Public help sought on third anniversary of woman’s slaying

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This article was published 21/02/2019 (1890 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police appealed Friday to anyone who saw Marilyn Rose Munroe in the last 10 days before her death three years ago to help police find her killer.

“If there is one thing I’m hoping people will take forward is that it’s been three years. We haven’t stopped investigating. The family hasn’t given up the search for information,” Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Tammy Skrabek said Friday. “Ten, 11 days, that’s a lot of time to account for.”

The appeal came on the third anniversary of the date when police found the body of the mother and grandmother.

The 41-year-old was found deceased in a known meth house in the North End, in the area of Selkirk Avenue at St. Andrews Street It was an address that had been Munroe’s home sometime during the previous year. She wasn’t living there at the time of her death and it appears that nobody else was, either. People came and went from the house, which had been turned over exclusively to the drug trade.

“We know that there’s more than one person out there who has details of this. There were a number of people who were frequenting this home and we’re really appealing to those people to contact police and share the information they have — for the sake of the family and for the sake of the children, so everybody can obtain some closure,” Skrabek said.

In addition to the police appeal, Munroe’s family is arriving in Winnipeg from their home in Ontario to lead a vigil and a march Saturday.

The march is expected to get underway at 11 a.m. on Pritchard Avenue at Charles Street and trace a route through the North End, before wrapping up at Ka Ni Kanichihk, at 455 McDermot Avenue. That’s the location where Munroe was last seen alive when she spoke to a worker at the agency on Feb. 12, 2016.

When Munroe left Ka Ni Kanichihk that day, she was wearing several sweaters and carrying a plastic bag.

Police said they have a lot of questions and while it looks like Munroe’s homicide is related to the city’s meth crisis, they can’t conclusively say whether it was, or even if Munroe was using meth at the time of her death.

“It’s believed to have something to do with meth use, given the address it was and the people in that house,” Skrabek said.

“We know that she was struggling with addictions. We know she did use drugs at some points. We don’t believe she was active in selling meth. She unfortunately was, from all appearances, basically a victim of the drug community, the methamphetamine community.

“Unfortunately, the more people are using it, the more they become addicted and then they turn to other friends, usually those involved in crime, to obtain more drugs. That seems to be the lifestyle she fell into,” the police spokeswoman said.

Police are certain Munroe’s death was a homicide but they continue to hold back details, until they can make an arrest.

“The information I have from the homicide unit is that it was clear at the time that this was a homicide,” was all the police spokeswoman would say Friday.

Family and police have kept the case going, looking for information to fill in the missing time gap, in hopes of nailing down a suspect but the search has been complicated by the fact that most of the people who might have information are involved in the drug trade or are victims of it.

Police have suspects in mind and in the last three years, they’ve conducted 60 to 70 separate interviews in their search for information.

“The majority of the people we are dealing with are in the illicit drug community so they’re either meth dealers or meth users or involved in other types of drugs. That in itself makes them somewhat suspect, based on the relationship they had with her, Skrabek said.

“For closure for the family, it’s important we reach out to anyone who may have information that may help investigators conclude this investigation. And when we’re speaking about family, we’re also talking about children. She had three children so for the sake of those children, it’s important we find those answers,” Skrabek said.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca