Calgary Sun, 20 January 2007. Doug McIntyre

The bodies of what appear to be two foreign workers were discovered today in the garage of a Cochrane home, victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. RCMP found the bodies about 9:30 a.m. inside a car in the detached garage of a house on Quigley Dr. in Cochrane.The identities of the victims, a 48-year-old female and a 44-year-old female, are being while police try to notify relatives. RCMP confirmed the female victim was a Mexican migrant who was in Canada on a work visa.

“I believe they both were on work visas… but we’re not sure about the male,” said RCMP Cst. A.R. MacMillan. “We’re not 100% sure what happened, but it’s not being treated as suspicious at this point.”

A neighbour said the residence is home to about 10 Mexican workers hired by a local construction company. “They kept to themselves. They were pretty quiet,” said the neighbour, who declined to be named. Another neighbour, Kim Canning, said he noticed yellow police tape and RCMP officers at the house while he was out walking his dog about 10:30 a.m. this morning. Canning also said the residence housed Mexican workers. “I
walk by sometimes and hear Spanish music from the house, but they never seem to be out in the streets,” he said. “I never had occasion to see any of them or to say hello.”

A group of Mexican workers were reportedly brought to Cochrane last year by Mexi-Can Labour Force, a Calgary-based company, to work for All Span Building Systems. It has not been confirmed if the two dead people were a part of that group.