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The body of 44-year-old Sandra Nipshank was found lightly-clothed and frozen on a north-end townhouse walkway. The medical examiner's office ruled her death as non-criminal in nature.

Members of Nipshank's family later appeared on Global Edmonton asking what happened to Sandra and why.

Officers were called at about 9:30 a.m. January 8th, 2008 after a woman's body was found laying on a walkway along two condo units near 150th Avenue and 118th Street.

The discovery was made by a couple whose back deck overlooks the walkway that runs in front of the Parkview units.

Mark Miniely told media what happened.

"My wife went for a cigarette out on the back deck. She came back in and told me there was somebody half-dressed – you know, half-naked laying between the two places," Mark said.

"So I came out – I didn't believe her at first – sure enough, there was somebody laying there. I could see goosebumps on the person's arm so I thought either this person froze to death or they're about to so I ran out and tried to give her a shake. She was frozen stiff."

Miniely also revealed the woman might be pregnant, a fact not confirmed by police.

"And when I reached down to shake her that was actually the part that I touched ... and it felt pretty hard – pretty stiff."

"It was a little weird. You don't touch a dead body every day," Miniely said. "All you can hope for is that she died in her sleep."

The man said he had never seen the woman before and didn't believe she lived in the townhouse complex.

Mark's wife Shannel also recounted the events of the day.

"This morning I came outside and she was laying there with her sweater off like in the snow," she said.

"I went over and went 'Hey hey hey' and I tried to move her and she was like frozen to the ground."

Shannel said the woman was wearing a sweater when she talked to her as she was arguing with two men from the next unit.

"I asked them to keep it down because I have a baby sleeping and they said, 'Yep alright ma'am' and they went in their house. There was a girl with them crying – the girl that was found this morning."

Shannel said she told officers the woman's sweater ended up in her backyard.

"Last night she was conscious – she was getting up and walking to my front yard so I didn't think to phone the police. I thought that she walked away. I went to bed not knowing she was going to die by my back door."

Shannel also confirmed her husband's speculation.

"She actually does look pregnant. Her belly looks exactly like mine and I'm pregnant."

Shannel said it sounded like the argument was over money.

“It was about $25,000,” she said adding there had been another dispute earlier in the day and the two men sounded drunk.

Another person who witnessed the argument was Sean Evanchuk, Shannel's brother.

“I saw her (alive) the night before,” he said.

"There was an argument and it seemed to be drinking ... there's two gentlemen ... but other than that I didn't really hear anything else."

Evanchuk said he believed he then saw a woman lying in the snow but thought nothing of it at the time.

The Minielys had just moved to the low-rise townhouse complex three weeks earlier in hopes of living in a better neighbourhood.

"I just moved here from Fort Road and 118th to get away from this sort of stuff," Mark said.

Ironically a sign outside the complex reads "We have joined the Crime-Free Multi Housing Program of Edmonton."

"There are no obvious signs of trauma to the body but they haven't moved it yet," said a police spokesman shortly after the body was discovered.

While homicide detectives were called out, "we don't know if it's a homicide," Insp. Jamie Ewatski told media adding: “The body has been lying there for some time.”

"We have reports of a minor disturbance that was coming from this general area last night. They were unreported to police and this is coming from the witnesses at this time and point. And the body's been lying there for some time so it is a little bit frozen," Ewatski said.

Overnight temperatures were near minus 18 Celsius.

"We looked at a location here – one of the adjoing townhomes – we felt that there may be somebody inside who might be either hurt or injured. We gained entry to the suite and found nobody. So right now we're dealing with one individual who is deceased," Ewatski stated.

Shannel Miniely later revealed to media that police told her the house they searched was the scene of drug activity.

"I talked to the police today and they said that they had gone into the neighbour's house and it was a drug house. So which really worries me – we had just moved here and they're selling drugs right next door and I have two babies – one on the way," she said.

Michelle Fraser also heard the disturbance, placing it between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.

"They were walking around and I thought it seemed kinda strange because ... you know, they were sort of hovering around in there and I just didn't think too much of it," she said. "Towards the end of their conversation I heard someone say, 'Leave it there.' I thought that they were trying to steal something."

Like Sean Evanchuk and the Minielys, she too went back inside her unit without paying any more attention to the scuffle. Fraser also said she wasn’t surprised the body wasn't found until the next morning.

"I hardly ever see anybody out there," Fraser said.

Yellow crime scene tape could be seen wrapped around several buildings across the road from Katherine Therrien Catholic School.

Townhouse resident Carol Drake wondered whether any of the children who attended the school may have seen the body.

She said the police tactical unit had been called to the complex over the summer. One person was arrested after officers exploded a flash bang device. Drake also noted the area has seen a lot of drug activity but didn't offer any details.

"This is really shocking. Like there's been like tons of fights, drugs and stuff like that but nothing like murder here," Drake's 14-year-old daughter Charley Ann said. "I've lived here for 10 years and this is quite a shocker."

Police forensic technicians spent most of the day working the scene. With daylight exhausted, staff from the medical examiner's office move in and removed the body.

Police said they were not sure if the death was criminal in nature or simply the matter of a person freezing to death – a frequent occurence in previous weeks.

In the week before Christmas 2007 RCMP detachments south of Edmonton found themselves dealing with a trio of hypothermia victims within a three-day span » full details »

Most puzzling to police was the lack of trauma to the body found in north Edmonton. There were no obvious signs of injury and the exact cause of death was hoped to be determined through an autopsy.

The last time the coroner's office dealt with a frozen body – that of Nawar Jawad found on December 2nd, 2007 – it took four days to thaw before the "Y" incision could be made.

The fact that police acknowledged a condo in the complex as a known drug house upset one of the persons who found the body.

"I want them out of here," Mark Miniely told the Sun.

What bothered Miniely most was the fact that one of the two arging men was a neighbour who may have intentionally left the woman on the ground.

"I think they probably saw her there and left her to die," Miniely said. "If anything, that's negligence causing death."

He repeated to the Sun the possibility the woman was pregnant.

"There was a whole lot of belly there," Miniely said, adding that as a father expecting another child, he can recognize the signs of pregnancy.

On January 9th police revealed that they had identified the woman who was now listed as being in her mid-40s. However her name was not made public.

Police would not say if she lived in the complex but they confirmed they had been called out to the area in the past.

Authorities have also identified the two men the woman was last seen with and said all three were connected to the drug house.

It was also determined by investigators the woman was not involved in the argument neighbours heard, and that the men left the area separately while the woman stayed behind.

It was later revealed the back door of the drug house was open when police first arrived. The woman could possibly have gone into the house and left, later dying in the show.

On January 10th police said results of an autopsy conducted earlier in the day indicated the woman's death was non-criminal in nature.

The medical examiner couldn't disclose the exact cause of death saying toxicology test results were still pending.

Police said they were no longer involved in the case.

The woman was identified by family as Sandra Nipshank. Her sisters appeared on Global Edmonton looking for answers in a death that – for them – hasn't been fully explained.

Rosemary and Karen Nipshank appeared on camera pleading for an explanation of Sandra's death.

"It doesn't seem right. There's something missing here in this story that I need some answers to," Rosemary said.

"We don't feel this is adding up. A person lying in the snow means there's something happened. We need answers – she always had her ID as well. She did not have her ID with her ..."

Karen picked up on the oddity.

"She didn't have her purse or her coat so we want to know where's her purse?" she demanded.

"Did she ask for help?" Karen wondered. "Was there people watching what was going on? Did she cry for our names? Did she call for her daughter?"

Sandra was a mother to a 17-year-old and a graduate of NAIT's architecture program.

"She didn't have very many friends but we felt at times there was friends that were probably not the best people," Karen conceded.

"There's two sides to every story and my sister's not here to tell her story what happened to her," reflected Rosemary.

And it was that part of the story that prompted the sisters to appear in public with their appeal.

"Somebody's seen something and they should come forward," Rosemary said.

The sisters did clear up one aspect that puzzled some when the discovery of Sandra's body was first made, and that was that she was not pregnant at the time of her death.

The Edmonton Sun revealed another chapter to Nipshank's life when they published an interview with her fiance.

60-year-old Wayne Rodden and Sandra were planning to wed soon and move to Renfrew, Ontario where Rodden was originally from. The two had been together for almost five years.

"I was very very hurt. It's unbelievable," Rodden told the Sun. "Right now I'm OK, but when I think about our future, it breaks my heart," he said.

The man said they used to live in the area where Nipshank was found but moved away because of drug problems.

He said Sandra left her new house at about 1:00 p.m. on January 7th to retrieve some of the clothes she left behind at her previous home. Rodden never heard from her again.

A phone call the next day from a friend brought news police were investigating a dead body found near their old house.

"I phoned the police and then the next day a couple of detectives came over," Rodden said.

"It's really a mystery," Rodden said of Sandra's death. "How did she end up outside? That's what I don't understand."

A wake was set for January 17th, 2008 with Nipshank's funeral to take place the next day.

Global Edmonton revealed an unusual twist to the story of Sandra Nipshank after they identified one of the two men she was with before she died.

Global reported that Marcel Aitchison was one of the two men Nipshank was seen with.

Aitchison's truck was towed from a residence in Rundle Heights on January 10th. Police said they suspected the home to be a drug house.

The man was later questioned by police and released.

Aitchison first came to public attention when his two-and-a-half year old son was allegedly abducted by the child's mother on December 16th, 2007 from a home at 13424 111 Street. The boy was in the care of his paternal grandmother Elza at the time.

Marcel appeared in numerous media interviews and described Corrina Kresanoski, 35, who also uses the last name Czuba, as a person who does not care for the child's well being.

"She's addicted to drugs and completely irrational. I'm terrified about what she's done with my boy," Marcel said. He added that Corrina's refusal to seek addiction treatment led to the demise of their two-year relationship.

About the abduction, Marcel felt the woman had not acted alone.

"I do believe that maybe other people are at play here," he said.

On January 4th, 2008 the toddler was found along with his mother at a residence near 118th Avenue and 39th Street in Rundle Heights. The child was not returned to Aitchison but was placed into the custody of Child and Family Services.

Kresanoski was set to appear in court January 14th, 2008 to face abduction charges.

deadmonton 2008 - other police matters - sandra nipshank