“Myles Sanderson was located and taken into police custody near Rosthern, [Saskatchewan]at approximately 3:30 p.m. today,” the Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement. “There is no longer a risk to public safety relating to this investigation.”
Rosthern is roughly 80 miles southwest of the James Smith Cree Nation, where the killing spree began Sunday morning. Police received the first call at 5:40 a.m., and then many more, about stabbings on the Indigenous reserve. By the end of the day, the carnage traced across 13 different crimes scenes.
The victims, whose identities were released on Wednesday, ranged in age from 23 to 78. All but one were from the James Smith Cree Nation. They included a mother who died protecting her children, an addictions counsellor who was responding to an emergency call and a Canadian army veteran.
“It’s a huge amount of weight off a lot of people’s soldiers that he’s in custody,” Randy Hoback, a Canadian lawmaker who represents the part of Saskatchewan where the killings occurred, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “I think a lot of people are breathing a big sigh of relief and will sleep a lot better tonight.”
Police searched for Myles Sanderson for nearly four days. Initially, they believed he had been spotted in Regina, the provincial capital. On Tuesday, police converged on the James Smith Cree Nation after reports that he had been seen there.
But they later said that they had determined that he wasn’t there, and his whereabouts were unknown.
This breaking story will be updated.