Body found at Manitoba Avenue home

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This article was published 28/04/2022 (1276 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A body bag was wheeled from a Manitoba Avenue home Thursday afternoon, as the Winnipeg police forensics unit and plainclothes officers stood by.

Police had not yet said what occurred at the home on the 900 block near Sgt. Tommy Prince Street, nor what the law enforcement response was.

However, neighbours told the Free Press a body had been found in the morning near the front entrance of the white 1 1/2-storey home.

“It’s sad, so very sad,” said Olive Monkman, 76, of the reported discovery across the street.

Her son, Denny Hunt, called her while she was inside Thursday morning, and said there was something going on outside.

“He says, ‘It’s all taped up’ — you’ve got to be kidding. So I came out the veranda and I looked, sure enough I saw a body laying there and all the (police) cruiser cars,” Monkman said.

A woman, likely in her early 50s, moved in with young children earlier this year, Monkman said. 

The other day, Monkman said, a “young guy” came by her house looking for a woman.

“But he was so out of it, he got the wrong house,” she said.

That man then crossed the street to go to the house that now appears to be the focus of a police investigation, she said.

“They covered up a body at 10 o’clock,” said Hunt, 51. “Right in the front (of the house).”

A police cruiser car stood watch Thursday afternoon over the home, which had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, along with much of the block, while a uniformed officer spoke with a woman carrying a clipboard, dressed in plainclothes.

Forensics officers came in and out of the home to a white police van. One carried an evidence marker; another had a camera.

Later, an unmarked black van pulled up and was led under the tape, and two men carried out a gurney to the front of the house. Police held up black cloth, shielding the area from view, as the men lifted the bag onto the gurney.

Monkman has lived on Manitoba Street with her son and others for about three years. She said its normally a fine place to live, but thinks the city has changed since she moved from up North with her parents as a girl.

More violent, she said, and it happens anywhere.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera