deadmonton 2006 - kim peter arseneault
Kim Peter Arseneault, 51, was beaten to death on December 18th, 2006.
Roy Robert King, 31, was charged with manslaughter and possession of an offensive weapon – a hatchet – unrelated to the slaying.
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Just before midnight on December 18th, 2006 a 911 call from inside 10726 107 Street reported that a man had suffered a cardiac arrest and died.
Homicide detectives were then called out to investigate circumstances surrounding the death of a 51-year-old man which police first termed "suspicious."
Police at the scene declined to comment on the state of the body but Det. Pat McCormick spoke to CTV Edmonton cameras.
"Once we get the autopsy results we'll be able to speak more clearly or definitively to it. But as it stands it's just remaining as a suspicious death."
Early reports indicated the man had been assaulted prior to his death.
By late morning of December 19th officials from the medical examiner's office removed the body.
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It was not known at first if the man was a resident of the house and nobody was taken into custody in connection with the death.
An autopsy was performed on December 20th, 2006 but the results were not released as police said it would compromise the investigation.
On December 21st, 2006 Edmonton police announced that the death of the man, now identified as Kim Peter Arseneault, was the result of homicide, the city's 35th murder of the year.
On December 27th, 2006 police laid charges against 31-year-old Roy Robert King.
King faces manslaughter and possession of an offensive weapon – a hatchet – though the weapon charge is unrelated to the slaying. He was set to appear in court on January 15th, 2007.
The medical examiner reported Arseneault died from blunt force trauma to the head.
The Edmonton Journal published a story which suggested Arsenault and a roomate who he shared the house with had gotten into an argument over the cutting down of a Christmas tree in a public park.
Having been exactly a month since Edmonton's last homicides, both local papers hit the street to fill a news void left by police who had little information to offer in the first few days after Arsenault's body was discovered.
The Journal and the Sun interviewed area neighbours who said three men – two in their 50s and one in his mid-30s – lived in the home, along with a big dog named Buddy.
The man thought to be deceased was mistakenly referred to as Roy.
"They have a lot of parties here so, [the death] doesn't surprise me," said Wally, who said his friend Roy lived in the house.
Wally said Roy was a "classic guy ... but sometimes they drink a lot, too. They party a lot."
Paul Gurney, a property manager at the Karen Manor apartment complex three doors down, said he spoke to a blond man in his 50s during the summer who he believed was the owner of the house.
Roy sometimes came to see Gurney and his dog. "He was a bit effeminate. He fit into that category," winked Gurney.
"Over the summer, he said he was having some problems with the people who were living with him. One time I saw him with a black eye."
"I'm really upset about this because I don't know if it was him or not," Gurney said.
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Just north of the Avenue of Nations – how the City has christened the busy 107th Avenue thoroughfare – the house at 10726 was known as a party place.
"All summer long they had hookers and junkies coming and going from that place," said Cindy Wilson, who lived in an apartment overlooking the rear of the home.
Although the three men who occupied the house were always friendly in person, they often kept her awake with their loud backyard parties on the weekends.
"But, it was abnormally quiet this past weekend," Cindy said.
"We had some issues with that home over the summer – parties, screaming, yelling. It's quieter now that it's winter, " Paul Gurney said.
Debris littered the home's backyard, with several torn-up couches and other broken furniture arranged in a semicircle around a fire pit. A back window on the house was smashed and there was a hole in the back door.
News of a man's death in the area was not that surprising to Paul Gurney because "it's still a pretty tough place."
"Just a few months ago we had people lying on front lawns smoking crack, but aside from this, it seems to be slowly getting better."
The McDougall neighborhood, filled with affordable apartment blocks usually populated with the latest wave of immigrants (currently the Sudanese), had seen its fair share of violence in the past year.
On July 24th, 2006 Dung Tri Tran, 35, was shot to death in broad daylight as he drove through the intersection of 112th Street and 107th Avenue.
Tran fell out his car which then rolled unoccupied down the street and struck a building.
No charges have been laid in Tran's murder.
On September 6th, 2006 Nyibol Chuol, a 27-year-old three-month pregnant mother of two, was reported missing from the area.
Five days later her family's vehicle, a 1998 Ford Taurus, was found at 106th Street and 106th Avenue, two blocks away from the Sudanese-Canadian Dinka Cultural Society.
On September 16th, 2006 Chuol's body was found on the north side of Yellowhead Trail between Range Road 222 and 223 east of Edmonton.
Chuol's husband, 41-year-old John Both, was charged with second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body.
On December 21st, 2006 the Edmonton Journal published an article that shed some light on the final hours of Kim Peter Arseneault.
The Journal based their story on an interview conducted with Heather Bell, who came to know Arseneault after they met walking their dogs.
Bell said Arseneault and his 31-year-old roommate had dinner at Bell's home during the evening of December 17th, 2006.
"They were talking and talking about this tree that they wanted to get," recalled Bell.
She said the two men left shortly after supper "in good spirits" with a plan to walk over to a small park near St. Joseph's High School.
Earlier the younger man had spotted 2.5-metre balsam fir that "he 'just had to have' " as a Christmas tree, Bell said.
But Arseneault had second thoughts after the two arrived at the park just after midnight on December 18th. He headed back to his house, leaving his roommate to cut the tree down by himself.
The 31-year-old felled the tree with a saw and dragged it across the busy six-laned 109th Street back to his home several blocks east.
The tree was seen lying in the back yard in early teleivsion coverage.
An argument of some kind broke out when the younger man returned and the two roommates ended up punching and kicking each other.
With Arseneault lying unconscious on the floor of his bedroom, the younger man then ran back to Bell's home and told her what happened.
He allegedly told her he "beat up Peter pretty bad" and felt "really" bad about it.
"He looked really scared at the time but the two of them get into fights a lot so I didn't think that much of it," Bell said.
In the meantime, homeowner Garry Daniels, who shared the house with the two roommates, came home from work and saw Arseneault lying in his room.
"He must have thought Peter was just sleeping off a hangover," Bell said.
Hours later, when Daniels was about to leave for his night shift as a janitor [ironically] at St. Joseph's High School, he checked on Arseneault again. It was then, Bell said, that Daniels noticed the blood.
A 911 call was made from the house at about 11:45 p.m. on December 18th, reporting that a man had suffered a cardiac arrest. Police arrived a short time later.
Bell said the 31-year-old roommate then returned to her home "looking like a ghost." He said he wasn't sure what to do so she advised him to contact police.
The man went to see officers later in the afternoon of December 19th.
There was no word at the time if the man was considered a suspect in Arseneault's death, or if any charges stemming from the tree-cutting had been laid.
The Edmonton Sun reported that according to records at the provincial land titles department, the registered owner of the property at 10726 107 Street is Mainstreet Equity Corp.