Manitoba man extradited in New Jersey cold case homicide has history of violence in U.S., judge says
CBC
WARNING: This story contains details about violence.
A man living in Winnipeg who was extradited to New Jersey last week after being linked to a decades-old cold case homicide has a long history of violence on both sides of the border.
Robert Creter, 60, agreed at a court hearing Wednesday to stay in custody in New Jersey.
Creter was arrested in Winnipeg in June and extradited to New Jersey on Nov. 26 after he was charged with first-degree murder in the 1997 killing of 23-year-old Tamara Tignor last year.
Somerset County Judge Angela Borkowski said he has a long rap sheet in the United States, with 16 indictable offences from 1992 to 1999, including aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault, terroristic threats and theft.
"While charges were pending, he left the United States for Canada," she said Wednesday in court.
He was homeless in Winnipeg in the nine months before his arrest, moving between shelters, and he had no fixed address or phone number, Borkowski said. Creter should remain in custody because he would be a high flight risk if released, she said.
The murder charge against Creter has not yet been tested in court. His next court date is Jan. 17.
Mike McLaughlin, a Somerset County assistant prosecutor, said Monday that Creter moved to Manitoba in early 2002 and remained in the province until last month. He was born in Canada but was adopted and moved to New Jersey when he was young.
Tignor was last seen getting into an orange van in the city of Newark in the early hours of Nov. 4, 1997, McLaughlin said.
DNA collected from Tignor's body — which was found about 12 hours later on a dirt access road near Washington Valley Park, more than 40 kilometres away from Newark — linked Creter to her killing last year, he said.
Investigators also connected Creter — who was working as a day labourer in Bridgewater, N.J., when Tignor's body was found — to an orange van, McLaughlin said.
Canupawakpa Dakota Nation, a First Nation just over 30 kilometres south of the town of Virden in southwestern Manitoba, confirmed to CBC News that Creter is a registered member of the community.
Creter's court hearings in Canada have shed light on his life after he fled the United States.
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