UPDATED 8.15AM 07/09/2022 (AEST)
Police say the remaining suspect in a stabbing rampage that killed 10 people on an indigenous reserve is not in a house near the scene.
The announcement came hours after police have surrounded the house with guns drawn, early on Wednesday (Australian time).
Authorities had warned locals Myles Sanderson might be back in the indigenous reserve as they investigate whether he had killed the other suspect, his brother.
Police sent an emergency alert to phones asking people to shelter in place amid a possible sighting at the James Smith Cree First Nation reserve.
An Associated Press reporter heard people screaming and running and saw police surround a home.
Police barricaded roads heading into the reserve.
But hours later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said investigators had determined that 30-year-old Sanderson was “not located in the community” of the reserve and that authorities were continuing to search for him.
Sanderson remained at large and possibly injured, police said after investigators on Monday found his older brother, Damien Sanderson, 31, dead in a grassy area of the James Smith Cree Nation.
Damien Sanderson’s body was found on Monday, also near the stabbing sites.
Police suspect Myles Sanderson killed his brother. They are yet to reveal details about the death but said the older brother was found with wounds that were not consistent with self-harm.
The two brothers are suspected of killing 10 people and wounding 18 others in a stabbing rampage Sunday in the James Smith Cree reserve and nearby village of Weldon, roiling an indigenous community of 3400 people in one of the deadliest attacks in Canada’s modern history.
Leaders of the James Smith Cree Nation, where most of the stabbing attacks happened, blamed the killings on drug and alcohol abuse plaguing the community. They said it was a legacy of the colonisation of indigenous people.
-with AAP
