Manitoba RCMP are continuing to investigate the deaths of five people

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POCKET — RCMP in Manitoba say a 29-year-old man has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of his wife, three young children and a 17-year-old female relative.

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Insp. According to Tim Arsenault, the dead were the suspect's 30-year-old wife, the couple's six-year-old daughter, four-year-old son and two-month-old daughter, as well as the wife's 17-year-old niece.

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Children's toys and a bicycle were strewn across the back lawn of a small white bungalow early Monday morning in a small Manitoba town where police are investigating one of the scenes surrounding the suspicious deaths of three children and two women over the weekend.

Police tape cordoned off the front and back yards of the Carman home and forensic teams with police could be seen going in and out. Police cars are parked in front and behind the house.

It was one of three incidents that officers were working on Sunday to piece together how the death happened.

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It started early Sunday morning when police were called to the area outside the town of about 3,000, about 85 kilometers southwest of Winnipeg, to reports of a hit-and-run on Highway 3.

A woman was found dead in a ditch.

More than two hours later and 70 kilometers to the north, officers were called to a report of a car on fire and a witness learned that three children had been pulled out of it.

The children were pronounced dead, and police arrested a 29-year-old man at the scene.

Further investigation led officers to a home in Carman where they found the body of another woman inside.

Randy McFarlane, who lives a few houses down, said the house was a rental. The family said they had been living in the house in a quiet neighborhood for more than a year.

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“You never hear anything like this around here and you don't expect it to be in the neighborhood,” McFarlane said Monday.

The children played in the yard, McFarlane said, and he never interacted with his mother. Every once in a while, she heard him yelling into the cell phone, saying something that “seemed rude.”

RCMP Insp. Tim Arsenault gave few details at a news conference Sunday, but police believe the five victims and the suspect all knew each other.

He said it was too early to determine what happened between the deceased and the suspect.

“We have teams and a team of investigators working on this now and trying to understand what happened (and) why it happened,” he said on Sunday.

He did not give the ages of any of the dead or describe the relationship between them and the suspect.

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Carman Mayor Brent Owen said he was saddened to hear about the deaths, adding that about 80 percent of the city's residents did not know the victims personally, although they did.

He said he learned of the first death after receiving a text from a community member, but didn't fully understand the extent of what happened until he heard the details from police.

“It's scary. You will receive five people and three children from our community. It is impossible to imagine,” he expressed his condolences to his friends and relatives.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew expressed his condolences in a message on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

“Comfort and strength to the families and community of Carman during this difficult loss,” Kinew wrote

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham, who grew up in Karman, also offered his condolences to X. He said he was “shocked and saddened” by the news.

“My deepest condolences go out to the community and families affected by this tragedy,” Gillingham said Sunday.

The RCMP will hold a press conference on the case in Winnipeg on Monday.

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