Iqaluit man charged with first degree murder in teen’s death

Ivan Kilabuk Joamie, 24, of Iqaluit, has been charged with first degree murder in connection with the death of 13-year-old Jennifer Naglingniq.

Joamie’s first court appearance was scheduled yesterday at 9:30 a.m. in the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

Staff-Sergeant Mike Jeffrey said police are grateful for the co-operation they received from numerous Iqaluit residents who provided them with information during the investigation.

“We’re not an all-seeing police force that knows everything that goes on in the community all the time, so we rely on the public to come forward and tell us what they saw,” Jeffrey said.

About 15 RCMP members worked round-the-clock on the case, including a forensic identification officer brought in from Edmonton.

Jeffrey said police are still “drawing things together,” writing reports, and are still willing to listen to anyone with information concerning Naglingniq’s death.

Jennifer Naglingniq, whose lifeless body was found in the early morning hours of Dec. 6 at house 2230B in Iqaluit, was laid to rest Dec. 17 after a funeral service in Iqaluit’s St. Jude’s Cathedral.

Hundreds of Iqaluit residents attended the service, filling every pew and spilling out onto the porch. About a dozen of her grieving classmates lit candles for her.

On the day of her death, the news spread rapidly through Iqaluit, leaving many residents shaken to the core with grief and fear.

In the afternoon of Dec. 6, Naglingniq’s passing was acknowledged at a vigil at Inuksuk High School marking the 13th anniversary of the 1989 Montreal massacre, when a deranged gunman shot 14 women at l’École Polytechnique.

Meanwhile, staff at Inuksuk High School, where Naglingniq was a Grade 8 student, worked round the clock last week to provide support for the school’s 460 students.

Crisis workers, an Anglican minister, and RCMP officers met with students and parents over the weekend following her death.

Naglingniq, a student at Iqaluit’s Inuksuk, lived in a public housing unit behind the Apex Road Quick-Stop convenience store with her mother, Nicotye Naglingniq.

In the days immediately following the discovery of her body, police did not speculate publically about the cause of death, saying only that the death was “suspicious.”

Last Thursday, after receiving a report from a medical examiner in Edmonton, police announced that Naglingniq’s death was a homicide. But they released no information about the cause or manner of her death.

A group of people in Iqaluit have set up an account at the Bank of Montreal to hold a bursary fund set up in Jennifer Naglingniq’s name. The bursary will go to an Inuksuk student who does something to help make Iqaluit a better place.

People interested in donating to the fund may call Madeleine Allakariallak or Patricia Bell at CBC Iqaluit, or Terry Young at Inuksuk High School.