‘My biggest fear is finding out she was murdered’
Families and survivors testify at Indigenous women inquiry
A woman whose mother went missing in 2006 says she was told by police the missing person’s report she filed didn’t exist.
“They told me that I never filed anything,” Vanessa Corado said Thursday at a public hearing in Edmonton, where the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls met this week.
Corado filed a report with the Edmonton Police Service in January 2007 and followed up four years later.
“I had lost my son a few months before,” she said. “I wasn’t that strong mentally and emotionally. I just accepted that and I just walked out of the police station.”
She wasn’t initially concerned when her mother Freeda Whiteman went missing.
“My mom was an alcoholic and a drug addict and always with those kinds of people,” she said.
The Bissell Centre in Edmonton notified Corado as well as the police when Whiteman stopped picking up her mail — something out of the ordinary, Corado said. It spurred her to file a missing person’s report, but she said authorities lacked compassion.
“I was really angry that day when they told me it was her fault for living a high-risk lifestyle,” she said, adding her mother had registered with Project KARE, an RCMP task force that created a registry of DNA samples for vulnerable women.
“I had blamed myself because we had argued that day about her drinking. I told her to come back when she was sober,” Corado said, crying while giving her testimony.
“Finally, someone will hear my story about my mom,” she said, adding she has been waiting 11 years for justice.
“She was someone to us, she belonged to us.
“My biggest fear is finding out she was murdered.”
Chief commissioner Marion Buller and commissioner Brian Eyolfson listened to 75 family members and survivors from Tuesday to Thursday in Edmonton, inquiry executive director Debbie Reid said.
“Our hearings are grounded in culture,” Reid said Thursday at the Edmonton Inn and Conference Centre. “The openness and welcoming of elders and family members is something you can’t replicate.”
Participants were given the option to testify in public or in private, as well as in sharing circles or through artistic expression panels.
The inquiry heard from 269 people during three hearings in Yukon, British Columbia and Manitoba. Six more hearings are scheduled before February, including the one in Edmonton.
Advocates have expressed frustration with the process over delays and reported gaps in communication.
“What is the followup going to be?” Corado asked during her testimony.
“I don’t want to be left just hanging in the dark.”
I had blamed myself because we had argued that day about her drinking. I told her to come back when she was sober.