Edmonton police dispel rumour that teens were involved in killing of Samuel Bird

Edmonton police said they had to contend with rampant online speculation in regards to Samuel Bird's disappearance, which hampered the investigation at times.

The Edmonton Police Service says speculation around the Samuel Bird case needs to stop now that one person has been charged in his death.

“It’s not OK for this to continue the way it’s continued,” Det. Jared Buhler told reporters at a news conference on Friday.

“We’ve put up with it until now because we were focused on other things, but it’s no longer appropriate.”

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Bryan Farrell, 38, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and interfering with a body in Bird’s death on Wednesday, as well as 13 other charges, including aggravated assault, arson, weapons offences and uttering threats.

He was arrested in a public place in Edmonton by the tactical team, Buhler said.

He added there has been an ongoing narrative on social media that other people, specifically teens, were involved in Bird’s death.

He says the EPS investigation has found that to be false.

“We now have a near complete understanding of the circumstances of Samuel’s disappearance and death. Any videos purporting to depict Samuel’s death are categorically false,” he said.

“The results of our investigation have determined that the family of the accused, Bryan Farrell, were not present or involved in Samuel Bird’s disappearance or murder.”

He did confirm that Farrell is the father of a teen that was known to Bird.

“Farrell is the father of another youth that was associated with Samuel. I won’t get into the nuance of their relationship at the time,” he said.

He also said some of the teens at the centre of online speculation were friends of Bird’s.

“Many of these kids were his friends. They come from similar circumstances. They were caught up in the situation that ultimately led to this.”

Bird’s remains were located on Thursday, four-and-a-half months after he was last seen on June 1.

Police believe he was killed and his body disposed of the same day he went missing.

They had been searching for his remains near Carrot Creek, but Buhler said he was actually found west of Edmonton, south of Stony Plain, but said the specific location wasn’t being released for investigative reasons.

“The Carrot Creek information was the best information we had at the time. That was not a ruse. It wasn’t a tactic, it was a legitimate search for Samuel,” he said.

“This investigation has had many, many roadblocks, twists, turns, and the last three weeks have been probably the most active of the entire case.”

Buhler said police will continue working in the area throughout the weekend to try and locate all of the remains.

Both Buhler and newly appointed EPS Chief Warren Dreichel commented on the amount of issues the force faced because of social media during the investigation.

“I think it’s time that we recognize the amount of social media and the misinformation that occurs in these investigations. It really changes the dynamics for us as a police agency or police organization, and it’s something that’s a phenomenon that we’re gonna have to just understand,” Driechel said.

“When these things start to develop this way, the amount of noise and disruption that’s occurring is extremely disruptive to these organizations or to these investigations. I think this is going to be a challenge moving forward.”

Buhler was also asked how the Bird investigation would help EPS inform future searches for missing Indigenous people.

“I can only speak to investigations that I’m involved in or my team is involved in. I don’t know what happens in other agencies, but in my experience, the Edmonton Police Service does everything it can to investigate all missing persons cases, including cases of Indigenous people,” Buhler said.

“There have been so many times in this case where our investigation has hung by a literal thread, and the pressure of knowing that we could fail at any moment, including 3 a.m. yesterday,” he said, near tears.

“I can’t even describe that to you and it is not for a want of trying that more Indigenous people are located and charges are brought. It’s because each case is unique, and we have what we have, and you can’t make up evidence, and you can only work so hard.

“The apology that I owe after four months of investigating this case is that all the other cases I have have not been worked on for four months.”