1 suspect in Canada stabbings found dead, police say

WELDON, Saskatchewan — Canadian police said Monday one of the suspects in the killing of 10 people in a series of stabbings has been found dead, and his injuries are not self inflicted. They said his brother, also a suspect, may be injured and remains on the run.

Regina Police Chief Evan Bray said Damien Sanderson, 31, has been found dead and that they believe Myles Sanderson, 30, is in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Earlier Monday, Canadian police searched for two men suspected of killing 10 people in a series of stabbings in an Indigenous community and a nearby town, as a massive manhunt for the perpetrators of one of the deadliest attacks in the nation’s history stretched into its second day.

Authorities have said some of the victims were targeted and others appeared to have been chosen at random on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the town of Weldon in Saskatchewan province. They have given no motive for the crimes, which also left 18 people injured — but a senior Indigenous leader suggested drugs were somehow involved.

Police believe the suspects were last spotted around midday on Sunday in the provincial capital of Regina, about 210 miles south of where the stabbings happened. Police believe they are still in the city, but didn’t say why they think that. Authorities issued alerts in Canada’s three vast prairie provinces — which also include Manitoba and Alberta — and contacted U.S. border officials.

With the suspects still at large, fear gripped communities in the rural, working class area of Saskatchewan surrounded by farmland that were terrorized by the crimes. One witness who said he lost family members described seeing people with bloody wounds scattered throughout the Indigenous reserve.

“No one in this town is ever going to sleep again. They’re going to be terrified to open their door,” said Ruby Works, who also lost someone close to her and is a resident of Weldon, which has a population of about 200 and is home to many retirees.

As the Labor Day holiday weekend drew to a close Monday, police urged Saskatchewan residents who were returning from trips away to look for suspicious activity around their homes before entering.

Arrest warrants have been issued for Damien Sanderson, 31, and Myles Sanderson, 30, and both men face at least one count each of murder and attempted murder. More charges are expected.

Police have given few details about the men. Last May, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers issued a wanted list that included Myles Sanderson, writing that he was “unlawfully at large.”

While the manhunt continued, police also issued a provincewide alert for suspects in a shooting on the Witchekan Lake First Nation. Officials said the shooting was not believed to be connected to the stabbings, but such alerts are unusual and the fact that a second occurred while authorities were already scouring the Saskatchewan for the stabbing suspects was notable.

The stabbing attack was among the deadliest mass killings in Canada, where such crimes are less common than in the United States. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020, when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. In 2019, a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.

Deadly mass stabbings are rarer than mass shootings, but have happened around the world. In 2014, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in China’s southwestern city of Kunming. In 2016, a mass stabbing at a facility for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, left 19 people dead. A year later, three men killed eight people in a vehicle and stabbing attack at London Bridge.

“It is horrific what has occurred in our province,” said Rhonda Blackmore, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan.