Murder charge over death of Fort Smith man

RCMP have charged a man with murder over the death of a 48-year-old in the town of Fort Smith earlier this week.

In a news release on Wednesday, police said they had charged 54-year-old Wilfred Abraham, of Fort Smith, with second-degree murder.

Abraham remains in police custody and is due to appear in a Yellowknife court on Thursday.

The dead man was named locally as Ralph Sifton, though police have neither confirmed the man’s identity nor revealed any details of what happened in the incident or where it took place.

Residents told Cabin Radio they believed the incident to have occurred within a block of the town’s homeless shelter late on Monday.

A post-mortem examination has been ordered by the NWT Coroner Service. The investigation continues.

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Clarification: August 19 2018, 15:40 MT. Based on a call from the family of a resident, this article has been updated to reflect that the reported location of the incident, while within a block of the town’s homeless shelter, is not the lot directly opposite that building. The initial article stated residents believed the incident to have occurred “across the street” from the shelter which, while not naming any particular lot nor suggesting the incident took place within a particular building, was open to interpretation.