A 14-year-old boy has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of a woman who was just beginning to pull her life together after spending years in the care system, her father says.

Winnipeg police responded to a call at a home on Young Street near Sargent Avenue on Saturday around 7:30 a.m., where they found a woman who had died from her injuries, police said in a news release on Wednesday. 

Avontai Hartleib, 18, was a member of Sachigo Lake First Nation in Ontario who had been living in Winnipeg, police said.

“She always had a smile. She’s always happy,” Hartleib’s father, David Hartleib, told CBC News on Wednesday. 

“She was just beginning her life, a new trail.”

A man holds a girl on his arms as they go down a slide.Avontai Hartleib is seen with her father, David Hartleib, in an undated picture. David said his daughter was taken into CFS care before she turned one. (Submitted by David Hartleib)

David first heard about his daughter’s death when his spouse got a text from a friend on Saturday.

“It’s something that no parent wants to wake up to hear and just experience,” he said. “It just hurts.”

David last saw his daughter during a visit in August, when they spoke about her plans for the future, including finding a job.

The two kept in touch, with his daughter calling to ask for advice.

“She would call me and ask me and say, ‘How do I deal with this?’ Because I didn’t grow up with a pretty life either.”

A woman and a man stand in front of a group of trees.David Hartleib, right, is remembering his daughter, Avontai Hartleib, left, as a happy person who loved her siblings and was trying to pull her life together. (Submitted by David Hartleib)

Child and Family Services took Hartleib into care before she turned one, and she grew up bouncing among group homes and foster homes, he said.

His daughter was pressured by her group of friends and consumed drugs, he said.

Despite the circumstances she lived in, she was a happy child who enjoyed drawing and loved her siblings, he said.

Hartleib’s family plans to return her body to Sachigo Lake First Nation, a fly-in community roughly 560 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg in Ontario.

Police arrested a 14-year-old boy on Tuesday in connection with Avontai’s death. He’s charged with criminal negligence causing death as well as second-degree murder. 

He was detained in custody, police said.

‘There was more to life for her’

Michelle Abraham met Avontai Hartleib in 2024, when she was 16 years old. Both built a sisterly bond and created what Abraham described as “a little family.”

“I got what she was going through … how CFS is and how the group homes work and what they do,” Abraham told CBC News on Wednesday at a sacred fire held for Hartleib.

“She lit up her room when she walked in,” Abraham said. “And in a blink of an eye, she got taken from us.”

Abraham said she received a text message from Hartleib that said she had made it home safe on Friday, after they saw each other earlier in the day. 

A woman wearing a pink hat holds a phone on her hands.Michelle Abraham is remembering her friend Avontai Hartleib, who she said lit up every room she walked into. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)

Hartleib then told Abraham she was going out. After she didn’t hear from her for over a day, Abraham said she messaged her friend again on Saturday night. 

“I said, ‘I hope you are doing OK,’ and I didn’t know she was gone at that point,” Abraham said.

She found out that Hartleib had died after reading through the comments of a social media post on Sunday.

“She didn’t deserve to go through that, because there was more to life for her,” Abraham said.

“I didn’t think her life would be cut short like that, because we were just reuniting again, and I knew she wasn’t ready to go. I know my sister wasn’t ready.”

Two girls pose against a mirror, holding a phone.Abraham, left, said she found out about the death of her friend Hartleib, right, through social media on Sunday. (Submitted by Michelle Abraham)

Ethan Tillingbell, 20, who is still under CFS care, has known Hartleib for five years.

They were in a relationship together, and he said he’s now holding onto memories of time they spent together at the movies and night walks.

“I’m expecting still for her to come out one day and just appear,” he told CBC at the sacred fire. “But it ain’t … happening.”

With her death, Tillingbell Hartleib’s dreams of going to college, exploring the world and getting a house of her own are gone too.

“She was a very good person, very strong-willed, and she always wanted to be better,” Tillingbell said.

‘Happening all too often’: advocate

Melissa Robinson, the missing and murdered First Nation people advocacy specialist at the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, helped Avontai Hartleib’s family let others know about her death.

“I’m pretty outraged. I’m really upset. I feel for this family. Another young life gone way too soon,” Robinson told CBC News. 

With gaps and a lack of resources in the care system, Robinson said deaths like Hartleib’s are “happening all too often, and there’s just not enough resources out there to support these families.”

Robinson said she is also upset some of Hartleib’s loved ones got word of her death from a social media post from someone close to the family, instead of hearing directly from the Winnipeg police. 

“We had just lost another young First Nations girl, 18 years old, and nothing was being spoken about it on the news,” she told CBC News at the sacred fire.

“It should have been the first thing that was aired that Saturday, when it happened right on Valentine’s Day.”