A 20-year-old man has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of a teenaged girl whose body was found along a snowy forest road in northern British Columbia.
Cody Alan Legebokoff of Prince George was charged Monday in the death of 15-year-old Loren Donn Leslie of Fraser Lake after a suspicious Mountie pulled over a truck.
Ms. Leslie's family is still struggling to determine how she died; her father, Doug Leslie, said he last saw his daughter Saturday afternoon, when he went to visit her at her mother's house. His daughter had a friend over at the house and was in good spirits.
"She was happy and I went home," Mr. Leslie said. "The next thing I knew I was being called by the police. After that, I really don't know anything. No one is telling us anything."
Mr. Leslie said she coped so well with her vision condition that most people didn't know of her disability. "She was a probably the sweetest kid alive."
Mr. Legebokoff was arrested after the RCMP officer stopped a pickup turning onto Highway 27 from an unused logging road north of Vanderhoof on Saturday night.
Trackers retraced the pickup's path in the snow and officers later found Ms. Leslie's body.
Mr. Legebokoff has been remanded in custody without bail and his next court appearance will be on Wednesday.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said in a statement that investigators expect to remain on the scene until after an autopsy and have not released a possible cause of death or a motive for the killing.
With a report from Rebecca Cheung