Whitehorse Daily Star

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Tanner Sinclair

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Michael Macpherson

Murder suspect surrenders on Vancouver Island

Murder suspect Michael Thomas MacPherson has turned himself in.

By Rhiannon Russell on July 28, 2014

Murder suspect Michael Thomas MacPherson has turned himself in.

After a 10-day manhunt, MacPherson showed up with his lawyer at the West Shore RCMP detachment on Vancouver Island at the noon hour Friday.

He is charged with second-degree murder in this month’s stabbing death of Tanner Sinclair in Whitehorse.

MacPherson, 32, was brought back to the Yukon over the weekend.

He was set to appear in territorial court this afternoon, said Whitehorse RCMP Const. Dean Hoogland.

Police have been searching for MacPherson for nearly two weeks, since Sinclair was found with stab wounds at a home on Lazulite Drive in Whitehorse’s Copper Ridge neighbourhood.

He died of his injuries at Whitehorse General Hospital.

The RCMP identified MacPherson as a suspect later that day.

Believing he may have left the Yukon, they circulated press releases and photos of him to the western provinces.

Hoogland said tips and reported sightings of MacPherson’s vehicle, an older red Toyota Corolla, came in from B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan.

MacPherson had an address in B.C., Hoogland said. He moved to the Yukon in March of this year.

CBC North reported last Wednesday that MacPherson’s mother was urging her son to turn himself in.

“You know that I love you unconditionally,” she said in a video recorded at her home.

“Please, please just do this, for me. You’ve got to do it for me and for you.”

Sinclair leaves behind his pregnant wife, Whitney Sandulak, and their three-year-old daughter, Keele. An online fund-raiser for the family has generated $100,000.

Sinclair was a native of Pincher Creek, Alta.

He moved to Whitehorse two years ago and worked as a sheep hunting guide. At the time of his death, he was working at Glacier Drilling in Whitehorse.

“The Yukon RCMP Major Crime Unit would like to thank the public for their assistance in providing information to the RCMP,” police said in a release Friday afternoon.

“The investigation is continuing.”

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