Remains found in North End back lane last year identified as Manitoba First Nation mother missing since 2023

The partial human remains found in a Winnipeg North End back lane last fall have been identified, through DNA testing, as a Manitoba First Nation woman who went missing in Winnipeg in 2023.

The remains were found on Selkirk Avenue near McKenzie Street on the afternoon of Nov. 23, 2025. The Winnipeg Police Service at the time identified the person’s death as suspicious, and the homicide unit was charged with investigating.

Winnipeg police are now confirming DNA testing has matched those remains to Leah Keeper, a 33-year-old mother of two from Sagkeeng First Nation.

“This was not the news we wanted to hear because of the hopes we carried for three long years,” Keeper’s aunt Marilyn Courchene wrote on social media. “Please keep my sister and her father Gus, her daughters and siblings along with the Keeper family in your prayers for strength, comfort and healing.

“This is a difficult time.”

Keeper, who was was born in Little Grand Rapids First Nation, was last seen in Winnipeg’s North End on July 25, 2023. Courchene told a press conference Wednesday that she had taken her niece to Winnipeg to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Keeper was reported missing four months later, on Nov. 21, 2023.

“We decided November was too late,” Courchene said. “Why doesn’t she call, she normally phones. Because we were used to her taking off. But for that long time? I said no, it’s time we have to do this.”

The family contacted the Bear Clan and extensive searching began.

“We can’t thank all the many people, friends involved especially the Bear Clan that were there every season of each year. We send you all love and prayers for your love and support,” Courchene wrote on social media.

Courchene said her niece was training to become a nursing assistant. She was “deeply loved by her family and the whole community,” added Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Kyra Wilson.

But Keeper began to struggle after she “met up with the wrong people later on, which caused her to go into addictions,” Courchene said.

Winnipeg police say they are still investigating Keeper’s death.

“Our thoughts are with Leah’s family and loved ones, as well as the indigenous community,” authorities wrote in a news release.

E.J. Fontaine, chief of Sagkeeng First Nation, called for more resources – from support to efforts in searching – for missing Indigenous women.

“We share the loss of a mother, and we share in the devastation that is being felt by the mother of the young lady that was found deceased,” Fontaine said.