When John Scott heard on the radio Friday that four people were found dead near the community of McCreary, Man., and three of those deaths were being investigated as homicides, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Scott, a lifelong resident of the western Manitoba municipality located on east side of Riding Mountain National Park, said the incident is something he never thought would happen there. Now he said people are trying to understand why it happened and Scott hopes investigators can help provide some answers.
“It shakes you up, but I know they got to do their job and hopefully they can get it to make sense what went on,” he said. “But I don’t know if you ever will.”
That same shock is also shared by Municipality of McCreary Reeve Richard Sonnenberg.
“You hear about it and you expect it not to happen in your community, but here we are, it’s happened,” Sonnenberg told CBC News Saturday afternoon. “It’s devastating for the whole community and for all the people involved.”
Ste Rose du Lac RCMP responded to a call on Road 84 West in the rural municipality of McCreary at 10:10 a.m. Friday, police said at a press conference later that day.
A 41-year-old man was found dead from a self-inflicted injury at the location.
A half hour later, they were asked to do a well-being check on a 37-year-old woman.
They couldn’t find her at her residence, which led them to a nearby home. RCMP said that’s where they found the bodies of a 66-year-old woman and two men aged 65 and 35.
Meanwhile, the 37-year-old woman was found safe later in the afternoon and was taken to hospital as a precaution.
RCMP said during their Friday news conference they aren’t looking for any other suspects and that the woman found safe and the four deceased people were all known to each other.
“We feel terrible, the whole community feels terrible,” said Sonnenberg. “It’s a horrible thing.”
A large property on the corner of Road 84 West remained cordoned off by police tape Saturday. One vehicle from a security company sat watch, blocking the lane into the property.
A day earlier, a handful of RCMP vehicles and unmarked vehicles sat outside the property. Officers focused their attention on a grey house there and were seen going in and out of it.
RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Paul Manaigre said Saturday police had no updates to provide yet. He said the Mounties will be in touch with investigators Monday to “see where they are at with the investigation.”
Incident sends ‘shock waves’ throughout the area
Over in the nearby municipality of Ste Rose, Mayor Robert Brunel said hearing the news Friday hit “pretty close to home.”
He said the there’s a lot of ties between the two communities and called it shocking and saddening to hear about the triple homicide just a 20-25 minute drive away.
“It’s a very rare occurrence to have such a tragedy happen,” he said. “And it definitely sends shock waves throughout the community and the area because we are all interconnected and all community members that know each other.”
Brunel also said he wanted to extend his thanks to first responders and RCMP from the Ste Rose du Lac detachment.
“They’re our community members and we definitely stand behind them and support them,” he said. “Being some of the first responders to this tragedy, definitely would reach out and lend our support to them and thinking about them as they deal with what’s going on.”
Sonnenberg also said he was grateful for all the first responders involved.
“It’s a horrible thing and from the bottom of our hearts we thank them for everything they do,” he said.
Just over 700 people lived in the municipality of McCreary as of 2021, according to that year’s census.
Scott said the community — 250 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg — is a tight-knit place.
“Everybody knows everybody here,” he said. “All these rural areas … they know everybody right from when they were little kids.”
And Sonnenberg said he hopes the community will lean on each other as the search for answers continues.
“Stay strong and hopefully we can get some help for the people that need it here once we get a little farther into this,” he said. “So we’re just going to wait … and once we hear from them [RCMP], whoever needs help we’ll get it for them.”
