Year’s first homicide victim was mother of two young boys

By Ben Gelinas, edmontonjournal.com

January 8, 2010 8:29 AM

Leslie Ann Talley, 29, Edmonton's first homicide victim of 2010. Her body was found in the middle of a northeast Edmonton road on Jan. 6. The cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Photograph by: Global News, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON — Leslie Ann Talley, whose partially clothed body was found Wednesday morning in the middle of an Edmonton street, drank often and lived what police describe as a high-risk lifestyle.

But she was also the mother of two little boys and made sure to regularly call family in Meander River so they knew she was all right.

An autopsy found she died from injuries consistent with being hit by something, what the medical examiner describes as blunt force trauma.

Talley, 29, was a member of the Dene Tha First Nation.

She grew up in the Meander River community, about 800 kilometres north of Edmonton and not far from High Level.

From birth she was brought up primarily by her father Albert and her grandmother, Mary Nora Salopree.

"We took her in when she was about a month old," he aunt Vicki Salopree said.

"All the family pitched in."

Talley was a happy child who was keen to help her grandmother cook and clean, and she was a big help to other elders, too, Salopree said on Thursday.

"She moved to Edmonton and I don't know what happened over there ... but she kept in touch with the family."

In the big city, her life took a turn for the worst.

Salopree said Talley drank a lot. Another family member said she called them New Year's Eve, drunk, and told them she was doing drugs. Talley's two boys, ages nine and two, have been in the care of others for awhile.

She was on provincial government financial assistance after six pins were used to repair her arm following an accident.

Talley used to live in her own apartment with a man. But family recently heard she no longer had a place of her own, something police confirm.

The family is left with so many questions about what happened to her.

"I wonder if it was in an instant or if she had to suffer," Salopree said.

Talley's grandmother has been hit hard by the death.

"Whatever time she did phone, Mary always wanted her to come home, begged her to come home and she really loved her a lot," Salopree said.

Police had run into Talley a great deal.

"She had a lot of different issues going on in her life and any one of these issues could have been the reason for her demise," homicide detective Greg Murray said.

Police want to speak to anyone who may have been with her Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

Her body was discovered by two people between a condo complex and a row of half-finished and new homes in the Kirkness neighbourhood shortly before 4 a.m. Wednesday, on the extreme north end of the city, near 151st Avenue and 32nd Street.

She was the city's first homicide victim of the year.

Project Kare is aware of the Talley case but is not currently involved.

bgelinas@thejournal.canwest.com

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