VANCOUVER—A spokesperson for the family of 13-year-old Marrisa Shen is questioning why they received no advance notice of the murder charges laid Monday.

The Burnaby teen’s body was found in a Metro Vancouver park in July 2017. In a press conference Monday morning, police announced that 28-year-old Ibrahim Ali has been charged with first-degree murder.

Valentine Wu, spokesperson for Shen’s mother, said the girl’s mom learned about the charges at the same time as the public.

“She needed some translator to know what the news conference was about,” Wu said. “The police didn’t disclose any information to her.”

Ali is a Syrian national with permanent residency who moved to Burnaby as a refugee 17 months ago, the RCMP said, adding that he is employed and has family in Canada.

None of the allegations in the case have been tested in court. Ali is scheduled to make his next court appearance later this week.

Wu said that, since the charges were news to Shen’s mother, she did not have any comment. He added that the family statement read aloud by police at the press conference was not written by Shen’s mother.

“The police say that the family released a statement through police. What does it mean?” he said. “The police did not disclose such details.”

The RCMP were not available to respond to Wu’s comments made later in the day.

Earlier, RCMP Supt. Donna Richardson — who’s in charge of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) — said the investigation leading up to the charges has been thorough and wide-reaching.

“This file has become IHIT’s largest active investigation and one of the largest that we have handled to date, with over 2,300 investigative tasks being completed,” Richardson said during a press conference.

The RCMP say they believe the attack on Shen was random and that the girl didn’t know the suspect. Her body was found in a wooded area of Central Park in Burnaby just hours after she left home at 6 p.m. on July 18, 2017.

As part of the investigation, Richardson said, more than 2,000 people were identified as persons of interest and subsequently eliminated.

The killing shook the suburban community that borders East Vancouver. The RCMP said that in the days following Shen’s murder, community volunteers stepped forward to assist in park patrols.

Wu said there was a feeling among the community that the government and police need to do more to promote safety. He cited two violent incidents that recently occured in Burnaby’s Central Park, including a stabbing in July.

“Marissa Shen was murdered. Just a year later two serious things happened in Central Park,” Wu said, now speaking as a community organizer and not on behalf of Shen’s mother.

“Our feeling is it’s just a start because the thing itself happened (and) it reminded us we should do more to push the government to put more focus, more money on community safety,” he said.

Burnaby RCMP Chief Supt. Deanne Burleigh said she knows residents have been concerned about safety in the city’s parks.

“We have been continuing high-visibility patrols on foot, on bikes and in our vehicles to ensure that everyone can continue to feel safe when using our parks,” Burleigh said. “We are dedicated to the safety of our community and are always listening and open to any concerns you bring to us.”

In their efforts to solve the case, Richardson said, the team canvassed more than 1,300 residents near where Shen’s body was found, conducted more than 600 interviews and reviewed more than 1,000 hours of video footage collected from more than 60 locations.

Eric Stubbs, assistant commissioner of the RCMP’s B.C. Division, said the investigation into Shen’s death was “one of the biggest murder investigations IHIT has had” in terms of policing hours.

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“The investigative path was extraordinary. I couldn’t be more proud,” Stubbs said, speaking to StarMetro at an unrelated conference in Whistler.

The 14-month-long investigation included input from Burnaby RCMP, the City of Burnaby and its parks department, RCMP and police detachments from across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, the RCMP Behavioural Analysis Unit, the RCMP’s National Forensic Laboratory Services and the Lower Mainland’s Integrated Forensic Identification Services unit.

RCMP media relations officer Cpl. Frank Jang said that when police renewed an appeal for information earlier this summer — on the first anniversary of Shen’s death — investigators were closer to finding her killer.

With files from The Canadian Press

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