Forty-Two Days, Three Vehicles and Six Hundred Kilometres: Josta MacNeal Is Arrested in Montreal by the SPVM on a Second-Degree Murder Charge in the Mitchell Snoddon Killing, and Maaroof Bangi Is Still Out There (August 27, 2026)

NIAGARA FALLS — The woman Niagara Regional Police have wanted since July for the shooting death of Mitchell Snoddon was taken into custody in Montreal on Thursday morning by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal. Josta MacNeal will be returned to Niagara to face one count of second-degree murder. Her co-accused, Maaroof Bangi, was not with her, remains on a Canada-wide warrant, and is still described by the NRPS as armed and dangerous.

The seventh update Niagara has published on this file is four paragraphs long and contains one new fact. That fact ends a six-week manhunt that ran from a residential street in Niagara Falls through Hastings, Ontario, into the Laurentians and finally to Montreal. No criminal organization has been named by the NRPS at any stage of this investigation, and none is named here.

What Update #7 Actually Says

The release states that on Thursday, August 27, 2026, Josta MacNeal was arrested in Montreal by the SPVM and will be returned to Niagara to face a charge of second-degree murder. It does not give the location of the arrest within Montreal, the time, the circumstances, or whether she was located through a tip, surveillance or a routine encounter. It does not say whether the SPVM was executing the Canada-wide warrant on Niagara’s behalf or came across her independently.

What it does repeat, twice, is the warning attached to Bangi. Because no firearm has been recovered in connection with the killing, Niagara continues to treat him as armed and dangerous, asks the public not to approach him, and repeats a line the force has now published in six consecutive updates: it is urging him to speak with a lawyer and turn himself in.

Three Cars, and the One That Pointed at Quebec

The vehicle sequence is the spine of this investigation, and Niagara published it in near real time. The pair left Thorold Stone Road in a white Nissan SUV, later identified as a newer-model Nissan Rogue, which was recovered before Update #2. By that update the force believed they had moved to a black 2021 Mazda CX-5 bearing Ontario plate DDEC 744. That car was recovered too.

Update #4 named the third: a 2016 Toyota Camry on Ontario plate DFWX808, last seen on Highway 45 in Hastings, Ontario, with LED headlights, damage to both passenger-side doors and a large crack on the front driver’s-side bumper. On Wednesday, July 22, that Camry was recovered by the Saint-Eustache police service in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, on the northwest edge of the Montreal metropolitan area.

From that point Niagara stopped publishing vehicle descriptions and said only that it was unknown whether the pair were operating a new one. Thursday’s arrest, roughly thirty-five kilometres from where the Camry was abandoned and five weeks later, suggests the answer to where they went was contained in that recovery.

Second Degree, and What That Choice Signals

Both accused were charged with second-degree murder rather than first. First-degree requires the Crown to establish planning and deliberation, or one of the statutory categories that make a killing first-degree regardless of planning. Second-degree is the default for an intentional killing where those elements are not being alleged at the charging stage.

That is not a small distinction in a file the police have twice called targeted. Targeted, in the operational sense police use it, means the victim was specifically sought out rather than caught in a stray exchange. It does not automatically carry planning and deliberation as a matter of law, and the charge Niagara has laid reflects that gap. Charges can be elevated later. As they stand today, they are second-degree against both.

An Arrest Made by a Force Six Hundred Kilometres Away

Two Quebec agencies now sit inside a Niagara Falls homicide file. The Saint-Eustache police service recovered the third vehicle in July. The SPVM made the arrest in August. Niagara’s releases give no indication of how the handoffs worked, whether a joint-forces arrangement was struck, or whether the Canada-wide warrant simply did what a Canada-wide warrant is designed to do.

Neither Niagara nor the SPVM has published anything tying the flight to Quebec to a network, a host, or a place to stay. On the record as it exists, two people wanted for a Niagara Falls killing changed cars three times, crossed into Quebec, and one of them stayed there for five weeks. Whether that was a plan or an accident is not something any agency has addressed, and this briefing will not fill in the gap.