A cousin of one of two teenagers shot and killed in a northern Alberta community says he found his relative on Saturday night lying on the grass outside his father’s home with blood on his clothes.

“I saw a couple splats of blood on his shirt, and that’s when I really knew something was wrong. So I jumped back in my vehicle and I drove next door to call 911,” Cody Laboucan, the cousin of 17-year-old Dylan Laboucan, told CTV Edmonton.

But when he returned, he says his cousin’s body was gone. It wasn’t found until two days later.

Little is known about the deaths of Dylan Laboucan and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Cory Grey, whose body was discovered on Tuesday. Police say their deaths are considered a homicide and that the killer knew the victims.

“It is not a random act,” RCMP Insp. Gibson Glavin told reporters on Thursday. “These two victims, Cory and Dylan, were deliberately killed by someone or some people and they were connected with them in some way.”

No arrests have been made, but Glavin says the investigation is “focused.”

Family members described the young couple as homebodies who had both recently been accepted to Northern Lakes College in Slave Lake, Alta. They were both busy working to save money for the big move from the Whitefish Lake First Nation near High Prairie, Alta.

“Dylan was going to go do some power engineering, that’s the course he picked, and Cory picked an early childhood program,” said Grey’s uncle, Chief Robert Grey.

Chief Robert Grey says there are plenty of unanswered questions related to the deaths.

“What happened? Why would somebody do this?” he said.

Cody Laboucan says he began searching for his cousin’s missing body moments after police arrived at the scene on Saturday evening. He was quickly joined by a team of community volunteers, who Insp. Glavin says were instrumental in finding the two bodies.

Cody Laboucan says he can’t think of any reason why someone would target the couple.

“It’s hard to take it in. It’s hard to believe that somebody would actually do this to a young couple, especially them. They weren’t involved in drugs, they didn’t drink. They were an innocent young couple,” he said.

RCMP said they have been in constant communication with Grey’s mother, who Glavin described as “devastated.”

A medical examiner concluded Thursday that the couple was shot dead and were both victims of homicide. Police have not released specific details on the shooting, except to say that the bodies were discovered in two separate locations.

“I can’t say how many or where in the body, and I would like to say exactly why we can’t do that. That type of information is known by a select few right now – the RCMP, the medical examiner, and whoever did this,” Glavin said.

Anyone who may have any information that could assist investigators is asked to call the High Prairie RCMP detachment at 780-523-3370. Anonymous tips can be provided to Crime Stoppers by phone at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

With files from CTV Edmonton’s Susan Amerongen