No decision yet on charges in child deaths, RCMP says
Autopsies of girls found frozen on reserve set for Friday
Last Updated: Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 6:00 PM CT
CBC News
The RCMP say it'll be several days before they know whether charges will be laid in the case of two young girls whose frozen bodies were found on the Yellow Quill First Nation this week.
Three-year-old Kaydance and one-year-old Santana Pauchay died in a field on the reserve 260 kilometres east of Saskatoon.
Temperatures were well into the –30s, and felt closer to the –50s C with the wind chill, the night the girls' father, Christopher Pauchay, ventured outside with his two daughters.
Pauchay, 25, remains in hospital suffering from frost bite and hypothermia.
The RCMP said Thursday they haven't decided what charges, if any, will be laid. Earlier in the week, they said the man appeared to be under the influence of alcohol when he was picked up at a neighbour's house around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Police said they didn't know his children weren't accounted for until Pauchay had been treated in hospital and inquired about them eight hours later.
The one-year-old was found Tuesday afternoon and the three-year-old the next day. Both were wearing light clothing that couldn't protect them from the cold.
Since then, police have been interviewing Pauchay as part of a criminal investigation. The RCMP said Wednesday there were gaps in his explanation of what transpired in the time from when he left his house with the children to when he arrived alone at a neighbour's house several hundred metres away.
Autopsies for both girls are scheduled for Friday.
