A former Victoria youth outreach worker has died in a small Alberta community after suffering what is believed to have been a severe beating.

RCMP in Whitecourt, about 180 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, found Dolan Badger, 49, about 7:45 a.m. Saturday, the Edmonton Journal reported on the weekend. The police had received calls from neighbours about a fight inside a home.

Badger was taken to hospital, but later pronounced dead. Officers arrested 22-year-old William Kootenay at the scene and laid a charge of second-degree murder against him, the Journal reported.

Early reports of Badger’s death indicated the attack might have been a hate crime, because the well-known HIV support worker in Edmonton is openly gay, but the Mounties disputed that claim.

Badger was a member of the Sturgeon Lake Cree First Nation band. He grew up on the reserve in northern Alberta.

He left the reserve when he started school and, after university, spent time in Vancouver and Victoria, doing outreach work with several organizations.

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