Maria Canton
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Jun 26/00) - DNA tests conducted on blood-spattered items taken from the Shoatee Joannie murder scene have failed to lead police to make any arrests in the nine-month-old case.

For several months the police have been saying they were waiting to receive the tests results from an Ottawa lab, hoping a conclusive piece of evidence would emerge. That evidence, they hoped, would then lead to the arrest of one of their suspects.

As of right now, however, that is not the case.

"We have the (DNA) results back and they provide us with other avenues to follow up on," said Cpl. Harvey Seddon of the General Investigations Section.

"We can't say what it is the results tell us, but they do provide us with additional information."

Hundreds of leads have already been investigated, but none has led to an arrest. Seddon says there is still a substantial amount of work to do before charges are laid in the September 1999 murder case.

Working with the GIS is Iqaluit's general detachment. Police there say they are hoping to revive public interest by starting a poster campaign.

This latest initiative is a move to strengthen their leads, and generate new evidence.

"Right now all of our leads have dried up, and we're looking for more information that will lead us to laying charges," said Sgt. Mike O'Malley.

"The posters will help to generate public input, and get people interested in (the case) again."

O'Malley says that although the police have suspects and a lengthy file on the case, they simply lack enough information to actually lay any charges.

He did, however, acknowledge the possibility of details and information being forgotten after such a delay in asking for public input.

"There is always the possibility that information may get forgotten or lost, but we are trying to get people interested again," he said.

"We have suspects, but not enough evidence to lay charges -- we're not nearly as close as we'd like to be."

Joannie, 39, was found dead in his Iqaluit home on Sept. 25. Police will only say his death was the result of blunt force trauma.