Walmart employee looked for her daughter for hours before finding her ‘charred remains’ in the store’s walk-in bakery oven
The 19-year-old Walmart employee who was found dead inside a Canada store bakery’s walk-in oven has been identified as Gursimran Kaur, according to a GoFundMe page created by a member of the Maritime Sikh Society in Halifax.
Kaur’s body was discovered Oct. 19 at a Walmart on Mumford Road in Halifax, according to a Wednesday statement from the Halifax Regional Police.
“The woman, who was an employee of the store, was located in a large walk-in oven belonging to the store’s bakery department,” the statement said. “It is important to note that the investigation has not yet reached a point where the cause and manner of death have been confirmed.”
The Halifax Regional Police told Fortune it has no updates on the investigation at this time.
According to the GoFundMe page, Kaur’s mother, also a Walmart worker, was unable to locate her for over an hour and could not reach her over the phone, on the night her “burned to death” body was found.
“Mother started panicking as it was unusual for her to switch her phone off during the day,” the page said. “She reached out to the onsite admin for help. As you all know now, her charred remains were found inside the walk-in oven in the bakery after a few hours.”
Kaur and her mother had been working at the Walmart location for two years, the GoFundMe page said. They emigrated from India to Canada about two to three years ago. Kaur’s father and brother are still in India, and the Sikh Society is working to bring them to Halifax “as soon as possible.” The online fundraiser has brought in over $140,000 in two days, meeting its initial fundraising goal in 10 hours.
“No one should ever die at work,” one commenter wrote on the GoFundMe page, “And no one should ever see their child in that state.”
A Walmart spokesperson told Fortune the store is “temporarily closed as we cooperate fully with the investigation.” The company has offered counseling services to employees following the tragedy.
“We are heartbroken and our deepest thoughts are with our associate and their family,” the spokesperson said. “Our focus remains on taking care of our associates and making sure they have the support they need.”
Locals have left flowers and notes outside the closed Walmart to pay respects to Kaur and her family.
Balbir Singh, the secretary of the Maritime Sikh Society, who has been in touch with Kaur’s mother, told CBC that the local Sikh community is grieving the loss and police local investigators have a responsibility to relay their findings to the public.
“It’s a really tragic incident and everybody is deeply hurt by this, and we are waiting for the police investigation to come out,” Singh said. “We would like to know what happened to this young woman.”
