Trial will get underway Monday for the Winnipeg man accused of murdering Tina Fontaine, the 15-year-old whose death stoked demand for a federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Fontaine’s body was found wrapped in a plastic bag in Winnipeg’s Red River in 2014, 18 days after she was reported missing.
Raymond Cormier, 55, was arrested in December 2015, and has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Fontaine’s death. He has pleaded not guilty.
The cause of Fontaine’s death has not been publicly revealed.
The Crown is slated to deliver its opening statement before eight female and four male jurors on Monday in a Winnipeg courtroom.
The trial is expected to last five weeks and involve 50 witnesses.
Fontaine’s aunt, Thelma Favel, says the family won’t have much to say in the case until the trial is complete.
“It hurts,” Favel told CTV News. “It hurts to know that she’s not coming home.”
Fontaine had been living with Favel on the Sagkeeng First Nation, before heading to Winnipeg to visit her mother. She was in the care of Manitoba’s Child and Family Services at the time of her death, but had run away. Police believe she was killed 10 days after she was first reported missing from foster care.
With a report from CTV’s Manitoba Bureau Chief Jill Macyshon and files from The Canadian Press
