Key Takeaways:
- Alexander Joseph Frederick Thomas, 35, has been charged with kidnapping and raping Carrie Low.
- Carrie Low has recently spoken out about her ordeal and how Halifax police investigated a systematic way.
A man charged in a high-profile sexual assault case was identified as the victim of a homicide in Dartmouth early Saturday. On Sunday, Alexander Joseph Frederick Thomas, 35, of East Preston, was identified as the suspect by Halifax Regional Police.
Thomas was apprehended in February 2020, nearly two years after a Halifax woman said she was kidnapped and raped by at least two men outside a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Pub in May 2018.
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The Position of the Police Complaints Commissioner was directed to re-examine the case by a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge in April.
Thomas had been charged with sexual assault and forcible confinement and was awaiting trial. He was due back in court later this month. Low has been severely critical of the way police handled her case.
She filed a complaint against HRP with the Nova Scotia Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner in May 2019, after months of apparent inaction and delays by investigators. The complaint was rejected within days because it was filed after the six-month window for complaints against municipal police officers had expired.
She then requested a judicial review of the commissioner’s decision from the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. In a ruling issued in April 2020, Justice Ann Smith overturned the commissioner’s decision and remanded the complaint to the commissioner for resolution.
Homicide was settled to be the cause of death. Officers were dispatched to a home on Braeside Court in Dartmouth early Saturday in response to a report of an unresponsive man. Thomas was discovered dead inside the house, and the incident was deemed suspicious by police.
The Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service performed an autopsy Saturday night and deemed the death a homicide, according to police. As of Sunday morning, the investigation is still ongoing, and officers are still on the scene.
Source: CBC News, saltwire
