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The Crimeopedia podcast is a completely independent show that explores content of a potentially violent and disturbing nature.
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Please use your listening discretion.
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Extra trigger warning for this episode.
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We will be discussing missing and murdered Indigenous women,
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and some history around the injustices faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, both past and present.
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Hi everyone, and welcome to the second episode in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls series on the Crimeopedia podcast.
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Last episode I gave you a brief overview of the history leading up to the national enquiry into the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Canada.
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Today, we're going to be talking about the events in history that led to the dramatic overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the Canadian colonist child welfare system,
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and how it all feeds back into an epidemic of crimes against women and girls.
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I'll be telling you two stories.
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First, the story of Claudine Julian, Beaver Clan, a relentless survivor from the Carrier Nation of Fort St. James,
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and sibling of Norma George who was found murdered in the province of British Columbia.
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Then, we will visit the province of Manitoba to learn about Fonessa Lynn Louise Brouillere, who was only 17 years old when she was murdered.
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But first, we will discuss how, as of the 2021 Canadian census, 53.8% of children in the child welfare system were Indigenous,
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despite accounting for only 7.7% of the national population.
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With that, let's jump right in.
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Along with that jarring national statistic about Indigenous children in the child welfare system in Canada, there are breakdowns by Canadian province.
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As of 2016 in the province of British Columbia, 68% of children in the welfare system were Indigenous, despite representing 6% of the total population.
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In 2017, then Manitoba Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott called the issue a humanitarian crisis when figures were reported that stated
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10,000 out of the 11,000 children in the Manitoba child welfare service were Indigenous.
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As I mentioned in my last episode in this series, some have called the mass overrepresentation of Indigenous children in child services systems
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the second coming of the residential school system, a second attempt at what that system had hoped to achieve through the apprehension and repossession of children,
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destabilization and violence against Indigenous peoples.
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And for a long time, it worked.
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The apprehension of Indigenous children and placement of 70% of them into non-Indigenous, most often white and Catholic homes,
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has largely contributed to the loss of Indigenous languages, cultures and connections to community in the same way that the residential school system sought to do.
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When children were placed with white families, it was not uncommon for them to be told they were French or Italian,
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and at the time, children could not access their birth records unless they themselves and their parents consented to it.
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Birth parents, they often never knew and adopted parents who were hesitant to let the child know where they came from.
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So, according to author Patrick Johnson, who wrote the report Native Children and the Child Welfare System in 1983,
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this resulted in many children suspecting their Indigenous heritage but never being able to confirm it.
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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has called it cultural genocide.
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The last residential school in Canada, Gordon Reserve Indian Residential School in the province of Saskatchewan, was closed in 1996 and demolished.
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However, the mass apprehension of children for repossession began long before then.
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For my reading, it seems that many families affected by the forcible repossession of their children were subject to it per Section 88 of the 1951 Indian Act.
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The Indian Act was meant to be a principal law through which the Canadian federal government could oversee Indigenous status and the management of land on reserves,
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lands that are set aside by the Canadian government for use by First Nation communities.
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However, Section 88 of the 1951 Indian Act is a unique one, as it positions provincial law to be applied to First Nations communities,
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despite First Nations groups being designated under federal authority.
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Legal jargon aside, this meant that Indigenous communities, despite seeking sovereignty and making partial gains in that fight,
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were subject to laws by the province which their lands resided in.
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This seems benign and pretty straightforward, but many legal scholars at the time pointed to its potential for causing confusion,
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given mismatched jurisdictional oversight of First Nations communities which could lead to mistakes or really bad outcomes.
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And they were right.
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What Section 88 of the Indian Act allowed for was provincial and territorial child welfare agencies to apprehend children on Indigenous reserves,
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so long as it was quote-unquote reasonable within their scope of practice and narrowed culturally incompetent worldview.
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Back then, social services and child welfare did not expect social workers and youth counsellors to have training in Indigenous child relations
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or anything culturally relevant to Indigenous child welfare.
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According to Patrick Johnson, he says, quote,
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Many of these social workers were completely unfamiliar with the cultural or history of Aboriginal communities that they entered.
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What they believed constituted proper care was generally based on middle-class, Euro-Canadian values.
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In his report, Patrick Johnson gives an example of a situation where an Indigenous child living on reserve
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may have been apprehended by a white social worker related to food security.
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If a social worker entered the home of a family living on reserve land and saw traditional Indigenous staple food
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such as dried game meats and fish and didn't see a white fridge stocked with typical North American fruit roll-ups, milk, and bread,
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they may assume that the adults in the household were not properly taking care of the child's needs.
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However, this conclusion obviously comes from a total lack of cultural awareness about Indigenous food systems.
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What they would have seen in that home was totally normal, but not in their Euro-Canadian worldview.
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In addition, upon seeing some issues that families on reserve lands face that are a byproduct of isolation,
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inaccessibility of resources, and trauma from residential schools such as poverty,
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social services would have been blinded by Eurocentric views of what comprises a good quality of life for a child,
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completely neglecting that the child was otherwise taken care of.
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Thus, for reasons such as these and others, children were taken en masse with little to no warning
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and according to Patrick Johnson, quote, absolutely no consent.
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In fact, it was only until about 1980 when Child and Welfare Service personnel were mandated to notify
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band councils or the administrators of First Nation Affairs that a child was being removed.
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Until then, no warnings, no words. They would just come in and take the child away.
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Indigenous child apprehension began to pick up the pace in the 1960s with the beginning of a period in history now known as the 60s scoop.
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This was a period of mass removal of children from their families without prior knowledge or warnings,
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and it became common practice to displace children and leave families, especially single mothers,
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and communities in fear and shock when their children were taken away and placed with unfamiliar people,
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sometimes as far away as the United States or on the other side of the country.
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In the 1970s, it's reported that Indigenous communities across Canada began trying to form their own child welfare agencies
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to account for the cultural and historical contexts of families living on reserve.
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However, their reach was severely limited by disputes in government funding and issues with existing legislation
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that bound these agencies by their proverbial hands.
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In addition to loss of identity and sense of community, many children that were displaced drifted from home to home
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as children unfortunately do even in the contemporary child welfare system.
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Many Indigenous children faced violence in their placement homes, some of which we will hear about in this episode,
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and the abuse that these children faced wasn't limited to physical or psychological either.
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The impacts are far-reaching and contribute in part to cycles of intergenerational trauma experienced today,
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but back then, nobody wanted to acknowledge it.
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Within communities, everybody knew that something was severely wrong,
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but there was no voice for these people, no one was listening.
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There was no advocacy from those in charge for children at risk
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who would eventually go on to quote-unquote age out of the child welfare system,
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meaning they turned 18 and were no longer eligible for any type of support,
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even if it was the bare minimum from Euro-Canadian services.
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Most of them ended up leaving the system impoverished and at high risk,
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with no life skills or occupational skills, much worse off than they would have been just at home.
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Reports vary on exactly the number of children who were stolen from their families,
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but there are figures upwards of 20,000 children apprehended across the country,
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with most of it happening in the prairie provinces, especially Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
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but certainly not limited to there.
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Personally, I've heard with my own ears from an elder from a First Nations community
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not far from where I grew up in southwestern Ontario.
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She told me all about how the 60s scoop affected her and her siblings,
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and she didn't tell me anything else, but she didn't have to.
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It was unspeakable.
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And it went on in massive proportions until very recently, when three years ago, in January of 2020,
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the federal government sought to enact the Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit,
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and Métis Children, Youth, and Families.
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This act is intended to undo and rectify all of the damage that was done
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from the mass dispossession of children and the resulting overrepresentation of Indigenous children
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in the child welfare system.
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But even that is questionably successful.
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We'll get there, though.
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For now, I want to give you a deeper insight into what the life of a displaced child looked like,
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and what the ramifications are for a person who has grown up immersed in the consequences
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of cultural and literal genocide through the lens of Claudine or C.J. Julian,
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sister of murdered Indigenous woman Norma George.
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The last time C.J. Julian saw Norma George, her half-sister,
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was on September 28th of 1992, before Norma turned to walk away in Vancouver's downtown east side
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towards the Stroll, an area frequented by sex workers.
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C.J. describes Norma as beautiful.
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I can't find any pictures of her, but from the way C.J. speaks about her, I can only imagine.
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She was warm and funny and wore beautiful makeup.
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That's how Norma was the last time she was seen.
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C.J. and Norma stood together near the Balmoral Hotel in Vancouver's downtown east side in British Columbia.
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If you listened to my episode about serial killer Robert Picton,
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you'll remember that Vancouver's downtown east side is an area notorious for having
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disproportionately high rates of homelessness and poverty, crime, open drug use with substances
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easily accessible, and sex workers.
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Serial killer Robert Picton actually selected many of his victims from the crime scene
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and many of his victims from this area, sex workers who were vulnerable and often struggled
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with drug addictions, many of whom were indigenous women.
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When C.J. last saw Norma, she was in a difficult place in life.
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She had been living on the streets amongst many of her friends who were also homeless
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or couch hopping and exchanging sex for money and drugs.
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C.J. herself was recovering from a drug addiction at this point, but was struggling to get off the
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streets and step away from the hard life that she had always known.
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Because of this, the last words that Norma ever said to her sister were,
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quote, go home baby girl before she walked off into the distance never to be seen again.
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Norma had known the ins and outs of the life that C.J. was living.
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She had lived it herself and had felt the loss and trauma that C.J. had experienced.
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Much of it we will get into.
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But C.J. could have never known that that was going to be the last time she'd ever see her half-sister.
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They had only met relatively recently, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about that day.
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Norma was how she always was.
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When she was last seen, she was walking away in a full outfit with big beautiful
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indigenous style earrings and a full face of makeup as she usually wore.
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But Norma was never seen alive again.
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Something was different that day.
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And when she was found, her clothes and earrings were gone.
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She was nude and lying in the fetal position on the ground, alone, stripped of all of her possessions,
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and completely unrecognizable from the classically beautiful woman that everyone in her life knew.
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The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
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had a truth-gathering process.
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This was a series of public hearings featuring victims and survivors,
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sharing their life stories and detailing how the atrocities of the colonizer government
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have infected their lives.
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In one transcript from part of one of these public hearings,
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CJ Julian talks a lot about her own life and Norma.
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I'll have the full transcript linked on my website at crimeopediapod.ca
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and I'll read parts of it for you today.
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But in short, it all starts the same way that many of these stories do.
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CJ's mom was a survivor of 12-14 years at the Lajoc Residential School in British Columbia.
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After her time at residential school was over, CJ's mom suffered with alcoholism to cope with the trauma
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and became a single mother after having children with a few separate partners who were
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never reliable or safe enough to be around her children.
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This included CJ and Norma, but also another brother named Tom.
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From what CJ remembers or knows about her own father, he was a violent man who was mostly absent
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but incredibly dangerous when he was around.
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At one time, when CJ was very young, her mother ended up in the intensive care unit
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due to injuries that he had inflicted on her.
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Although CJ's mother loved her and cared for her deeply, and that love was reciprocal,
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she struggled deeply and didn't have the support necessary to facilitate a better life for her children.
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So, CJ and her brother Tom were taken into custody by child welfare services.
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From my reading, this is the first time that they were placed into a different home.
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From CJ's testimony, at this time it's unclear where Norma George is, but it's more than likely
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that she was living with her grandmother, so CJ didn't know she existed.
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CJ recalls various white foster families caring for her and her brother, but caring is a term I use loosely.
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Although an objectively safer place than at home with her violent father during this time,
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these caregivers were abusive and pitted other children in the home against CJ and her brother.
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They were told that they must eat on the floor during meal times when the other children sat at the table,
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and CJ remembers being bitten by another child simply because she was a kid.
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In her testimony for the National Inquiry, she says that she can still feel the scar on her back from that bite to this day.
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The foster family made CJ and her brother clean up feces by themselves from the various family pets,
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and the parents beat her brother when he wet his bed, despite it being, in hindsight,
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a very visceral trauma response to his precarious situation.
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When CJ was returned from foster care to her family home with her mother, her new partner was not much better of an example than her own father.
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Before long, CJ recalls that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stormed their house with guns drawn
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and a warrant out for her mother's boyfriend's arrest.
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With one gun pointed at CJ, who was still a very small child, and the boyfriend hidden by the window,
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CJ was taken to the hospital and the hospital was closed.
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CJ was taken to the hospital, and the hospital was closed.
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But CJ was still in the hospital, and the hospital was closed.
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She had a very small child, and the boyfriend hidden but still within her view, signalling her to be quiet, she was frozen.
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After this incident, her mother was arrested and she was sent back to foster care once again.
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When she got there, the first thing the family did was put her and her brother into a very hot bath and begin scrubbing.
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CJ recounts that she wasn't sure if they were trying to scrub her skin white,
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but she was sure that they were trying to scrub her skin white.
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The rest of CJ's childhood is about the same,
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stories of her mother struggling with alcoholism and neglecting to choose life partners who were safe for her children to be around.
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She recalls being in and out of different homes, countless broken promises from social workers,
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and living out of a suitcase for many years, moving from place to place, unsure if or when she'd be able to go home.
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CJ grew up thinking that violence was a form of love, and that living fast was just how you did things, where she was from.
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She suffered all forms of abuse while under the care of foster families,
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some of which, she says, may have contributed to her becoming a sex worker later in life.
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When CJ turned 18 years old, she aged out of the foster system.
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Again, to age out means to become a legal adult and to no longer qualify for assistance from child and youth services.
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But CJ had no life or occupational experience, similar to many people who age out of these systems.
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So she lived in hotels that were organized specifically for high-risk youth, and began doing drugs and falling deeper into alcoholism.
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CJ spent time amongst women who she called her sisters.
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They were her comrades on the street, other girls with other similar life experiences who looked out for each other,
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especially in the wake of a violent serial killer who we now know was Robert Picton.
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CJ spent her days around the downtown Eastside area of Vancouver,
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and befriended many women who would ultimately become victims themselves,
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ultimately become missing and murdered indigenous women, one of which was Sarah DeVries,
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and she was one of the women whose partial remains were eventually found on the Robert Picton farm,
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and CJ herself even spent time on that farm with Robert Picton,
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before having to run away and seek help from the Eagle Ridge Hospital due to valid concerns about her safety.
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If you recall from my episode about Robert Picton,
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the Eagle Ridge Hospital is one where fellow escapee from him, Wendy Lynn Icedetter, arrived in 1997 after running away from the clutches of Picton.
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Unfortunately, just the same as they did with Wendy,
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they disregarded CJ's story about having to run away from who she presumed to be a very violent man.
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They didn't listen to what she had seen and experienced on the Picton farm.
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They had no idea how close she was to becoming a victim herself,
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and they wrote her off as a quote, transient hooker, and an Indian.
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According to CJ, one officer dismissed her entirely with one simple statement,
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which led to CJ not receiving help and, once again, Robert Picton not being investigated.
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Quote,
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She's so fucked up, she doesn't even know if she's coming or going.
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That's what he said about me when I was trying to get safe.
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Even when CJ started getting a handle on working and trying to live on her own,
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she didn't have the necessary life skills to be able to live normally, let alone while coping with the trauma she endured,
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and trying to reconnect with her disconnected family.
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Quote,
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I didn't know how to live, it was all new to me.
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CJ was unstable and in another toxic abusive relationship stemming from the patterns of violence acceptance
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and tolerance that she had learned at a young age.
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No one had ever taught her better, not in the foster care system and not at home.
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It all culminated one evening when CJ blacked out from alcohol and woke up in an intake facility.
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She had taken the life of her then boyfriend who attacked her and was going to take hers if she did not act.
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While CJ was incarcerated for the murder of her then boyfriend,
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she was offered her first opportunity to reconnect with her Indigenous heritage and be sent to a smudge.
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Smudging is a practice of burning plants that are sacred to Indigenous cosmogony,
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including sage, cedar, tobacco, and sweetgrass.
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The smoke that comes from these plants is associated with different belief systems and practices for Indigenous people across Canada,
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but in this context, CJ was invited to a healing circle and a sisterhood comprised of incarcerated Indigenous women.
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She said that most of the women she was in jail with were Indigenous anyways, from all across the country,
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but all with similar life stories.
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Stories about residential schools, foster care systems, abuse, neglect, and drug addiction.
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Like many of them who had not ever been exposed to Indigenous practices of healing and community
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given they were also in and out of foster care, CJ agreed to go to the smudge just because she was interested in getting out of jail for a day.
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In her testimony though, CJ details how she cried when she learned about the belief systems surrounding smudging
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and especially how the practice changes when a woman is menstruating, a woman's moon time, a sacred time.
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She cried because the elder who was speaking to her was the first person CJ had ever heard in her entire life
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speak about a woman as sacred and beautiful.
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At some point in CJ's tumultuous life, she learned about her half-sister, Norma George.
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During this period, CJ was back out on the streets, in and out of hotels,
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and trying to keep up with the daily struggles of the difficult life she was leading.
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I'll be honest, I'm not sure where prison falls in this timeline,
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but I speak about it to illustrate the difficulties that CJ faced in her life
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and how the damage from residential school systems inflicted trauma that spirals and snowballs into situations that are bigger than fathomable.
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Regardless, what we do know when CJ met Norma George was she was making headway with sobriety.
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The day that she met Norma and another half-sister, Mary George, in the downtown eastside,
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she noted how they looked beautiful, and they looked exactly like her.
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Quote, they were brown, they were beautiful, they were my blood, and they were struggling with their own pain.
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And relentless pain it certainly was.
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Tragedy would continue to strike CJ throughout her life.
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In 2017, her brother, Tom, the same brother that she spent so much time with in foster care
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and watched be battered in the same way that she was, died by overdose.
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He was only 26 years old, and not four months later would Norma George go missing,
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and the blood that CJ had been seeking and yearning for her entire life, right when it was at her fingertips, was stripped away from her once again.
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When her brother died, CJ hadn't seen Norma in quite some time, but when tragedy struck with the death of their brother,
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the opportunity for reconnection would unfortunately never be seen through.
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In her testimony for the National Inquiry, CJ says, quote, if I knew that was the last time I was going to see my sister alive,
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in reference to when she saw her in 1992, I would have never let her go.
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I have seen conflicting information about where Norma's body was found, in Langley, British Columbia, or, according to CJ, in Alder Grove, in an industrial area.
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These are two separate areas of the province that are somewhat close together, but not enough to be misconstrued for the same place.
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But that's a big theme in Norma's case.
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Conflicting and questionable information, silence from police officers, and questions about if an investigation is even taking place.
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When Norma was notified about her sister, she received a knock at the door by detectives who informed her that Norma had been found deceased,
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and they offered her not a word of support or any information on her case.
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So it's been difficult for her and everyone else who's invested to keep up.
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Just as CJ was seemingly lost in the child welfare system, Norma's case has been lost amongst the files of hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
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What we do know is that Norma was found nude and in the fetal position, like I mentioned.
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Her clothes, purse, and big, beautiful, Indigenous-style earrings were missing.
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CJ wasn't allowed to ID Norma in person due to her state of decomposition, and instead she was identified with fingerprints,
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so it's likely that Norma was left in the area where she was found for some time.
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CJ feels as if someone hurt Norma and dumped her, but has been unable to verify this information, or any other pieces of information, given a total lack of cooperation from police.
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CJ's story and the murder of her sister Norma, plus the following lack of inquiry and information related to her case,
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illustrate exactly how the dangers of the colonist child welfare system have rippled effects into the lives and safety of Indigenous women and girls today.
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Personally, I don't know what the solution would have been for CJ when she was a child.
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There were times when certainly her safety was at risk, but if it were not for the residential school system, her family may have never been separated in the first place.
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If her mother never struggled with trauma because of that system.
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If her family was never disbanded, it's possible that CJ may have never had to yearn to seek out the blood of her relatives throughout her life.
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It's possible that Norma George's disappearance and death may have been taken a bit more seriously.
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It's possible that they might have been able to avoid the streets altogether in the first place.
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But no, unlike what is typical common practice in social and welfare services, which is keeping families together, that was never the case for Indigenous children.
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Instead of making every effort to keep families together on reserve, every effort was made to tear them apart.
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And everybody, meaning government at every level, law enforcement agencies, foster families who volunteered to take in these children,
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and anyone at that time who was a mandated reporter, such as teachers, hospital staff, they were all complicit.
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Vanessa Lynn-Louise Brear was from the Sagking First Nation in Manitoba, near the city of Winnipeg.
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Vanessa had been in and out of foster homes and had an open case file with the Manitoba child welfare system at the time of her disappearance in August of 2007.
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Vanessa was one of 14 children who died in 2007 who also had an actual child welfare system.
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Vanessa was one of 14 children who died in 2007 who also had an active case file with child welfare services within one year of their deaths.
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An all too common pattern.
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Vanessa was beautiful and seemingly inquisitive, sometimes sentimental, and had a big smile.
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Although seemingly unknown to her grandmother, Janet Brear,
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Vanessa struggled with similar tribulations as CJ Julian after spending significant time in the child welfare system.
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Vanessa had been involved with child and family services since she was about four years old,
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and according to my reading, it was a real struggle for her to find internal stability.
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It's unclear exactly why Vanessa was placed in foster homes by youth services,
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but what we do know is that despite her being very, very young, she ran in circles with people known to be involved with drugs and possible sex trafficking.
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Vanessa herself was a suspected drug user with a suspected history of prostitution.
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In one report obtained by the Winnipeg Free Press about the death of Vanessa,
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it stated that she had suffered a drug overdose just months before her death and spent about a week in detox.
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In addition, Vanessa had only been released from child welfare custody three months before she died.
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When Vanessa was last seen, it was August 9th of 2007.
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One report I read said that she was getting into a car on Aiken Street near Selkirk Avenue,
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and these streets intersect in a residential area with a church on the corner and some apartments down Selkirk that overlook the intersection.
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Vanessa was with her sister, Tracy, and according to one report I read on the website JusticeforNativeWomen.com,
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the car Vanessa was seen getting into was a green two-door truck with tinted windows.
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Thankfully, Tracy was also able to get a description of the driver as it circled her and her sister before letting Vanessa inside.
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Inside of the truck was a white man with short hair, a mustache, and a big nose.
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But unfortunately, that's all we have, and there were no updates about her case until later that month
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when Vanessa was found deceased in a field northwest of the city of Winnipeg.
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Vanessa's family, according to her grandmother Janet, wasted no time looking for her when they discovered she was missing.
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It's unclear to me how they found out, more than likely she just didn't turn up at home.
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But especially notable is their eagerness to find Vanessa and bring her home safely.
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The family spent about a week doing ground searches, completely independently,
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and their grief displayed in interviews and from my reading, raises even further questions about why Vanessa was placed into child welfare custody to begin with, let alone for so long.
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But regardless, when her grandmother went to police after about a week of searching for Vanessa,
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police were dismissive, as they were about Norma George and so many other women and children who were deemed quote-unquote, high-risk.
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Winnipeg police reportedly told off Janet Breyer, chalking up Vanessa's disappearance to her suspected, but never confirmed, history of sex work.
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Quote, oh she's just a prostitute, she's probably just on a binge, she'll come home.
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The family was disappointed for obvious reasons, but especially so since once again there was a case of a missing young indigenous girl
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whose disappearance was being labeled as a non-issue on account of biases about activities that she may or may not have even participated in.
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The family instead elected to continue searching independently and elicit help from Child Find Manitoba,
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the provincial branch of a national organization dedicated to quote, reducing the incidence of missing and sexually exploited children.
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Unfortunately however, their efforts were to no avail.
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As we have seen time and time again, the label of quote-unquote prostitute continues to devalue the lives of indigenous women and girls,
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and it's unclear to me if police or any other accountable public service member who was involved in Vanessa's life
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truly felt the consequences of their inaction when Vanessa was found deceased, stabbed 17 times later that month in August.
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When Vanessa was found, investigators came to the family home and showed Janet, her grandmother, a man's watch.
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This watch was the same one that Vanessa's mom wore, and it was the one that Vanessa was wearing at the time of her disappearance.
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Detectives told Janet that Vanessa had been found deceased on August 20th near Mollard Road at the city's northern edge,
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only 11 days after she disappeared from inside the city boundaries of Winnipeg.
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Police believed that Vanessa was killed shortly after she was taken away by car on August 9th,
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and although the cause of her death was never formally announced by police to the public,
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it's the family who has said that she was stabbed 17 times and also sexually assaulted.
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Given the absence of blood at the scene and the nature of her injuries,
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it makes sense that Vanessa was more than likely transported to the scene after her death,
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and there is consequently another crime scene somewhere in Winnipeg linked to her death that police just haven't found yet.
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Who knows if they're even still trying?
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Within days of her discovery, Project Devote was assembled,
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a task force dedicated to investigating missing and murdered people in Manitoba,
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as they believed Vanessa's death was linked to a few others in the area.
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Two years after the death of Vanessa in 2009, the bodies of two other women were found along the outskirts of Winnipeg,
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Cherise Hewell and Hilary Wilson.
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Cherise was found northwest of Winnipeg, and Hilary was found near the northeastern city limits.
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Both of these women were also indigenous and also involved in sex work,
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whether that was by choice or by force, given the allegations of sex trafficking within the circles that all three of these women were involved with.
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As of 2015, multiple women have been found in similar dumping sites around the outskirts of the city.
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In fact, Vanessa's body was not even the first that was found in that exact location.
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Another indigenous woman, Therina Silva, was murdered in 2002 and dumped only feet away from where Vanessa was found five years later.
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Today there are two crosses in the location of where both were found.
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Therina's is weathered quite a bit, as is Vanessa's,
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but remnants of a red medicine bag donated by the Sakhing First Nation that once held sage, tobacco, and cedar still exist.
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Other women found around these areas include Cheryl Duck, Rena Fox, Sandra Johnson, and Taishia Jones.
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All indigenous women, all victimized by the same means and with similar life stories.
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And who knows where they are at in terms of investigating.
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As of 2020, the Winnipeg police pulled the plug on Project Devote.
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All this despite being responsible at its peak for 28 cold cases.
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Vanessa's, like many others on that list, are still unsolved.
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The stories of Norma George, CJ Julian, Vanessa Brewer, and all other women who are likely connected to her case
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illustrate the ripple effects of the residential school system in Canada and how many young indigenous women and girls are highly vulnerable to predators that lurk, waiting to strike.
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The Canadian government has mountainous reparations to pay and legislation to untangle to rectify the wrong done unto countless families,
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including the continued suffering felt today, mostly in part because the legal system refuses to protect young indigenous girls.
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Some steps are being made, but not quite enough.
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In 2020, the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children, youth, and families came into force.
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Different sections of the Act are designed to protect the best interests of indigenous youth who would otherwise be repossessed from their families on reserve.
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It was designed to ensure that community services that were culturally informed and competent would provide every resource possible to heal families together.
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Meaning, they wanted to ensure it was possible for children to stay with their families and would make every effort possible to see that happen.
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However, in 2023, in terms of the scope of the national inquiry as a whole, it seems that not much has changed.
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Only a few days ago, the CBC published a news story titled, quote,
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A report card on the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry calls for justice.
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CBC found that the overwhelming majority of the calls to action from the national inquiry have not been implemented.
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In fact, only two have been completed.
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With regard to the new child services legislation, it's hard to say what the outcomes will be.
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The ripple effects are vast, and there is a lot of work to be done to preserve not only indigenous sovereignty,
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but also languages and culture to make reparations for those who were affected, which some financial ones have been divvied out.
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But it just feels like nothing can really, really make up for what was done.
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There is no dollar amount that you can put on the lives of indigenous women and children who were taken and murdered.
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Robert Picton is a stark reminder of the violence that can be caused, can be allowed, when police continue to turn a blind eye.
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What we can do as active listeners and allies is continue to advocate for positive change when we feel it's necessary,
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which is a lot of the time, honestly.
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To preserve indigenous languages and cultures that have been continuously lost throughout this whole saga,
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you can learn a word or two in an indigenous language that's close to where you live.
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If you are a hospital staff or a teacher and you are a mandated reporter, you can take that role seriously, but you can do it in an equitable way.
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Attend workshops and conferences where they teach you how to be culturally competent in indigenous relations.
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Go to workshops hosted by indigenous elders from your community.
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Learn about the atrocities for yourself that happened in your own local area.
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Protect and advocate. Advocate for the protection of women on the streets wherever you live.
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Protect and advocate for harm reduction services, social services like sanctuaries for sex workers.
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Pay attention to the legislation that's being drafted in your province and in the country.
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Make noise and public comments when you disagree with the way that indigenous peoples are still not being given the full scope of the justice they deserve.
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Thank you for listening to another episode of the Crimopedia Podcast.
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I hope you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying this learning journey as much as I am enjoying creating it for you.
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In truth, even when I go to record after I have a whole script written out, I'm still looking things up and learning and it's been a crazy experience.
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The more I learn, the more I know I don't know.
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And I hope you're feeling the same way, eager to learn and anxious to find out what we can do to be better citizens and better allies.
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That's all from me for now.
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But the next episode in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls series will be here on August 15th of 2023.
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But until then, stay safe.
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And if you have any case suggestions that you would like to offer me, head on down to my website at crimopediapod.ca.
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Take care everyone.
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The Crimeopedia podcast is a completely independent show that explores content of a potentially violent and disturbing nature.
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Please use your listening discretion.
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Extra trigger warning for this episode.
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We will be discussing missing and murdered Indigenous women,
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and some history around the injustices faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, both past and present.
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Hi everyone, and welcome to the second episode in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls series on the Crimeopedia podcast.
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Last episode I gave you a brief overview of the history leading up to the national enquiry into the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Canada.
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Today, we're going to be talking about the events in history that led to the dramatic overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the Canadian colonist child welfare system,
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and how it all feeds back into an epidemic of crimes against women and girls.
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I'll be telling you two stories.
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First, the story of Claudine Julian, Beaver Clan, a relentless survivor from the Carrier Nation of Fort St. James,
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and sibling of Norma George who was found murdered in the province of British Columbia.
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Then, we will visit the province of Manitoba to learn about Fonessa Lynn Louise Brouillere, who was only 17 years old when she was murdered.
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But first, we will discuss how, as of the 2021 Canadian census, 53.8% of children in the child welfare system were Indigenous,
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despite accounting for only 7.7% of the national population.
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With that, let's jump right in.
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Along with that jarring national statistic about Indigenous children in the child welfare system in Canada, there are breakdowns by Canadian province.
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As of 2016 in the province of British Columbia, 68% of children in the welfare system were Indigenous, despite representing 6% of the total population.
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In 2017, then Manitoba Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott called the issue a humanitarian crisis when figures were reported that stated
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10,000 out of the 11,000 children in the Manitoba child welfare service were Indigenous.
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As I mentioned in my last episode in this series, some have called the mass overrepresentation of Indigenous children in child services systems
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the second coming of the residential school system, a second attempt at what that system had hoped to achieve through the apprehension and repossession of children,
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destabilization and violence against Indigenous peoples.
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And for a long time, it worked.
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The apprehension of Indigenous children and placement of 70% of them into non-Indigenous, most often white and Catholic homes,
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has largely contributed to the loss of Indigenous languages, cultures and connections to community in the same way that the residential school system sought to do.
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When children were placed with white families, it was not uncommon for them to be told they were French or Italian,
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and at the time, children could not access their birth records unless they themselves and their parents consented to it.
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Birth parents, they often never knew and adopted parents who were hesitant to let the child know where they came from.
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So, according to author Patrick Johnson, who wrote the report Native Children and the Child Welfare System in 1983,
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this resulted in many children suspecting their Indigenous heritage but never being able to confirm it.
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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has called it cultural genocide.
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The last residential school in Canada, Gordon Reserve Indian Residential School in the province of Saskatchewan, was closed in 1996 and demolished.
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However, the mass apprehension of children for repossession began long before then.
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For my reading, it seems that many families affected by the forcible repossession of their children were subject to it per Section 88 of the 1951 Indian Act.
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The Indian Act was meant to be a principal law through which the Canadian federal government could oversee Indigenous status and the management of land on reserves,
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lands that are set aside by the Canadian government for use by First Nation communities.
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However, Section 88 of the 1951 Indian Act is a unique one, as it positions provincial law to be applied to First Nations communities,
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despite First Nations groups being designated under federal authority.
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Legal jargon aside, this meant that Indigenous communities, despite seeking sovereignty and making partial gains in that fight,
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were subject to laws by the province which their lands resided in.
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This seems benign and pretty straightforward, but many legal scholars at the time pointed to its potential for causing confusion,
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given mismatched jurisdictional oversight of First Nations communities which could lead to mistakes or really bad outcomes.
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And they were right.
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What Section 88 of the Indian Act allowed for was provincial and territorial child welfare agencies to apprehend children on Indigenous reserves,
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so long as it was quote-unquote reasonable within their scope of practice and narrowed culturally incompetent worldview.
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Back then, social services and child welfare did not expect social workers and youth counsellors to have training in Indigenous child relations
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or anything culturally relevant to Indigenous child welfare.
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According to Patrick Johnson, he says, quote,
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Many of these social workers were completely unfamiliar with the cultural or history of Aboriginal communities that they entered.
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What they believed constituted proper care was generally based on middle-class, Euro-Canadian values.
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In his report, Patrick Johnson gives an example of a situation where an Indigenous child living on reserve
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may have been apprehended by a white social worker related to food security.
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If a social worker entered the home of a family living on reserve land and saw traditional Indigenous staple food
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such as dried game meats and fish and didn't see a white fridge stocked with typical North American fruit roll-ups, milk, and bread,
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they may assume that the adults in the household were not properly taking care of the child's needs.
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However, this conclusion obviously comes from a total lack of cultural awareness about Indigenous food systems.
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What they would have seen in that home was totally normal, but not in their Euro-Canadian worldview.
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In addition, upon seeing some issues that families on reserve lands face that are a byproduct of isolation,
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inaccessibility of resources, and trauma from residential schools such as poverty,
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social services would have been blinded by Eurocentric views of what comprises a good quality of life for a child,
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completely neglecting that the child was otherwise taken care of.
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Thus, for reasons such as these and others, children were taken en masse with little to no warning
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and according to Patrick Johnson, quote, absolutely no consent.
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In fact, it was only until about 1980 when Child and Welfare Service personnel were mandated to notify
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band councils or the administrators of First Nation Affairs that a child was being removed.
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Until then, no warnings, no words. They would just come in and take the child away.
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Indigenous child apprehension began to pick up the pace in the 1960s with the beginning of a period in history now known as the 60s scoop.
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This was a period of mass removal of children from their families without prior knowledge or warnings,
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and it became common practice to displace children and leave families, especially single mothers,
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and communities in fear and shock when their children were taken away and placed with unfamiliar people,
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sometimes as far away as the United States or on the other side of the country.
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In the 1970s, it's reported that Indigenous communities across Canada began trying to form their own child welfare agencies
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to account for the cultural and historical contexts of families living on reserve.
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However, their reach was severely limited by disputes in government funding and issues with existing legislation
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that bound these agencies by their proverbial hands.
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In addition to loss of identity and sense of community, many children that were displaced drifted from home to home
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as children unfortunately do even in the contemporary child welfare system.
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Many Indigenous children faced violence in their placement homes, some of which we will hear about in this episode,
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and the abuse that these children faced wasn't limited to physical or psychological either.
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The impacts are far-reaching and contribute in part to cycles of intergenerational trauma experienced today,
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but back then, nobody wanted to acknowledge it.
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Within communities, everybody knew that something was severely wrong,
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but there was no voice for these people, no one was listening.
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There was no advocacy from those in charge for children at risk
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who would eventually go on to quote-unquote age out of the child welfare system,
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meaning they turned 18 and were no longer eligible for any type of support,
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even if it was the bare minimum from Euro-Canadian services.
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Most of them ended up leaving the system impoverished and at high risk,
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with no life skills or occupational skills, much worse off than they would have been just at home.
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Reports vary on exactly the number of children who were stolen from their families,
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but there are figures upwards of 20,000 children apprehended across the country,
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with most of it happening in the prairie provinces, especially Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
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but certainly not limited to there.
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Personally, I've heard with my own ears from an elder from a First Nations community
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not far from where I grew up in southwestern Ontario.
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She told me all about how the 60s scoop affected her and her siblings,
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and she didn't tell me anything else, but she didn't have to.
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It was unspeakable.
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And it went on in massive proportions until very recently, when three years ago, in January of 2020,
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the federal government sought to enact the Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit,
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and Métis Children, Youth, and Families.
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This act is intended to undo and rectify all of the damage that was done
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from the mass dispossession of children and the resulting overrepresentation of Indigenous children
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in the child welfare system.
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But even that is questionably successful.
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We'll get there, though.
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For now, I want to give you a deeper insight into what the life of a displaced child looked like,
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and what the ramifications are for a person who has grown up immersed in the consequences
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of cultural and literal genocide through the lens of Claudine or C.J. Julian,
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sister of murdered Indigenous woman Norma George.
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The last time C.J. Julian saw Norma George, her half-sister,
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was on September 28th of 1992, before Norma turned to walk away in Vancouver's downtown east side
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towards the Stroll, an area frequented by sex workers.
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C.J. describes Norma as beautiful.
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I can't find any pictures of her, but from the way C.J. speaks about her, I can only imagine.
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She was warm and funny and wore beautiful makeup.
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That's how Norma was the last time she was seen.
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C.J. and Norma stood together near the Balmoral Hotel in Vancouver's downtown east side in British Columbia.
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If you listened to my episode about serial killer Robert Picton,
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you'll remember that Vancouver's downtown east side is an area notorious for having
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disproportionately high rates of homelessness and poverty, crime, open drug use with substances
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easily accessible, and sex workers.
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Serial killer Robert Picton actually selected many of his victims from the crime scene
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and many of his victims from this area, sex workers who were vulnerable and often struggled
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with drug addictions, many of whom were indigenous women.
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When C.J. last saw Norma, she was in a difficult place in life.
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She had been living on the streets amongst many of her friends who were also homeless
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or couch hopping and exchanging sex for money and drugs.
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C.J. herself was recovering from a drug addiction at this point, but was struggling to get off the
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streets and step away from the hard life that she had always known.
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Because of this, the last words that Norma ever said to her sister were,
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quote, go home baby girl before she walked off into the distance never to be seen again.
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Norma had known the ins and outs of the life that C.J. was living.
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She had lived it herself and had felt the loss and trauma that C.J. had experienced.
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Much of it we will get into.
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But C.J. could have never known that that was going to be the last time she'd ever see her half-sister.
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They had only met relatively recently, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about that day.
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Norma was how she always was.
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When she was last seen, she was walking away in a full outfit with big beautiful
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indigenous style earrings and a full face of makeup as she usually wore.
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But Norma was never seen alive again.
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Something was different that day.
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And when she was found, her clothes and earrings were gone.
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She was nude and lying in the fetal position on the ground, alone, stripped of all of her possessions,
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and completely unrecognizable from the classically beautiful woman that everyone in her life knew.
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The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
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had a truth-gathering process.
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This was a series of public hearings featuring victims and survivors,
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sharing their life stories and detailing how the atrocities of the colonizer government
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have infected their lives.
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In one transcript from part of one of these public hearings,
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CJ Julian talks a lot about her own life and Norma.
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I'll have the full transcript linked on my website at crimeopediapod.ca
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and I'll read parts of it for you today.
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But in short, it all starts the same way that many of these stories do.
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CJ's mom was a survivor of 12-14 years at the Lajoc Residential School in British Columbia.
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After her time at residential school was over, CJ's mom suffered with alcoholism to cope with the trauma
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and became a single mother after having children with a few separate partners who were
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never reliable or safe enough to be around her children.
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This included CJ and Norma, but also another brother named Tom.
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From what CJ remembers or knows about her own father, he was a violent man who was mostly absent
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but incredibly dangerous when he was around.
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At one time, when CJ was very young, her mother ended up in the intensive care unit
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due to injuries that he had inflicted on her.
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Although CJ's mother loved her and cared for her deeply, and that love was reciprocal,
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she struggled deeply and didn't have the support necessary to facilitate a better life for her children.
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So, CJ and her brother Tom were taken into custody by child welfare services.
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From my reading, this is the first time that they were placed into a different home.
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From CJ's testimony, at this time it's unclear where Norma George is, but it's more than likely
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that she was living with her grandmother, so CJ didn't know she existed.
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CJ recalls various white foster families caring for her and her brother, but caring is a term I use loosely.
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Although an objectively safer place than at home with her violent father during this time,
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these caregivers were abusive and pitted other children in the home against CJ and her brother.
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They were told that they must eat on the floor during meal times when the other children sat at the table,
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and CJ remembers being bitten by another child simply because she was a kid.
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In her testimony for the National Inquiry, she says that she can still feel the scar on her back from that bite to this day.
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The foster family made CJ and her brother clean up feces by themselves from the various family pets,
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and the parents beat her brother when he wet his bed, despite it being, in hindsight,
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a very visceral trauma response to his precarious situation.
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When CJ was returned from foster care to her family home with her mother, her new partner was not much better of an example than her own father.
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Before long, CJ recalls that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stormed their house with guns drawn
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and a warrant out for her mother's boyfriend's arrest.
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With one gun pointed at CJ, who was still a very small child, and the boyfriend hidden by the window,
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CJ was taken to the hospital and the hospital was closed.
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CJ was taken to the hospital, and the hospital was closed.
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But CJ was still in the hospital, and the hospital was closed.
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She had a very small child, and the boyfriend hidden but still within her view, signalling her to be quiet, she was frozen.
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After this incident, her mother was arrested and she was sent back to foster care once again.
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When she got there, the first thing the family did was put her and her brother into a very hot bath and begin scrubbing.
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CJ recounts that she wasn't sure if they were trying to scrub her skin white,
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but she was sure that they were trying to scrub her skin white.
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The rest of CJ's childhood is about the same,
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stories of her mother struggling with alcoholism and neglecting to choose life partners who were safe for her children to be around.
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She recalls being in and out of different homes, countless broken promises from social workers,
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and living out of a suitcase for many years, moving from place to place, unsure if or when she'd be able to go home.
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CJ grew up thinking that violence was a form of love, and that living fast was just how you did things, where she was from.
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She suffered all forms of abuse while under the care of foster families,
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some of which, she says, may have contributed to her becoming a sex worker later in life.
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When CJ turned 18 years old, she aged out of the foster system.
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Again, to age out means to become a legal adult and to no longer qualify for assistance from child and youth services.
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But CJ had no life or occupational experience, similar to many people who age out of these systems.
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So she lived in hotels that were organized specifically for high-risk youth, and began doing drugs and falling deeper into alcoholism.
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CJ spent time amongst women who she called her sisters.
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They were her comrades on the street, other girls with other similar life experiences who looked out for each other,
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especially in the wake of a violent serial killer who we now know was Robert Picton.
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CJ spent her days around the downtown Eastside area of Vancouver,
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and befriended many women who would ultimately become victims themselves,
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ultimately become missing and murdered indigenous women, one of which was Sarah DeVries,
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and she was one of the women whose partial remains were eventually found on the Robert Picton farm,
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and CJ herself even spent time on that farm with Robert Picton,
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before having to run away and seek help from the Eagle Ridge Hospital due to valid concerns about her safety.
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If you recall from my episode about Robert Picton,
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the Eagle Ridge Hospital is one where fellow escapee from him, Wendy Lynn Icedetter, arrived in 1997 after running away from the clutches of Picton.
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Unfortunately, just the same as they did with Wendy,
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they disregarded CJ's story about having to run away from who she presumed to be a very violent man.
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They didn't listen to what she had seen and experienced on the Picton farm.
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They had no idea how close she was to becoming a victim herself,
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and they wrote her off as a quote, transient hooker, and an Indian.
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According to CJ, one officer dismissed her entirely with one simple statement,
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which led to CJ not receiving help and, once again, Robert Picton not being investigated.
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Quote,
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She's so fucked up, she doesn't even know if she's coming or going.
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That's what he said about me when I was trying to get safe.
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Even when CJ started getting a handle on working and trying to live on her own,
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she didn't have the necessary life skills to be able to live normally, let alone while coping with the trauma she endured,
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and trying to reconnect with her disconnected family.
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Quote,
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I didn't know how to live, it was all new to me.
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CJ was unstable and in another toxic abusive relationship stemming from the patterns of violence acceptance
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and tolerance that she had learned at a young age.
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No one had ever taught her better, not in the foster care system and not at home.
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It all culminated one evening when CJ blacked out from alcohol and woke up in an intake facility.
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She had taken the life of her then boyfriend who attacked her and was going to take hers if she did not act.
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While CJ was incarcerated for the murder of her then boyfriend,
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she was offered her first opportunity to reconnect with her Indigenous heritage and be sent to a smudge.
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Smudging is a practice of burning plants that are sacred to Indigenous cosmogony,
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including sage, cedar, tobacco, and sweetgrass.
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The smoke that comes from these plants is associated with different belief systems and practices for Indigenous people across Canada,
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but in this context, CJ was invited to a healing circle and a sisterhood comprised of incarcerated Indigenous women.
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She said that most of the women she was in jail with were Indigenous anyways, from all across the country,
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but all with similar life stories.
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Stories about residential schools, foster care systems, abuse, neglect, and drug addiction.
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Like many of them who had not ever been exposed to Indigenous practices of healing and community
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given they were also in and out of foster care, CJ agreed to go to the smudge just because she was interested in getting out of jail for a day.
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In her testimony though, CJ details how she cried when she learned about the belief systems surrounding smudging
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and especially how the practice changes when a woman is menstruating, a woman's moon time, a sacred time.
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She cried because the elder who was speaking to her was the first person CJ had ever heard in her entire life
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speak about a woman as sacred and beautiful.
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At some point in CJ's tumultuous life, she learned about her half-sister, Norma George.
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During this period, CJ was back out on the streets, in and out of hotels,
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and trying to keep up with the daily struggles of the difficult life she was leading.
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I'll be honest, I'm not sure where prison falls in this timeline,
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but I speak about it to illustrate the difficulties that CJ faced in her life
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and how the damage from residential school systems inflicted trauma that spirals and snowballs into situations that are bigger than fathomable.
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Regardless, what we do know when CJ met Norma George was she was making headway with sobriety.
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The day that she met Norma and another half-sister, Mary George, in the downtown eastside,
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she noted how they looked beautiful, and they looked exactly like her.
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Quote, they were brown, they were beautiful, they were my blood, and they were struggling with their own pain.
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And relentless pain it certainly was.
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Tragedy would continue to strike CJ throughout her life.
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In 2017, her brother, Tom, the same brother that she spent so much time with in foster care
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and watched be battered in the same way that she was, died by overdose.
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He was only 26 years old, and not four months later would Norma George go missing,
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and the blood that CJ had been seeking and yearning for her entire life, right when it was at her fingertips, was stripped away from her once again.
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When her brother died, CJ hadn't seen Norma in quite some time, but when tragedy struck with the death of their brother,
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the opportunity for reconnection would unfortunately never be seen through.
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In her testimony for the National Inquiry, CJ says, quote, if I knew that was the last time I was going to see my sister alive,
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in reference to when she saw her in 1992, I would have never let her go.
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I have seen conflicting information about where Norma's body was found, in Langley, British Columbia, or, according to CJ, in Alder Grove, in an industrial area.
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These are two separate areas of the province that are somewhat close together, but not enough to be misconstrued for the same place.
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But that's a big theme in Norma's case.
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Conflicting and questionable information, silence from police officers, and questions about if an investigation is even taking place.
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When Norma was notified about her sister, she received a knock at the door by detectives who informed her that Norma had been found deceased,
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and they offered her not a word of support or any information on her case.
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So it's been difficult for her and everyone else who's invested to keep up.
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Just as CJ was seemingly lost in the child welfare system, Norma's case has been lost amongst the files of hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
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What we do know is that Norma was found nude and in the fetal position, like I mentioned.
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Her clothes, purse, and big, beautiful, Indigenous-style earrings were missing.
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CJ wasn't allowed to ID Norma in person due to her state of decomposition, and instead she was identified with fingerprints,
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so it's likely that Norma was left in the area where she was found for some time.
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CJ feels as if someone hurt Norma and dumped her, but has been unable to verify this information, or any other pieces of information, given a total lack of cooperation from police.
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CJ's story and the murder of her sister Norma, plus the following lack of inquiry and information related to her case,
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illustrate exactly how the dangers of the colonist child welfare system have rippled effects into the lives and safety of Indigenous women and girls today.
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Personally, I don't know what the solution would have been for CJ when she was a child.
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There were times when certainly her safety was at risk, but if it were not for the residential school system, her family may have never been separated in the first place.
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If her mother never struggled with trauma because of that system.
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If her family was never disbanded, it's possible that CJ may have never had to yearn to seek out the blood of her relatives throughout her life.
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It's possible that Norma George's disappearance and death may have been taken a bit more seriously.
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It's possible that they might have been able to avoid the streets altogether in the first place.
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But no, unlike what is typical common practice in social and welfare services, which is keeping families together, that was never the case for Indigenous children.
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Instead of making every effort to keep families together on reserve, every effort was made to tear them apart.
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And everybody, meaning government at every level, law enforcement agencies, foster families who volunteered to take in these children,
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and anyone at that time who was a mandated reporter, such as teachers, hospital staff, they were all complicit.
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Vanessa Lynn-Louise Brear was from the Sagking First Nation in Manitoba, near the city of Winnipeg.
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Vanessa had been in and out of foster homes and had an open case file with the Manitoba child welfare system at the time of her disappearance in August of 2007.
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Vanessa was one of 14 children who died in 2007 who also had an actual child welfare system.
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Vanessa was one of 14 children who died in 2007 who also had an active case file with child welfare services within one year of their deaths.
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An all too common pattern.
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Vanessa was beautiful and seemingly inquisitive, sometimes sentimental, and had a big smile.
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Although seemingly unknown to her grandmother, Janet Brear,
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Vanessa struggled with similar tribulations as CJ Julian after spending significant time in the child welfare system.
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Vanessa had been involved with child and family services since she was about four years old,
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and according to my reading, it was a real struggle for her to find internal stability.
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It's unclear exactly why Vanessa was placed in foster homes by youth services,
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but what we do know is that despite her being very, very young, she ran in circles with people known to be involved with drugs and possible sex trafficking.
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Vanessa herself was a suspected drug user with a suspected history of prostitution.
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In one report obtained by the Winnipeg Free Press about the death of Vanessa,
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it stated that she had suffered a drug overdose just months before her death and spent about a week in detox.
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In addition, Vanessa had only been released from child welfare custody three months before she died.
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When Vanessa was last seen, it was August 9th of 2007.
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One report I read said that she was getting into a car on Aiken Street near Selkirk Avenue,
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and these streets intersect in a residential area with a church on the corner and some apartments down Selkirk that overlook the intersection.
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Vanessa was with her sister, Tracy, and according to one report I read on the website JusticeforNativeWomen.com,
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the car Vanessa was seen getting into was a green two-door truck with tinted windows.
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Thankfully, Tracy was also able to get a description of the driver as it circled her and her sister before letting Vanessa inside.
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Inside of the truck was a white man with short hair, a mustache, and a big nose.
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But unfortunately, that's all we have, and there were no updates about her case until later that month
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when Vanessa was found deceased in a field northwest of the city of Winnipeg.
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Vanessa's family, according to her grandmother Janet, wasted no time looking for her when they discovered she was missing.
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It's unclear to me how they found out, more than likely she just didn't turn up at home.
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But especially notable is their eagerness to find Vanessa and bring her home safely.
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The family spent about a week doing ground searches, completely independently,
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and their grief displayed in interviews and from my reading, raises even further questions about why Vanessa was placed into child welfare custody to begin with, let alone for so long.
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But regardless, when her grandmother went to police after about a week of searching for Vanessa,
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police were dismissive, as they were about Norma George and so many other women and children who were deemed quote-unquote, high-risk.
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Winnipeg police reportedly told off Janet Breyer, chalking up Vanessa's disappearance to her suspected, but never confirmed, history of sex work.
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Quote, oh she's just a prostitute, she's probably just on a binge, she'll come home.
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The family was disappointed for obvious reasons, but especially so since once again there was a case of a missing young indigenous girl
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whose disappearance was being labeled as a non-issue on account of biases about activities that she may or may not have even participated in.
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The family instead elected to continue searching independently and elicit help from Child Find Manitoba,
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the provincial branch of a national organization dedicated to quote, reducing the incidence of missing and sexually exploited children.
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Unfortunately however, their efforts were to no avail.
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As we have seen time and time again, the label of quote-unquote prostitute continues to devalue the lives of indigenous women and girls,
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and it's unclear to me if police or any other accountable public service member who was involved in Vanessa's life
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truly felt the consequences of their inaction when Vanessa was found deceased, stabbed 17 times later that month in August.
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When Vanessa was found, investigators came to the family home and showed Janet, her grandmother, a man's watch.
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This watch was the same one that Vanessa's mom wore, and it was the one that Vanessa was wearing at the time of her disappearance.
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Detectives told Janet that Vanessa had been found deceased on August 20th near Mollard Road at the city's northern edge,
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only 11 days after she disappeared from inside the city boundaries of Winnipeg.
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Police believed that Vanessa was killed shortly after she was taken away by car on August 9th,
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and although the cause of her death was never formally announced by police to the public,
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it's the family who has said that she was stabbed 17 times and also sexually assaulted.
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Given the absence of blood at the scene and the nature of her injuries,
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it makes sense that Vanessa was more than likely transported to the scene after her death,
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and there is consequently another crime scene somewhere in Winnipeg linked to her death that police just haven't found yet.
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Who knows if they're even still trying?
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Within days of her discovery, Project Devote was assembled,
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a task force dedicated to investigating missing and murdered people in Manitoba,
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as they believed Vanessa's death was linked to a few others in the area.
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Two years after the death of Vanessa in 2009, the bodies of two other women were found along the outskirts of Winnipeg,
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Cherise Hewell and Hilary Wilson.
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Cherise was found northwest of Winnipeg, and Hilary was found near the northeastern city limits.
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Both of these women were also indigenous and also involved in sex work,
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whether that was by choice or by force, given the allegations of sex trafficking within the circles that all three of these women were involved with.
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As of 2015, multiple women have been found in similar dumping sites around the outskirts of the city.
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In fact, Vanessa's body was not even the first that was found in that exact location.
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Another indigenous woman, Therina Silva, was murdered in 2002 and dumped only feet away from where Vanessa was found five years later.
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Today there are two crosses in the location of where both were found.
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Therina's is weathered quite a bit, as is Vanessa's,
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but remnants of a red medicine bag donated by the Sakhing First Nation that once held sage, tobacco, and cedar still exist.
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Other women found around these areas include Cheryl Duck, Rena Fox, Sandra Johnson, and Taishia Jones.
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All indigenous women, all victimized by the same means and with similar life stories.
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And who knows where they are at in terms of investigating.
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As of 2020, the Winnipeg police pulled the plug on Project Devote.
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All this despite being responsible at its peak for 28 cold cases.
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Vanessa's, like many others on that list, are still unsolved.
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The stories of Norma George, CJ Julian, Vanessa Brewer, and all other women who are likely connected to her case
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illustrate the ripple effects of the residential school system in Canada and how many young indigenous women and girls are highly vulnerable to predators that lurk, waiting to strike.
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The Canadian government has mountainous reparations to pay and legislation to untangle to rectify the wrong done unto countless families,
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including the continued suffering felt today, mostly in part because the legal system refuses to protect young indigenous girls.
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Some steps are being made, but not quite enough.
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In 2020, the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children, youth, and families came into force.
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Different sections of the Act are designed to protect the best interests of indigenous youth who would otherwise be repossessed from their families on reserve.
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It was designed to ensure that community services that were culturally informed and competent would provide every resource possible to heal families together.
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Meaning, they wanted to ensure it was possible for children to stay with their families and would make every effort possible to see that happen.
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However, in 2023, in terms of the scope of the national inquiry as a whole, it seems that not much has changed.
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Only a few days ago, the CBC published a news story titled, quote,
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A report card on the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry calls for justice.
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CBC found that the overwhelming majority of the calls to action from the national inquiry have not been implemented.
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In fact, only two have been completed.
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With regard to the new child services legislation, it's hard to say what the outcomes will be.
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The ripple effects are vast, and there is a lot of work to be done to preserve not only indigenous sovereignty,
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but also languages and culture to make reparations for those who were affected, which some financial ones have been divvied out.
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But it just feels like nothing can really, really make up for what was done.
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There is no dollar amount that you can put on the lives of indigenous women and children who were taken and murdered.
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Robert Picton is a stark reminder of the violence that can be caused, can be allowed, when police continue to turn a blind eye.
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What we can do as active listeners and allies is continue to advocate for positive change when we feel it's necessary,
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which is a lot of the time, honestly.
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To preserve indigenous languages and cultures that have been continuously lost throughout this whole saga,
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you can learn a word or two in an indigenous language that's close to where you live.
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If you are a hospital staff or a teacher and you are a mandated reporter, you can take that role seriously, but you can do it in an equitable way.
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Attend workshops and conferences where they teach you how to be culturally competent in indigenous relations.
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Go to workshops hosted by indigenous elders from your community.
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Learn about the atrocities for yourself that happened in your own local area.
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Protect and advocate. Advocate for the protection of women on the streets wherever you live.
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Protect and advocate for harm reduction services, social services like sanctuaries for sex workers.
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Pay attention to the legislation that's being drafted in your province and in the country.
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Make noise and public comments when you disagree with the way that indigenous peoples are still not being given the full scope of the justice they deserve.
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Thank you for listening to another episode of the Crimopedia Podcast.
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I hope you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying this learning journey as much as I am enjoying creating it for you.
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In truth, even when I go to record after I have a whole script written out, I'm still looking things up and learning and it's been a crazy experience.
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The more I learn, the more I know I don't know.
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And I hope you're feeling the same way, eager to learn and anxious to find out what we can do to be better citizens and better allies.
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That's all from me for now.
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But the next episode in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls series will be here on August 15th of 2023.
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But until then, stay safe.
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And if you have any case suggestions that you would like to offer me, head on down to my website at crimopediapod.ca.
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Take care everyone.
