Geraldine Beardy, 29, died Sept. 18 after lapsing into a coma. (CBC)The grand chief of a northern Manitoba First Nations organization has asked a lawyer to look into the circumstances surrounding the death of Geraldine Beardy.

David Harper, former chief of Garden Hill First Nation, Beardy's home reserve, is now grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), an organization representing most First Nations communities in northern Manitoba.

Harper, who was Beardy's uncle, has advised a lawyer to seek more serious charges against a Winnipeg shopkeeper who is charged with assaulting the 29-year-old a few days before her death.

Results of an autopsy on Beardy are pending, but should they indicate she died from the assault, Harper said, police must upgrade the charges against the store owner, 61.

At present, the owner of Okay Groceries on Winnipeg's Sherbrook Street , who police allege confronted Beardy as she was trying to steal a $1.49 can of lunch meat on Sept. 13, is facing a charge of aggravated assault.

Police say Beardy was assaulted after trying to steal a can of Holiday luncheon meat from a store in Winnipeg. (CBC)Beardy's funeral is being held Thursday in Garden Hill, an isolated northern Manitoba community.

Harper said he doesn't approve of Beardy trying to steal food from the store, but said the owner overreacted.

"It shouldn't have gone that far. It went too far," he said. "I mean, over a can of [lunch meat]? I don't think you'd be running around with a bat and hitting people over a can of [lunch meat]. That's too excessive."

Beardy's mother, Louise Keno, told CBC News on Monday that her daughter had been hit with a bat but Winnipeg police have not said how the woman was assaulted or whether a weapon was used. The name of the store owner has not been made public.

After the alleged assault, Beardy fled to a nearby residence, police said. She died Sept. 18 in hospital after she lapsed into a coma.

Police said they weren't notified of the assault until Sept. 15 and are still investigating how she died.

The charge against the store owner is assault rather than manslaughter because Beardy's death, nearly a week after the alleged assault, has not been conclusively linked to the injuries she sustained in the assault, police have said.

However, a close friend of Beardy, Wayne Kenny, expects the assault will be linked to the death. His common-law wife was with Beardy in hospital the night she was hit and remained there until Beardy died.

Harper, the nephew of Kenny's wife, is meeting with Winnipeg's police chief on Friday about Beardy.

He intends to inform the chief that nothing else could have happened to Beardy between the time she was assaulted and when she died.