Police in Truro, N.S., confirmed Monday they have charged the grandson of native rights activist Nora Bernard with first-degree murder in connection with her death last week.

James Douglas Gloade, 24, of Millbrook, N.S., was arraigned in court Monday.

Nora Bernard fought for compensation for residential school survivors.
(CBC)

At a news conference, police said a motive for the crime has yet to be determined, but investigators have confirmed that no money was taken from the home.

Police said Bernard's grandson visited the home often.

Bernard, 72, was found lying on the floor of her home on the Millbrook First Nation early Thursday.

Police described trauma to her face and stab wounds to the upper part of her body around the neck area.

The murder weapon is believed to have been a knife but it hasn't been found, police said.

Bernard was a Mi'kmaq elder well-known for her 11-year battle to persuade governments to compensate aboriginal people who suffered abuse at Canada's network of residential schools.

From 1945 to 1950, she had attended the former Shubenacadie residential school in Nova Scotia, where she said she was forced to work cleaning and making clothes.

Her $14,000 compensation cheque arrived a few weeks ago. Most of it went to pay bills, her children told CBC News.

In the early 1990s, Bernard began organizing survivors of the school in Shubenacadie, N.S., and launched a legal action that was later merged with a similar suit in Ontario.

The class-action suit led to a compensation agreement with the federal government that could be worth up to $5 billion.

With files from the Canadian Press