Edmonton police have released photos of a man they’re calling a person of interest in the death of a woman in a south Edmonton motel near the end of May.
On the evening of May 24, officers responded to the Royal Lodge just off Gateway Boulevard near 38 Avenue. A woman was found dead inside one of the motel suites.
The woman was later identified as 48-year-old Lisa Arsenault. Autopsy results on her cause of death are still pending, police said on Thursday, though the manner of death has been ruled a homicide.
Investigators have now released surveillance images of man who was seen walking outside the motel.
When asked if the man was a suspect or a witness, a police spokesperson said investigators want to speak with the man to see if he can help progress the investigation.
Arsenault’s sister Ashley Kowalewski said the family reached out to Edmonton police in February, asking them to do a welfare check, adding they never received a response.
Kowalewski said Arsenault was a sex worker and a drug addict, and she believes that is why her sister didn’t get the help she needed.
“My sister was a woman at risk and my sister was someone who needed help,” Kowalewski told Global News while at a rally marking one-year since the report into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls was released.
According to Kowalewski, they later found out Arsenault had been admitted to hospital by police. When speaking to Global News last week, Kowalewski said the family was denied assistance from victim’s services because of her sister’s criminal record.
Anyone with information on the man in the pictures or who may have information on Arsenault’s death is asked to call the Edmonton Police Service at 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone.
Anonymous information can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online.
— With files from Breanna Karstens-Smith, Global News