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Manslaughter charge laid in Resolution
Spouse accused in 48-year-old woman's death

Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 25, 2012

DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
A Fort Resolution man has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of a 48-year-old woman on June 19 as the result of an incident three days earlier.

The accused - Steven Sayine, 38, of Fort Resolution - was charged on June 21, according to a news release from the RCMP.

The name of the victim is not being released by the RCMP at the request of her family. However, a number of sources have identified the woman as Mary Laboucan.

The accused and the victim were in a domestic relationship.

Sayine was jailed at least until a court appearance in Yellowknife Territorial Court today, June 25.

According to the RCMP, the cause of death remains part of the investigation with autopsy results pending.

Staff Sgt. Brad Kaeding, media relations officer with the RCMP's G Division, said his understanding is no weapons were involved in the incident.

Kaeding said personnel from the Fort Resolution health centre were called to a residence on the evening of June 16 and found a woman in medical distress, and the RCMP was called to assist. The victim was later transferred to hospital in Yellowknife and then to Edmonton, where she died on June 19.

Kaeding would not go into detail about what evidence prompted the police to lay the one count of manslaughter against Sayine.

"Suffice to say that what the investigation did turn up was sufficient to believe that it was not a natural cause," the RCMP officer said of Laboucan's death.

When contacted in Alberta, a spokesperson for Laboucan's family declined to offer any comment. A Fort Resolution resident said Laboucan, who is believed to have originally been from Saskatchewan, had lived in the community for perhaps seven or eight years, after moving there from Yellowknife.

She worked at one of the NWT's diamond mines.

The Fort Resolution RCMP detachment was assisted in the investigation by the Yellowknife General Investigation Section, and G Division's Major Crimes Unit and Forensic Identification Unit.

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