|
Trial of Farand Bear | Neil Stonechild |
The
key witness against [John Martin Crawford, convicted serial killer
of Saskatoon prostitutes] petty crook Bill Corrigan, was present
at the murder of Napope, but never charged with being an accessory.
Instead, in a deal that smells of Karla Homolka, he was paid
$15,000 to rat out his pal. (from a review
of Warren Goulding's Just another Indian: A Serial Killer
and Canada's Indifference).
Maxine Wapass
Missing woman and a murder
lead to eerie conclusions
By Dan Zakreski, CBC News
Saskatoon
It was a second missing
woman that first raised police concerns about Maxine Wapass.
Police vice squad
detectives hit the streets looking for clues within hours of
the death of Donna Kayson.
Maxine Wapass went missing
in May.
The timing of Kayson's death
was troubling, given that police were already three weeks into
trying to find 23-year-old Maxine Wapass. She had dropped out
of sight under mysterious circumstances on the May long weekend.
Two native women had now disappeared
from the sex and drug culture on Saskatoon's west side. With
the case of a Port Coquitlam farm making international headlines
and allegations that Robert Pickton may have been involved in
the disappearance of several of the more than 25 Vancouver women
missing since the mid nineties, and the recent disappearances
in Saskatoon suddenly seemed eerily familiar.
The John Crawford case is
also still fresh in the minds of many Saskatoon police officers.
It had been a decade since a series of native women were reported
missing in Saskatoon. Bad internal communications, a questionable
investigation and three bodies discovered in green garbage bags
at the Moon Lake Golf Course eventually led to a conviction,
but Police were seen mishandling the case on several levels.
The Crawford case raised hard
questions on how the native community is policed and started
a tailspin of bad publicity that the department is still fighting
today.
Donna Kasyon was found bleeding
to death
After Kasyon bled to death
at a west side bus shelter ,
police called vice to the scene. Police discovered Kasyon worked
the streets and vice detectives canvassed people along the so-called
'stroll'. They quizzed girls about bad dates and recent johns,
asking about particularly erratic behavior. Vice detectives tried
to find out whether they could connect the dots between the two
women.
Police say they had red-flagged
the Wapass disappearance during the May long weekend almost immediately.
Though Wapass used drugs and
worked in the sex trade, she contradicted this dangerous lifestyle
by staying in regular contact with her family, calling her sister
and staying with her every couple of days.
Maxine Wapass disappeared overnight
This time Wapass went missing
without contacting her sister and this had become increasingly
worrisome for her family and police.
Maxine Wapass had vanished
overnight. She spoke
with her sister Marilyn about catching a ride to the reserve
for the May long weekend, but didn't show at the expected time.
Marilyn assumed that she had simply made other arrangements.
Maxine's boyfriend on the reserve assumed she had stayed in Saskatoon.
She was missing for two weeks
before Marilyn contacted police, the longest single stretch the
sisters had gone without speaking in years.
Saskatoon police field around
700 missing persons reports a year. Some people return home two
hours after the call, while some are gone for months before reappearing.
Wapass's lifestyle, and the fact that she was known to be missing
two weeks before the police were contacted, elevated the case
to a different level from the beginning. Kasyon's murder gave
the case a new urgency.
Maxine's sister, Marilyn has
since faxed and e-mailed posters of Maxine to police and out-reach
agencies across the Canada. She circulates her sister's picture
in bars and at bus stops along 20th Street. She admits that she's
frightened by what she sees when canvassing people on foot. She
can't believe this was how her sister lived. There are variations
of the same tragic story on every streetcorner of the stroll.
Interview: Afternoon Edition's Steve
Rukavina speaks to Marilyn Wapass about her missing sister (6:50)
Maxine's sister is hopeful
she will surface
Maxine Grace Wapass was born
on the Thunderchild Reserve near North Battleford and moved to
Saskatoon with her mother as a teen. Neither mother or daughter
coped well with the transition from reserve to city life.
Her mother slipped into
a downward spiral of drugs and
booze and Maxine started running with the wrong crowd at school,
partying and discovering cocaine. Her mother died eight years
ago. She was hit by a taxi in downtown Saskatoon. Marilyn says
her mother's sudden death, with the unresolved issues from their
troubled relationship, left Maxine angry and bitter.
So Maxine Wapass turned to
drugs, and then to the street to pay for her addictions. She
came to the stroll at a time when the scene was changing in subtle
and unsettling ways.
Vice worry cases may be linked
Police say gang involvement
in the sex trade has escalated in
recent months. They says there are stories of prostitutes even
wearing colours on the street. This mixture of drugs, gangs and
girls raises the possibility that competing Indian gangs may
be moving into street prostitution. This spectre of violence
over turf brings back unpleasant memories of the early 1980s
in Saskatoon, when gang violence was on the increase.
The prostitution stroll has
also been changing. Pressure from residents living along 21st
Street is pushing the sex trade over to 19th Street and 20th
Streets, onto a stretch of pawn shops, restaurants and bingo
halls.
After three months, Police
know little about the circumstances of the disappearance of Wapass
than they did at the beginning of June.
Police say they are watching
the strip closely for clues
They have not dismissed a possible
connection with Kasyon's murder, but the theory holds less weight
as time passes and a clearer set of facts emerge on details of
her killing. The investigation comes down to a few grim possibilities.
Either Maxine Wapass left the
city on her own, or with someone, and is alive but too incapacitated
by drugs to contact her family. Perhaps she is somehow being
held against her will. Maybe she is somewhere in Saskatoon and
can't contact her family. She could also be dead and her body
may be hidden.
Marilyn Wapass is not ready
to accept the last possibility, not yet. She believes that Maxine
will return, that the phone will ring and it will be her little
sister saying everything is all right.
The official police description
of Maxine Wapass says she is 106 lbs, 5 feet 2 inches tall. She
has shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes and a "JJ"
tattoo on her left wrist, the tattoo of a "K" on the
left index finger and a noticeable scar on her right wrist.
Copyright © 2003 Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation.
|
 Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
Truth suppress'd, whether
by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com
If you hold the mouth
of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb
Publisher : Sheila
Steele
Got something
to say about this or any other stories on this site? Go to injusticebustersblog Participate!
- injusticebusters
court advice :
- How to walk yourself through the justice system
-
- Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)
-
- Sermonette:
The
Naked Truth -- (You
will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this
page
Another target
of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway
Our activism
contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil
trial.
Index
to the stories on this website
This is not
regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story
and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at
the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated
Index to Saskatoon Police stories
This is a pretty good scrapbook
for the 1998-2002 period.
Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David
Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown
misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2
| 3 | 4
| 5 | 6
| 7 |
-
- Stephen Williams:
Canadian writer subject to Stasi-like treatment by Canadian police
- Terry
Arnold: : Snitch a
suicide?
- RCMP
scenario stings: Brian
Hutchinson starts digging
- Gary
wells: Faulty eye-witness
testimony
-
- Tulia,
Texas
- Gilmer,
Texas
- Willie
Upshaw
- Wrongfully convicted in Canada
- Foster Parent false accusations
- Martensville
- Don
Smith obscenity trial: an obscene conviction
- James
Lockyer
- Hurricane
Carter
- Johnny Cochran speaks up for
Bill Sampson
- Vopnis
- Abdulai
Mohamed
The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and
Sebastian Burns convictions
Trial
set for June 15
We
know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured
affidavit from a Winnipeg cop
-
-
-
-
The
Crown is still fighting Fred Poirier -- and they are losing.
Secret Commissions Case from Northern B.C.
-
-
- 2005: In
the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming
at us!
A round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada
-
Blogging
Blogging has been in the news.
It is the new, trendy thing with 40,000 new blogs being created
each day. I established a blog for this website last September
and it is now "taking off." These are a few of the
pages with ongoing discussions.
- Tasering Mary Lutz
- Saskatchewan Centenary
- Quint Blog discussion
- Rotten apples in the Saskatoon Police
- Blogging for choice
- Michael Cardamone witch hunt
- Implement recommendations of public
inquiries
- Stealing from the poor
- Vancouver's killer cops
- Tisdale rapists appeal
- Winnipeg police misdeeds
- Milgaard Inquiry
- Chief Sabo: can he be trusted?
- The Old Boys' Club Must Go!
- Vancouver activists
- John Hudak: Falsely accused mountie
- City of intolerance
- Constable Larry Lockwood: Exciteable!
- Eric Cline
This is a great way for like-minded
people to communicate and share our views. It is easier than
making a website and marginally more difficult than a forum.
People who want to contribute
simply have to punch the "comment" link and they will
be taken to a page with a box which allows them to write their
comment, preview and post it. It takes a while for the comment
to show up and some people get impatient and repost. That's fine,
I trash the duplicate posts and no harm done.
Please, please give it a try.
The internet is distinguished from other media in that it is
really and truly interactive. Blogging makes it possible to express
your viewpoint even if you don't have a computer. You can go
to the library or a friend's place or an internet cafe. Once
you've mastered the basics (and believe me, if I can do it, you
can do it) you will be participating in one of the most democratic
-- and potentially powerful -- media the world as we know it
has ever seen.
Come on. Don't be shy. Join
the Weblog World! -- Sheila Steele, March 20, 2005
Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved
claims over last five years
|
