Two men who went on a moose hunt to feed their family amid coronavirus lockdown found murdered
Two Canadian men were hunting for food for their families amid the coronavirus crisis when they were fatally shot along a rural road in Alberta Saturday. Police are currently investigating who killed the uncle and nephew duo, as it emerged one of them had lost his job due to the pandemic.
Jake Sansom, 39, and Morris Cardinal, 57, were found dead on Saturday, a day after they headed out on a moose hunt, according to local reports from the Calgary Sun and the National Post.
They were successful on Friday and returned home with one moose, before deciding to head back out for a second hunt immediately after. Tragically, their bodies were discovered on a country road north of Glendon, Alberta, near a black pickup truck early Saturday morning.
Speaking to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, relatives said the pair had set out Friday to fish and hunt moose near Seibert Lake. Sansom had reportedly recently been laid off from his job as a heavy-duty mechanic in Nobleford.
According to local reports, both victims were of Métis descent -- an aboriginal Canadian people of mixed European and indigenous ancestry -- and so had ancestral rights to hunt the land where their bodies were found.
In a conversation with the Edmonton Journal, Jake’s brother and Cardinal’s nephew Mike Sansom described the two men as generous people who were doing everything they could to feed their families amid the ongoing crisis.
“I felt like my heart has been ripped through my stomach and I haven’t been able to eat for three days,” he said through tears on Monday. “They helped everybody. Nobody had a problem with them … They got murdered for no reason. There’s nothing. There’s no reason for it.”
Sansom was married with three children, aged 8,11, and 13. Cardinal, who had five grandchildren and three stepchildren, was a former tree feller.
Mike recalled how his brother had run out of money for groceries and so decided to hunt down two moose. One he would use to feed his family, while the other was for his uncle's children. Law enforcement is currently investigating the murders and urging anyone with information to come forward, especially those who may have seen two trucks driving in the area where the bodies were found the night before the discovery.
More than two million people in Canada -- one in ten workers -- have applied for jobless claims since the national lockdown was announced last month to slow the spread of coronavirus, according to reports.
Canada has 11,283 coronavirus cases with 173 casualties as of Friday morning, with the UK recording 38,168 confirmed cases of the coronavirus with 3,605 deaths.
Meanwhile, in the US, there have been 245,442 confirmed cases of coronavirus while at least 6,098 people have died. Globally there are 1,040,639 confirmed cases of coronavirus with the count constantly increasing. So far, there have been around 55,188 deaths across the world due to coronavirus as of April 3.
Information with respect to the Alberta murders must be relayed to the Royal Canadian Mountain Police of Alberta at (403) 343-5575. You can help Sansom's family by contributing to a GoFundMe page here.