WINNIPEG — Police say they have made an arrest in the homicide investigation of Manitoba teenager Tina Fontaine.
Fontaine was 15 years old when her body, wrapped in a bag, was found in the Red River in August 2014.
Police say they will release details at a news conference at 1:30 p.m. in Winnipeg.
Fontaine was supposed to have been in a group home or foster home, but had run away.
Her death intensified calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal girls and women.
Tina had spent much of her life with her great-aunt Thelma Favel on the Sagkeeng First Nation, about 70 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. The girl had a history of running away and went to Winnipeg about a month before her death to visit her biological mother.
Favel had asked a child-welfare agency for help with Tina.
The girl was in a vehicle pulled over by two officers more than a week after she was reported missing, but she was not taken into custody. Her body was found nine days later.
Police said their investigation had not determined whether the officers knew Tina's identity at the time, or whether they were aware she had been reported missing.
Favel said the officers did know the girl had been reported missing. She said that social workers told her that on that night — a few hours after police came across Tina — the girl was found passed out in an alley downtown. Paramedics took her to a nearby hospital.
Favel said Tina was kept for a few hours until she sobered up, then social workers picked her up at the hospital.
She ran away again and was found in the river a little over a week later.
"She's a child. This is a child that's been murdered," Sgt. John O'Donovan said when Tina's body was found.
"Society would be horrified if we found a litter of kittens or pups in the river in this condition. This is a child. Society should be horrified."
