Number of homicides in Manitoba RCMP jurisdictions nearly twice last year's total

The number of homicide victims in remote and rural parts of Manitoba this year is nearly double the amount recorded last year, RCMP say.

There have been 55 homicides so far this year in Manitoba RCMP jurisdictions, a jump from the 30 homicides and three suspicious deaths recorded in the entirety of 2023, police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Manaigre said.

This week alone, RCMP's major crimes unit has responded to new homicides in Portage La Prairie, Thompson and Canupawakpa Dakota First Nation, he said.

"We have multiple major crime services teams in various parts of the province at this point now," he told CBC News Tuesday.

"It's just crazy … like our major crimes [unit] — they're being run off their feet right now."

In the last week, there's been four homicides within RCMP coverage area in Manitoba, which excludes communities like Winnipeg and Brandon with their own police forces. 

On Monday, a 42-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman were found dead inside a home in Portage la Prairie and are believed to have been the victims of a targeted double homicide, police said.

RCMP is treating the death of a 37-year-old man, whose body was found on Canupawakpa Dakota Nation in western Manitoba last Saturday, as a homicide.

Homicide investigators are also examining the death of a 28-year-old man found dead in Thompson last Thursday. Police say a 31-year-old man was stabbed to death in the city four days later.

The data also shows 2022 saw the second-highest number of homicides recorded in RCMP jurisdictions in the past five years, sitting at 38. But despite this year's spike in homicides, a criminologist said the numbers have to be examined with caution.  

"It's quite a striking number … but a difference like that is not necessarily a trend," said Frank Cormier, a criminologist at the University of Manitoba.

"It could be an anomaly, and it might not mean anything at all." 

Over the decades, there's been years with a spike in the number of homicides, Cormier said, but the occasional jump is to be expected because of the "rather random nature of homicides." 

"Most of our homicides are very much spur of the moment. They're not people rationally choosing to kill somebody else."