WINNIPEG — RCMP have identified a young girl whose remains were found in a barn in Manitoba.
Mounties say Xavia Skye Lynn Butler would have been between one and two years old at the time of her death.
Her remains were located on a property near Grahamdale, about 200 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, on June 3.
Her death is being investigated as a homicide.
RCMP say the last time investigators have been able to physically place Xavia was approximately a year before her remains were found, and there were no missing person reports filed about her in that time.
Mounties are looking for any photos of the girl taken after March 2022 and are asking anyone who saw the girl after that date to contact them.
Premier Wab Kinew called the case "absolutely tragic."
"When we think of such a young life being lost and that the circumstances are being investigated as a homicide, this is one of the worst things that can happen, bar none," Kinew said Friday.
"As a provincial government, when something like this happens in Manitoba, it makes you stop and take stock of what is happening across this land and resolve that ... we will have an attention towards preventing incidents like this from happening again."
Early details of the case bear some similarities to the death of Phoenix Sinclair in 2005. The five-year-old girl was not reported missing and, nine months after she was killed, her body was found near a landfill at the Fisher River Cree Nation north of Winnipeg.
Her mother, Samantha Kematch, and Kematch's common-law husband, Karl McKay, were later convicted of first-degree murder, and the death led to a public inquiry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2024.
Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press
