44-year-old arrested after woman, 71, found dead in Brandon apartment: police

A 44-year-old man has been arrested after police found a 71-year-old woman dead in an apartment suite in Brandon, Man., on Friday morning.

Police were called for a well-being check at an apartment building suite on McDiarmid Drive just before 11 a.m. Friday, Brandon police said in a Saturday news release.

Officers found the woman dead when they arrived at the suite. She appears to have died by "trauma caused by an edged weapon," police said. 

Brandon police also found the 44-year-old man, who is related to the woman, in the suite. They detained him and later arrested him for murder, according to police. It wasn't immediately clear whether the charge was first-degree or second-degree murder.

The man is set to appear for a bail hearing Saturday.

The woman's death is the fifth homicide in Brandon this year, according to information from the Brandon Police Service.

In 2022, Brandon had one homicide. There were three in 2019, but none in 2021, 2020 or 2018.

The significant resources required for more homicide investigations puts a strain on the police service, said Staff Sgt. Kevin Loewen, but those deaths also have reverberations in the community and can create fears of violence.

"It's taxing on members … but also it demonstrates to us that unfortunately, society has appeared of recently to be getting more and more potentially violent," Loewen said.

"We do have a multitude of factors that appear to be increasing in our community — in any community — that would make these types of situations more possible to occur," he said.

"It's definitely concerning when violence goes up."

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