Killing of indigenous women touches region
More than 1,200 Canadian native women have been murdered or vanished since 1980, the RCMP reports. Among them are at least seven victims slain in southwestern Ontario — their stories are little known.
Six women, one girl.
Among them mothers, a grandmother and a 17-year-old high school student.
All killed over the past two decades, they bring the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women to southwestern Ontario.
The Canada-wide epidemic, thrust under a national spotlight amid an RCMP report that more than 1,200 native women have been murdered or vanished since 1980, is often framed mainly as an issue in Western Canada and remote northern Ontario.
But it has taken its toll in southwestern Ontario, a notso-remote area home to 10 First Nations and 30,000 aboriginal people along the Highway 401 corridor.
From that region, stretching from Windsor to Brantford, there have been at least seven victims. “There’s probably more than that,” said Reta Van Every of My Sisters’ Place, a London day shelter.
As the shelter’s native liaison officer, Van Every — who is indigenous — said she’s heard many stories of missing sisters, cousins and friends.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more,” agrees Gertie Mae Muise, associate director at the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre in London.
“Just knowing the nature of the silence around these things.... People are not even horrified about this stuff. It does breed this kind of invisibility.”
You’d think the Internet would be filled with stories about these victims. But though each made at least a few headlines, there’s relatively little awareness about their everyday lives, about children left behind. They’re slain, but in a way, many are still missing.
Ontario native chiefs aim to change that, through an online Who is She? campaign (whoisshe.ca) launched this month to raise awareness of the missing women and money to fund an Ontario inquiry.
“Their stories are important. Their family and their experience and what they gave to us is all so important,” said Leslee White- Eye, chief of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, near London. “If we don’t tell those stories, they are faces that nobody can iden- tify with.”
The seven indigenous women slain in southwestern Ontario were identified on a list compiled in 2013 by Maryanne Pearce for her law school thesis at the University of Ottawa, and were included in the RCMP’s 2014 report.
She believes there may be even more.
Creative woman found slain at heritage site
Sonya Nadine Cywink, 31
Home community: Whitefish River First Nation, on Georgian Bay Slain: August 1994. Unsolved
What’s known: Cywink’s body was found at the Southwold Neutral Indian Earthworks — a historic aboriginal site — 65 kilometres southwest of London. Autopsy showed evidence of blunt-force trauma. Cywink lived in London and was last seen five days earlier. On a website set up to honour missing and murdered women, Cywink’s family recalls her as a creative, articulate and poetic woman who once dreamt of becoming a writer.
Aspiring nurse killed in Windsor
Diane Dobson, 36
Home community: Saugeen First Nation, near Southampton
Slain: In Windsor, 1995. Un-
solved
What’s known: She was a mother of three and struggled with addiction. Dobson was last seen on Valentine’s Day in west-end Windsor where she lived. Her body was found in nearby Brighton Beach the next morning. She died from multiple blows to her face. Dobson was buried in an unmarked grave, but in 2012 Windsor’s Can-Am Urban Native Homes led a fundraiser for a headstone and held a community memorial.
Single mother shot
dead in driveway
Maxine Peters, 34 Community: Walpole Island, near Sarnia Killed: June 2004. Solved
What’s known: One of eight children and a single mother of two, Peters was shot to death June 13, 2004, by a single shot as she sat in a vehicle. Ronnie Blackbird pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He said he didn’t intend to kill, but fired five shots at a vehicle in his driveway.
Teen loved to make
others laugh
Katrina Kiyoshk, 17 Home community: Walpole
Island
Killed: August 2005. Solved
What’s known: A student at Wallaceburg District Secondary School who loved to make others laugh, Kiyoshk went missing after a party Aug. 17, 2005, four days after her birthday. She was drunk when she left with two men. Kristin Johnson, 15 years older than Kiyoshk, killed her after having sex with her, then dumped her body. Johnson was convicted of manslaughter in 2011.
Mother of three wanted
to be lab tech
Who: Denise Bourdeau, 39 Home community: Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, near Brantford
Murdered: Her body was found in April 2007. Solved
What’s known: Born and raised in Kitchener, Bourdeau had once planned to be a lab technician according to news reports. The mother of three was last seen leaving a bar with her boyfriend David Thomas after ringing in the New Year. Four months later, a man and his dog came across her body. Police charged Thomas in 2011 with second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no parole for 16 years.
Mother of two murdered
by boyfriend
Therssa Wilson-Jamieson Fleming, 31 Home community: Oneida Nation of the Thames
Murdered: Her body was found near Chatham, November 2010. Solved
What’s known: Wilson was a mother of two who doted on her children, said friend Danielle Lacelle. Wilson was killed by her abusive boyfriend. She was missing four months before her body was found in the Thames River, west of Chatham on Nov. 24, 2010. Bryan Robinson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in September 2013.
Grandmother killed in fire at family home
Elaine LaForme, 48
Home community: Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, near Brantford
Killed: Jan. 22, 2012. Suspect charged with murder What’s known: A mother and grandmother, LaForme died in a fire at her family home on New Credit. Ricky Powless, 52, of Six Nations also died in the blaze. Glenn Owen Hill is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.