An Edson man died after being stabbed at a hotel early Saturday morning, marking Jasper’s first homicide in decades.

At about 4 a.m. on Jan. 28, police officers found 22-year-old Kenzie John Beaton at the Tonquin Inn with a stab wound, according to Sgt. Tim Taniguchi of the Edmonton RCMP.

Cody Kyle Jensen, 21, of Edmonton was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with second-degree murder.

Jasper RCMP Sgt. Dave Maludzinski said Beaton was initially taken to hospital locally and then airlifted to hospital in Edmonton, where he died of his injuries. An autopsy later revealed he had died from blood loss due to a stab wound.

Beaton was originally from Nova Scotia, according to reports from online news and social media.

Both he and Jensen had been visiting Jasper and initial reports suggested they did not know one another  beyond having booked rooms in the same hotel, but Taniguchi later said police were not prepared to confirm that, nor whether the attack came after a dispute over noise.

“That’s going to be part of the investigation,” Taniguchi said.

Members of the Edmonton RCMP’s Major Crimes Unit are assisting local police with the investigation, he added.

Jensen is scheduled to appear in Jasper court on Feb. 9.

The homicide appears to be the first in Jasper in two decades or more.

Maludzinski, who’s been stationed in Jasper since 2005, couldn’t recall the last time there was a murder in town, saying if there was one it was “before my time.”

Local criminal attorney Laurie Rodger said it’s been at least 20 years, if not 25.

“I can’t remember somebody murdering someone around here in just a fight or something like that. It’s been a long time.

“The last one I recall was a guy that killed his mother.”

Rodger said, from what he can remember of that case, both the man and his mother had mental illnesses and the man ended up in an institution after killing her with an axe.

“It was a sad one,” Rodger said of the case.