An Edmonton Police Service shoulder badge in Edmonton on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

EDMONTON — An Edmonton woman has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing of an eight-year-old girl in a case that has seen police publicly challenge Crown prosecutors.

The 29-year-old was charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the reduced charge Wednesday in Court of King's Bench.

It comes a day after Edmonton's interim police chief made public a letter from his force to Alberta's justice ministry saying it was aware of the plea deal and urging the Crown to call it off.

The letter challenges the traditional firewall that separates police, who investigate a case, from prosecutors, who determine how best to proceed with the case in court.

It says a significantly reduced sentence that would typically accompany a manslaughter conviction would fail to see justice done in the killing.

Police also warn if a plea deal was to go through they would release details of the case so the public could form its own opinion.

The girl, who can't be identified, died from blunt force trauma. Her body was found in the back of a truck on the Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis, south of Edmonton, in 2023.

"What we expect from the Crown — what you and the public should expect — is that the Crown is a zealous advocate for justice,” interim police chief Warren Driechel says in the letter to the assistant deputy minister in charge of Crown prosecutors, Kim Goddard.

“Unfortunately, so far, we have not seen that in this case.”

The service says the letter is an "extraordinary step" but "to allow this plea deal to go ahead would bring the administration of justice into disrepute and constitute a significant miscarriage of justice."

Police add they've become "frequently aghast" with prosecutorial decisions.

Shawn King, president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association, called the letter essentially an "extortion tactic," as it promises to release previously unpublished details of the case.

"This is extremely inappropriate," the defence lawyer said Tuesday. "They're in charge of doing these criminal investigations and handing the evidence over to the Crown prosecutor to deal with it unbiasedly.

"And now the police are directly interfering with the Crown's authority to proceed as they see fit, like they're quasi-ministers of justice."

Breena Smith, president of the Alberta Crown Attorneys' Association, declined to comment because the case and the focus of the letter are before the courts.

In total, five people were charged in relation to the girl's death.

Two men pleaded guilty this summer to causing an indignity to a body and were sentenced to nearly three years. They were given credit for time served and released.

Two others are charged with being an accessory to murder and causing an indignity to a body.

Police have said at least three of the accused were known to the victim.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2025.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2025