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Cold Lake Cold Case Solved With Conviction

A cold case from Christmas of 2010 in Cold Lake has finally been solved.

Almost six years ago 40-year-old Dennis Cardinal of Cold Lake was reported missing and it was yesterday in a St. Paul courtroom that 30-year-old Tyler Arsenault pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from activities which lead to Mr. Cardinal’s death.

It was in December 2011 that it was reported to police that Mr. Cardinal had not been seen since Christmas 2010.  The initial investigation turned up dry with no explanation for what might have happened to him.

Four years later in 2014, the RCMP’s Historical Homicide Unit, headquartered in Edmonton, took on the ongoing investigation and a thorough review of the case was conducted together with the evidence gathered to that point.

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Investigators were able to identify Tyler Arsenault as a person of interest.  The compilation of new evidence provided the necessary grounds for the arrest Arsenault in July 2014.  He was charged with Second Degree Murder and Indignity to Human Remains. It was after Arsenault’s arrest that the remains of Dennis Cardinal were located by HHU investigators in a rural area north of Cold Lake.  On August 5th, 2015 Tyler Arsenault was committed to stand trial on charges of Manslaughter and Indignity to Human Remains in the death of Dennis Cardinal.

Facts established by the investigation revealed that on January 4, 2011, Arsenault and Dennis Cardinal had an altercation over a firearm while inside the Cold Lake residence which they shared.  The firearm discharged, fatally wounding Cardinal.  Arsenault disposed of Mr. Cardinal’s body in the rural area where it was recovered later by police in 2014.

Just yesterday, Tyler Arsenault pleaded guilty to Careless Handling of a Firearm and Indignity to a Dead Body in the Court of Queen’s Bench in St. Paul. Arsenault received a 23 month Conditional Sentence Order and a ten year firearms prohibition.

A second man, Gary Green, had been charged with Accessory After the Fact and Indignity to a Human Body in 2014 in relation to allegations that he assisted Arsenault in disposing of Mr. Cardinal’s body but those charges were withdrawn on August 5, 2015.

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