THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay has now had the second homicide in 2020. Thunder Bay Police are now reporting that the victim of an aggravated assault on January 9, 2020, has died from the injuries the young man suffered in the assault.
As a result, the Thunder Bay Police Service is now treating the case as a homicide investigation.
Some background on the Investigation
Thunder Bay Police Service officers with the Uniform Patrol Branch were en route to a reported break and enter in the 300 block of Syndicate Avenue North just before 3 a.m. on Thursday, January 9, 2020.
Officers arrived in the area and located footprints in the freshly fallen snow, which were suspected to be linked to the original call for service. Police followed the footprints and located two male suspects.
Further investigation led officers to discover that an 18-year-old male had been the victim of an assault at the Syndicate Avenue North residence.
The male victim was transported to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre for further treatment of his life-threatening injuries. The victim passed from their injuries over the weekend.
Cody ECHUM, 19, of Thunder Bay, and a 14-year-old male were both charged on Thursday, Jan. 9 with Aggravated Assault. Both accused appeared in bail court that day and were remanded into custody with future appearance dates.
Members of the Thunder Bay Police Service’s Major Crimes Unit expect to lay new charges as a result of the victim’s passing.
Investigators also identified additional victims who were connected to the original incident. As a result of the ongoing investigation, police identified a 20-year-old male and a 20-year-old female as having been assaulted with a weapon during the January 9, 2020, incident.
Additional charges including Assault with a Weapon are expected.
The identity of the youth accused is being withheld in accordance with the Youth Criminal Justice Act. None of the charges have been proven in court.
There have been widespread social media postings on this case. NetNewsLedger seeks simply to report the proven facts as we receive them. This is for a number of reasons, one is out of a sense of respect to the families and friends of the victim. Another is that one of the tasks of media is balancing between what can be argued as the right of the public to know, and in not causing problems or impeding the investigation of police officers doing their job.
In this and other cases, it would be far easier to report faster and seek to break the news, that however must be tempered with compassion for the victim(s) and their loved ones, and the efforts of the police in doing their jobs.
The thoughts of all of us with NetNewsLedger go out to the friends and family of the victim of this terrible crime.
