GARDEN HILL, Man. – Residents of a northern Manitoba community were in mourning Tuesday after the apparent mauling death of an 11-year-old girl.
Teresa Robinson disappeared a week earlier after leaving a birthday party on the Garden Hill First Nation.
“She was running home, and apparently she never made it home, and the father … he was of course worried about what was happening,” said David Harper, grand chief of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents First Nations communities across northern Manitoba.
At first, the family thought Robinson may have slept over at a friend’s place, but she didn’t show up at school and a search was launched.
On Monday, searchers found the girl’s remains, along with a bracelet nearby, Harper said. It appears the girl was mauled by an animal, probably a black bear, but the community has wild dogs as
well, Harper said.
“(RCMP) forensics are at Garden Hill right now, so hopefully they’ll be able to tell us exactly what took place.”
RCMP would not confirm the remains belong to Robinson, and would only say they were investigating the death of a young girl in Garden Hill, a fly-in community some 500 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.
Harper flew to the community Tuesday along with the girl’s grandparents, who live in Winnipeg.
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