A Whitehorse woman has been arrested and charged in relation to the 2017 murder of Greg Dawson.
Connie Peggy Thorn, 50, was arrested in Whitehorse the morning of Oct. 16 and charged with second-degree murder, Yukon RCMP announced in a press release that afternoon.
Dawson, 45, was found dead in a Riverdale home on April 6, 2017. He was a citizen of Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
Thorn made her first court appearance in Whitehorse on Oct. 17.
Wearing a black zip-up hoodie and jeans, she sat silently and slouched in the corner of the inmate’s box and was returned to custody following the brief proceeding.
Members of Dawson’s family packed the courtroom for her appearance.
Afterwards, some expressed relief that an arrest had finally been made.
“We were really happy yesterday afternoon,” Dawson’s cousin, Kathleen, told the News.
She remembered her cousin as a “kind person” who “never hurt anybody.”
Dawson’s niece, Wynette Elliot, similarly remembered her uncle as kind and generous.
“He didn’t have much, but he would help anybody,” she said. “He’d help anybody he could, and he’d always greet you with a smile and a ‘hello.’”
In its press release, the Yukon RCMP said Thorn’s arrest is the first major arrest for the division’s Historical Crime Unit, a team of three investigators dedicated to solving “cold” and missing persons cases.