April Woodhouse, 50, was found lying outside on the steps of a house in Pinaymootang First Nation—about 240 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg—not far from where she lived.
In the hospital, she said they were told April had signs of internal bleeding. When Stagg went into the hospital room, she noticed something else.
“I was holding her hand, and I noticed her hands were badly beaten,” she said, adding there were marks on her sister’s body.
When Stagg called RCMP, she was told her sister’s death was not being considered a homicide.
When CTV News first reached out to Manitoba RCMP on Tuesday, a spokesperson said April’s death was a “medical incident.”
However, one day later, RCMP responded to CTV News again. This time the police said an investigation is underway.
The determination is made by the circumstances under which the body is found; I was trying to imply this in my last post. If a body is found with no evidence as to how it got there or why the person in question is a corpse, we don’t just shrug and go about our business.
We are indeed missing a lot of information. I’m not speculating about anything. I’m maintaining my original point that frostbite/hypothermia do not cause internal bleeding on their own, which is patently true, and answering what seem to be questions. I’m not a doctor or a police officer, but I have some baseline knowledge from first aid and forensics courses (my interests are… eclectic, let’s say), so I share when I can.
Just to clarify, she was quite alive before going to the hospital, and was still alive hours after arriving there. They couldn’t keep her alive, but she wasn’t a random corpse that ended up being found in the woods somewhere - she was found on the steps of a home close to where she lives.
Did the home belong to people she knows (i.e. walked there and then something happened that left her in the cold), or was she put there? If she was put there, why? Someone who intended to kill her would certainly not put her somewhere safe to be found by others.
This case absolutely warrants an investigation, but I will still say that some of the most important details are missing here. We simply don’t know enough to draw conclusions from a single family member who wasn’t even the first person to find the deceased.
For sure, not out of the blue. That’s why information like “how did she get there?” and “how was she brought into the home?” are critical. Injuries happen if you fall after being disorientated, as one might be if they are suffering from hypothermia. Or they can happen if you’re being moved without care. These don’t necessarily point to homicide, and could very well fit the “medical incident” narrative being told by the RCMP.
I hope that the reports follow this case, because now I’m quite interested in the outcome. I feel terrible for the family. She was a mother and had quite a few grandkids.
I understand what you’re saying now, and I of course still agree there are lots more questions to be answered. I might have ranged a little far with my examples, but it’s still largely relevant; being found frozen and close to dead would absolutely be cause for a general physical checkup, inside and out, in trying to figure out what the hell happened and what else you might need treatment for. Where you were found wouldn’t really impact that bit, so I don’t think it’s surprising that they checked for internal injuries and I don’t think it’s surprising that the family would take finding such injuries as a sign of malfeasance. Your point about the injuries on her hands and forearms stands unchallenged, by the way - tissue damage could 100% look like contusions or lacerations. If it turns out she has broken bones in her hands, though…
Broken bones would absolutely turn this into a homicide investigation, IMO.