Police release new details on workplace death of 19-year-old at Halifax Walmart
CBC
Warning: This story contains distressing details
Halifax Regional Police are releasing more details about the workplace death of a 19-year-old woman at a Walmart on Saturday.
"The woman, who was an employee of the store, was located in a large walk-in oven belonging to the store's bakery department," police said in a news release on Tuesday afternoon.
Police added that the investigation has not yet reached a point where the cause and manner of death have been confirmed. They have not released her name.
Police said they were called to the Mumford Road store on Saturday night around 9:30 p.m. local time and found the woman, who had been working that day, deceased when they arrived.
On Tuesday, the parking lot outside the store was mostly empty. Police told reporters on Tuesday afternoon they are no longer on scene.
In a statement, a spokesperson from Walmart said the store is "temporarily closed as we co-operate fully with the investigation."
The company said it was providing access to 24/7 virtual care to employees and providing on-site support, including grief counselling.
The provincial Department of Labour said in a statement to CBC News that a stop-work order was issued on Tuesday for the bakery and one piece of equipment at the store.
Some Halifax residents left flowers and notes in front of the Walmart in memory of the late employee.
Balbir Singh, the secretary of the Maritime Sikh Society, said Tuesday that the society has been in touch with the mother of the 19-year-old victim and learned that the woman and her mother are originally from India and came to Canada two to three years ago.
He said the local Sikh community is deeply distressed by her death.
"It's a really tragic incident and everybody is deeply hurt by this, and we are waiting for the police investigation to come out," said Singh. "We would like to know what happened to this young woman."
He added that psychological counselling is being provided to the mother and efforts are underway to bring other immediate family members from India. Singh said that once the body is released by the medical examiner, a religious service will be held in Halifax.
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
More than 300 patients without housing have gone from Edmonton emergency rooms directly into transitional accommodation since the launch of a unique program in March 2023.
B.C. Ferries says it is replacing its principle model of community feedback, the ferry advisory committee (FAC), which has been the main way the ferry corporation has kept in touch with ferry-reliant communities for over three decades.
The inquest for six inmates at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre heard Tuesday that five of the men died overnight, one of several commonalities noted in testimony by a corrections consultant.
"Our bodies lie, but still we roam" is written on a wooden cross paying tribute to Paul Gilbert and Donna Whyte — the Windsor couple who were fatally hit by a vehicle on Walker Road last week.
In three years, the number of people who are homeless in Waterloo region has doubled a new report says.
P.E.I.'s minister of fisheries says the Maritime oyster industry has sustained another blow after evidence of a new disease was recently found in oysters from Spence Cove, about five kilometres west of the Confederation Bridge in New Brunswick.
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Canadian political leaders can't control the fact that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. Neither can they stop him from threatening to take illogical steps that could hurt American businesses and consumers almost as much as they would hurt Canadians.
A First Nation in southern Alberta is suing the federal government for $1 billion, the latest in a series of lawsuits which argue that annual payments promised in treaties should have been adjusted for inflation.
The oilpatch is reacting to Donald Trump's threats to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods with a mix of concern and skepticism.