Charges laid in 47-year-old cold case of murdered teen in Calgary
Charges have now been laid in connection with a cold case murder in Calgary that happened more than 47 years ago.
In a release, police say a 73-year-old man has now been charged in the death of a 16-year-old single mother.
Police say Pauline Brazeau was a single mother from Saskatchewan who moved to Calgary with her young daughter in the fall of 1975.
She was last seen leaving a restaurant in January of 1976 on 17th Avenue at around 3 am. Her body was found later that morning in the Cochrane area. Brazeau was one of several similar murders in Calgary at the time.
The RCMP created a special task force to solve the murders in 1995. In 2021, the Alberta RCMP Historic Homicide Unit partnered with the Calgary Police Cold Case Homicide Unit to work towards solving homicides dating back to the 1970s.
The arrest in Brazeau’s murder was made thanks to advancements in DNA technology. The combination of DNA results from a private facility and continued investigative efforts led to the arrest of 73-year-old Ronald James Edwards of Sundre, Alberta. Edwards is charged with capital murder, as it was defined in the 1970s when the murder happened.
He will appear in court in Calgary on November 14.