Winnipeg Police have arrested a suspect in connection to a sexual assault that took place early Friday morning at a University of Manitoba residence.
46-year-old Garry Junior Edwards was apprehended in 1800 block of Pembina Highway around 11 p.m. Friday. He is charged with sexual assault, robbery, overcome resistance by attempting to choke, suffocate or strangle another person, and a number of break and enter charges.
Edwards is alleged to have broken into a secured area at the Arthur V. Mauro student residence on Dafoe Road within the U of M campus. He entered a female student’s room and assaulted her. Police say she was injured but is in stable condition.
At a news conference Friday, WPS released images of the suspect from surveillance footage and called on the public for help in identifying and finding him.
“We are happy to say that thank you to the keen eye of citizen, an individual has been arrested,” said WPS Public Information Officer Const. Dani McKinnon in a video posted to the WPS’s X account Saturday.
Edwards was the subject of a sex offender notification by Manitoba Justice in Nov. 2023 when he was released from Stony Mountain Institution, with officials warning he was at high risk of reoffending. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2013 after he choked, sexually assaulted, and robbed a random woman in April 2012. Less than an hour later, he attacked a second woman after he followed her into a secure building. He then robbed her and stole her vehicle. Police spotted the vehicle and arrested him a short time later.
In an email sent to U of M students and staff from the school’s Vice-President Naomi Andrew and Vice-President & Provost Diane Hiebert-Murphy, the university said they have added 24-hour security presence in student residences and are conducting routine checks of the entrances and exits.
“The safety and well-being of our university community remains our top priority,” the statement read.
The incident has shocked the province’s largest post-secondary institution.
“At first I thought that it was a fight, and then when I heard the actual story, I was a lot more concerned,” said Samantha Westlands, a first-year student living on campus.
“I had been feeling pretty safe on campus. I hadn’t been locking my doors all the time. But after the incident, I’ve been making sure to lock my doors always,” she said.
Theo Lupinek lives in the Arthur V. Mauro residence and woke early Friday to the building’s fire alarm going off. He’s noticed the increased security around the dorms and says residents have also taken preventative measures themselves.
“To foster community, you have your names and pronouns on your door. And I noticed some… doors that I knew used to have feminine names on them, taken off,” he said.
Lupinek says residents use a key fob to access the building, but says there have been times when he’s come home to find the door unlocked. The Arthur V. Mauro residence also houses the school residence office.
“Oftentimes I wouldn’t need my keys because oftentimes one of the three doors that get to the residence part would just be unlocked.”
The U of M said it cannot comment further as the investigation is ongoing.