A senior police official says the Happy Charles case is still being treated as a missing person, following statements from the family that it had been changed to a homicide.
“The title has not changed,” said inspector Jonathan Bergen of the Prince Albert Police Service. “We continue to investigate a missing person.”
He said the investigator leading the case is currently on holidays, and that he can’t confirm what was communicated to the family last week. Charles’s mother, Regina Poitras, told the Daily Herald that a police representative said the case is now being treated as a homicide, following discussions with Crown prosecutors.
Bergen said the police likely communicated their concern that Charles has now been missing for 110 days. He said they treat missing person cases just as seriously as homicides, and use the same investigative methods.
“I can say that the efforts that we put into a homicide are comparable, the investigation principles are the same,” he said. “The collection of evidence is being done consistently consistent with a major case, a serious case.
Bergen said that there has been “no discovery” of Happy Charles. He has previously expressed concern that there may have been foul play in the case – but that doesn’t mean they’ve changed their investigation.
“The passage of time is concerning we have not discovered Happy, but that is consistent with what we dealt with early on.”
