didn’t open it up because it didn’t interest me.”

He moved on and continued collecting garbage, but as he walked back, he was passed by a man walking a bicycle.

“All of a sudden, something attracted his attention,” Holla said, referring to the other man, who led him to the object encased in orange plastic.

Holla, a council candidate in past municipal elections, said he used the man’s knife to cut through two straps that were made from some kind of fabric.

“I started to pull back the plastic,” he said. “We realized right away, we’ve got something. We decided to call it in.”

“I started to pull back the plastic… We realized right away, we’ve got something. We decided to call it in.”–Herman Holla

The men suspected the plastic contained remains, but they didn’t know if they were human.

Holla walked up the riverbank to the path and flagged down a cyclist, who helped him call 911.

Police soon arrived and sealed off the area with yellow tape.

Holla, who gave a statement to officers, said the forensic identification unit was at the scene over the weekend.

He said he doesn’t know how long the remains had been there.

A Curtis Street resident said police left the wooded area Sunday night.

“That’s pretty shocking,” the man, who declined to give his name, said of the discovery.

On Monday, Holla tied a red ribbon to a tree a few metres from where he found the remains. He wanted to acknowledge the person whose remains were found.

He said police painted three orange circles several metres apart on the ground. One was around the spot where the remains were situated.

Holla said he wasn’t affected by what he witnessed until the following day.

“You try not to think about it,” he said.

Multiple locations along the riverbank, where the gravel path links to Waterfront Drive, were associated with the homicide investigation.

Police cordoned a section of Waterfront south of Higgins Saturday. People who live in nearby apartment blocks said they noticed officers and yellow tape in the late afternoon or early evening.

Part of the riverbank and Fort Douglas Park were still taped off at Waterfront and George Avenue Monday, with police divers, river patrol and detectives at the scene at one point.

Officers also spent time looking around the Alexander Docks on the Red’s west bank.

The area still taped off Monday included tents or shelters set up by people who are homeless. There was no indication the camps are connected to the investigation.

A woman who lives in a nearby apartment building said detectives, forensic officers and a coroner’s vehicle, with two employees, were present Sunday.

Officers also flew a large drone over the scene.

When the coroner’s vehicle arrived, the employees had a trolley and two boxes, said Susan, who declined to give her last name. She later saw one of the employees carrying one of the boxes while returning to the vehicle from the riverbank.

The employee put the box in the vehicle, which Susan described as a “hearse,” and drove north on Waterfront in the direction of the colleague, whom she last saw pushing the trolley with the other box on top of it.

“It’s tragic, but it could (happen) anywhere,” she said.

Susan let detectives into the building while they canvassed the area Sunday.

“They wanted to know if there were any cameras on the outside of the building,” she said.

Susan described the inner-city neighbourhood as “marvellous” during the day. However, she doesn’t go out at night because she is concerned about her safety.

Residents said bodies are occasionally found in the river in the area, but the scale of the police presence made them wonder if it was a possible homicide.

The body of homicide victim Tina Fontaine, 15, was found nearby in the river in August 2014.

Waterfront resident Marielle Cahigas said she was concerned when she noticed the police presence Saturday.

“I was pretty scared just because we don’t really see a lot of these (incidents) often,” she said.

Police are asking anyone with information about the case or surveillance footage to call detectives at 204-986-6508 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477 (TIPS).

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @chriskitching