CFS weighs options for children left behind after weekend slayings

Child and Family Services workers are trying to find new homes for two children who lost their parents in unrelated killings in Winnipeg over the weekend.

Shannon Scromeda, 25, who was killed in her Elmwood-area home on Saturday, had a five-year-old son who may have been in the home when his mother suffered the beating that killed her.

Magdalena and Joel Labossiere left behind a one-year-old daughter when they were shot to death in their St. Vital home Sunday afternoon.

Police say they immediately call Child and Family Services when children are on the scene of a violent incident. CFS then decides if the children will be placed with family or in foster care.

"We would take the children and bring them back to one of our offices, and during that time period we would have a number of staff that would be supporting the children while we look at the varying situation and circumstances and assess the child's risk from there," said Sonia Prevost-Derbecker, head of the All Nations Co-ordinated Response Network.

On the weekend, police said Scromeda's son is now with family.

Child-welfare officials would not say if the Labossiere child had been placed with family or in foster care.

"Certainly we would be taking a look at the full risk factors and whether or not a family is the right choice at that time," said Prevost-Derbecker.

The deaths of Joel Labossiere, 34, and his wife Magdalena, 33, bring to five the number of members of the Labossiere family who have been killed under violence circumstances in recent years.

Joel is related to Fernand and Rita Labossiere and their son Remi. The three were found dead in their home in St. Leon, Man., after a fire in 2005. It was later determined they had been shot.

No one has been charged in their deaths, or the Labossiere deaths on the weekend.

Scromeda's 27-year-old common-law husband has been charged with second-degree murder in her death.