UPDATE: Edson triple murder suspect shot by police, taken to hospital with injuries
EDMONTON — RCMP are investigating a grisly homicide scene in western Alberta, where a man, woman and teenage girl were found dead in a rural home.
“I will emphasize it was not a murder-suicide,” said RCMP Insp. Gibson Glavin.
Mounties responded around 1:50 p.m. Sunday to a “call for assistance” at a home east of the town of Edson.
Roxanne Ruth Berube, 36, her boyfriend, Dan Miller, and her teenage daughter, Jazmine Miller, were found dead, according to The Canadian Press. Autopsy results are not yet complete and police have not yet confirmed their identities but police say the three victims suffered “obvious trauma.”
“I can’t tell you how that trauma was caused, just that there was trauma.”
Police said the call came from outside the home, but couldn’t specify from whom or where it came.
Watch below: RCMP news conference at K Division in Edmonton
Global News spoke to the person who made the horrifying discovery. There have been concerns about vehicle theft in the area and the man noticed a vehicle in the ditch near the residence. He went to the home to warn the residents to be on alert.
All three lived at the home and Mounties said no one else in the residence was injured or missing. Global News confirmed the man and the woman found dead were Miller and Berube.
Some of those who knew the victims took to Facebook to share their grief.
“Found out just this afternoon that my beautiful cousin Roxanne Ruth Berube (and) her daughter Jazmine Miller were 2 of the 3 people killed in Edson yesterday,” Crystal Clifford posted to Facebook.
“Really hope they find out who did this horrible thing and are arrested.”
“R.I.P to my two beautiful cousins Roxanne Ruth Berube and Jazmine … as well as Dan Miller,” posted Stephanie Dixon. “You three shall be forever loved and forever in our hearts.”
Sylvia Standing said Berube, her goddaughter, was a mother of five who had just started a new job at a McDonald’s in Edson.
“She was just nice and friendly and always bubbly and joked around with us at work,” Roxanne’s co-worker Stephanie Heathcote told Global News.
“It’s just really sad,” added another co-worker Devon Campbell. “I just really got to know her about a week ago and then this happened.”
According to her Facebook page, Berube was a fan of country and western music, and an avid ATVer. She and Dan Miller had apparently met in the late summer of 2013, with Berube announcing to friends “my boyfriend … and I have 10 kids between us and 2 grand babies.”
It’s not known when the victims were killed.
“We have not had autopsies yet on the bodies, which will give us exact times,” Glavin said. RCMP don’t believe the public is at risk, but asked local residents to be cautious and report anything suspicious to police.
The RCMP Major Crimes Unit out of Edmonton is investigating along with members of the Edson RCMP. Police said they were actively pursuing leads in connection with the deaths, but no arrests have been made.
“I will be clear that there was someone out there, or some people who did this and we have not arrested them yet.”
Glavin said it was a serious and complicated investigation, adding RCMP would “spare nothing” to solve it.
Edson Mayor Greg Pasychny said people in the oil and gas town were heartened by assurances from the RCMP that the public is not at risk.
But he said people are still disturbed and worried about the killings.
“Any time you have an incident like this, especially with three people, it kind of sends chills through the community,” he said.
Edson is about 200 kilometres west of Edmonton.
With files from The Canadian Press reporters John Cotter and Mary Jo Laforest in Edmonton and Tamsyn Burgmann and Gemma Karstens-Smith in Vancouver
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