Homeless homicide victim’s death ‘heartbreaking,’ cousin says
Amanda Goodrunning never knew when she would hear from her cousin, who had been living on the streets of Edmonton for four years.
Sometimes she didn’t get a call from Freda Goodrunning for months at a time. Sometimes her phone would ring every few days. Sometimes she’d wake up in the morning to a voice-mail message from her, singing a love song she made up herself and laughing until the message ended.
“I listen to them sometimes when I’m thinking of her,” Amanda said.
Freda Goodrunning was found dead inside a storage shed behind an out-ofbusiness pub near 174 Street and Stony Plain Road during a rainy afternoon on June 4. At the time, Edmonton Police Service declared the 35-yearold woman’s death suspicious. On Dec. 18, EPS said the death was declared a homicide in October, when further investigations showed Freda died from blunt force trauma.
EPS have not named any suspects or laid any charges in relation to Freda’s death, which is Edmonton’s 12th homicide of the year. The investigation is ongoing.
Amanda said she grew up with Freda on the Sunchild First Nation reserve, about 60 kilometres northwest of Rocky Mountain House. She had six children between the ages of five and 15 and battled drug and alcohol addiction, Amanda said. Eventually, all of her children were taken into foster care in Edmonton.
When her mother died, she moved to Edmonton to be closer to her children, and she was homeless until her death, Amanda said. She dreamed of getting her children back.
“It is heartbreaking, unbelievable,” she said. “She was amazing, she was very funny, she had a great personality.” aross@edmontonjournal.com Twitter.com/_ rossandrea