The police sketch of a suspect in a Sioux Lookout sexual assault which raised eyebrows on social media is not linked to a 20-year-old unsolved murder, Sudbury police said.
Greater Sudbury Police Services confirmed today that the sketch from the Sioux Lookout investigation is not the same suspect from the Sweeney homicide investigation.
On March 5, OPP in Sioux Lookout released the sketch of a suspect wanted in the 2016 sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.
Facebook users commented and widely shared the photo, which bears some resemblance, users say, to the sketch of a man wanted in the killing of Sudbury's Renee Sweeney in 1998.
Police using new software have created what they think might be a sketch of Renee Sweeney's killer (left.) The original artist's sketch after her 1998 murder (right.) (supplied/Greater Sudbury Police)
The 23-year-old Laurentian University student was brutally killed while she worked at an adult video store on Paris Street.
Sioux Lookout OPP constable Ben Bye told CBC News on March 8 that police received approximately 10 calls about the images after its release.
"We've received some information that the sketch bears a resemblance to one that the Sudbury Police had previously released, and we've been in contact with the Sudbury Police about that," he said.
