The brothers, wanted on suspicion of murder after a series of knife attacks that left 10 dead in Canada, are dead. Police arrested the younger of the two men near the small town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan on Wednesday. A few hours later, she announced that the 30-year-old had died in hospital after a “medical emergency”. Before the arrest, several patrol cars followed him in his stolen getaway car, and there was a knife in the suspect’s car. The body of the brother, who was one year older, was found on Monday and, according to the investigators, had injuries that he probably did not inflict on himself.
The two men are believed to be responsible for the bloody killings on the James Smith Cree Nation reservation and in the village of Weldon that left 10 dead and 18 injured on Sunday. The background to the knife attacks is still unknown – “and will probably never be clarified,” as a police spokeswoman said at a press conference after the death of the second murder suspect. Despite repeated inquiries, she did not comment on the exact circumstances of his death. This is now part of the autopsy and an “independent, external investigation”. It also needs to be clarified whether the two brothers might have had helpers.
The arrested man had been repeatedly delinquent for more than two decades “without major interruptions”. As an adult, he was convicted of a total of 59 counts over the years, including assault, threats of violence and theft, according to a probation file from February that is available to the German Press Agency. The man had struggled with alcohol and drug problems since late childhood and began using cocaine at the age of 14.
