Cold case arrest: Nunavut RCMP charge man with murder in 1986 death of teenage girl
CTV
Mounties in Nunavut have made an arrest in the murder of a 15-year-old girl almost 40 years ago.
Mounties in Nunavut have made an arrest in the murder of a 15-year-old girl almost 40 years ago.
Mary Ann Birmingham was found dead in Frobisher Bay in what was then the Northwest Territories in May of 1986. Frobisher Bay later became Iqaluit and is now the capital of Nunavut.
Police said Thursday an indictment was signed a week ago and on Tuesday, Jopey Atsiqtaq was arrested in Ottawa.
He appeared in court Wednesday on a charge of second-degree murder and has been remanded in custody. RCMP have said Birmingham was "brutally murdered" in her home while her family was out of town.
Police say she was found by her sister, Barbara Sevigny, who had just returned from visiting her brother in Montreal. The front door to the house was locked, and she had to pry open a window with a makeup compact.
In 2018, Sevigny shared further details to panel members with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
"When I turned to the living room, I saw her body on the couch," she told commissioners at the time.
