Man acquitted in Tina Fontaine murder found dead, says her aunt

globalnews.ca:

Raymond Cormier, a career criminal and the man police believed killed Tina Fontaine, has reportedly died and “took all the answers with him” said Fontaine’s aunt Thelma Favel.“No, it doesn’t give me closure,” says Favel, who raised the 15-year-old girl who became the name and face of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls crisis when she was found wrapped in duvet and weighted down in Winnipeg’s Red River in August 2014.Fontaine had been missing for a month when her body was recovered. A cause of death was never determined but police charged Cormier with second-degree murder, relying on the controversial Mr.

Big method of gaining a confession.The petty thief and life-long drug user and dealer was acquitted in the killing in 2018 and prosecutors opted not to appeal.But Favel tells Global News from her home in Powerview, Man. — roughly 120 kilometres north of Winnipeg — that she believes police had the right man all along.“He used to smirk at me in the courtroom and throw his head back with this horrible laugh,” she said.“I have mixed feelings about him passing.

I’m glad he’s gone and can’t do this to anyone else but I’ll never have the answer of why he would do such a thing to such a small little girl.”The story of his death was first reported by APTN News Monday. Favel says Winnipeg Police Service detectives advised her on the weekend that Cormier died in Kenora, Ont.