Missing a Native Woman's Tale

Missing - A Native Woman's Tale
By: Phoenix
It was a warm fall day when I stumbled across a boring story to most, but there was so little information or interest that it was perfect for my "Sherlock Holmes" like deductive curiosity. The Peterborough, Ontario Police were saying in their statement to the press that a resident of Curve Lake Indian Reserve was missing. They said she was a 32 year old palliative care nurse named Julie Runningbear who worked mostly in Peterborough. The police spokesperson showed everyone the most recent picture of her and that was all they told us. She was an Indian woman, so who cared about who she knew or associated with or who she loved or who loved her. In Canada there was a thin layer of neglectful small "r" racism towards native peoples; especially women. I heard it all before about how they take millions from "US TAXPAYERS" while the rest of us have to work for a living. They are all drunks and hookers. Who cares about what happens to them?!
That's not what I thought and when I first saw that picture I instantly fell in love with her. She seemed so young and beautiful to me. There was a sadness in those soft, sultry, brown eyes which should never be in eyes of somebody so young. She had been missing for a few days by the time the police notified the community at large and they had few if any leads. She just had to be alive somewhere. Maybe she took a holiday and forgot to tell people. I did a silent prayer to myself and silently hoped that she would not be found dead on some pig farm like all those victims of Pickton the pig farmer serial killer out west who killed mostly native women prostitutes and other vulnerable women. Missing women in the area seemed like a good start and I could easily use police statistics to write a quick general story for the Peterborough Examiner about missing women of our region.
When I saw the most recent list of missing women I was shocked how many Native women were on the list. It was a real eye opener and shocked me. How could ANY GOVERNMENT let so many women go missing and apparently do NOTHING?! One of the women on the list turned out to be the half-sister of the current missing woman. I did a little more digging and found out that the half-sister was 18 years old named Marie. Julie and Marie were very close despite the 14 year age difference. Marie was almost like a daughter to Julie. That explained the sadness I saw in the picture of Julie that the police used. Marie had been missing for 2 years now and the case was very cold. It was a dead file without any officer on the case until a new concrete lead turned up.
I knew the police would be tracking Julie's last movements to find her. I knew better. When two people are that close if one goes missing there's nothing which would stop the other from finding where they disappeared to or tracking them down. If Julie was tracking the last movements of Marie, where were her notes or the proof of my theory? Julie lived with her father who was a semi-retired truck driver, so he was often not home. By my second try, he was finally home. I called and made arrangements to meet at his home later that day.
When I approached the front door, my foot got stuck in a loose board on the front porch of the house. I moved the board a bit and saw a large freezer bag with a lined school notebook. I knocked on the door and ask the girlâs father about the notebook I found. We opened it up and instantly I knew it had to be the notebook of Julieâs investigation of her sistersâ disappearance. Her father could not bear to look at it, shoved it towards me, told me to take it and go.
âFind her if you can and return it to me when you find her or give up looking,â He said to me as I was leaving.
When I finally got supper going, ate and did the dishes it was 10 pm with a light storm brewing outside. The Journal started:
I am starting this journal for you the reader to find me and my now presumed dead sister. I have an incurable form of cancer which will be getting progressively more painful with time. I have decided that a shot of morphine should give me a dignified peaceful end instead of a painful unaware end in a sterile hospital. By the time you find this I shall be dead near the co-ordinates below.
Our father never approved of Marie's drug dealer former boyfriend Jason. I was not too happy about the relationship, but glad she confided in me and now I know where he hung out. I asked around and knew people who knew where they both used to travel around. Mostly they would just hop on highway 115 travelling south to visit friends in Orono or more often on the edge of Bowmanville. They would do some drugs, get drunk, and order pizza. I didn't want to hear about it, but some friends told me that they even had a few drunken orgies.
One friend told me of one place near Precious Corners where there was a few farm roads and an old road which cut behind a farm and wrecking yard where some teens often went to make out and have sex. It was far enough away from the farm house and wrecking yard that nobody could see them. And, close enough to the main road you could walk to Dale Road.
I spent most of the past week in Bowmanville asking around where my sister and her friends hung out. Bowmanville seems to be getting built up too much and people are taking on that city attitude of looking the other way at kids doing drugs and especially as one "citizen" spat at me, "who cares about one more drunken Indian girl!" I care and I hope that if you are reading my journal that YOU CARE. She must NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. I loved her like a daughter.
Tears stained the page.
Today on this wonderful autumn day I am heading down Dale Road to that, sometimes, make-out spot to search for evidence my sister was there. I decided that searching close to twilight would be best since if somebody did kill my sister and lived nearby they might see me. I can only risk two or three attempts or I could be caught or possibly murdered. It is always dangerous for any single young woman to be travelling dark country roads alone; I'll not stay long.
I cannot believe it! I was just about to end my day's search when I found my sisterâs locket with a picture of me and her mother in it. It was in a ditch on the side of the make-out road covered in leaves and mud. Last night's storm must have washed away some mud. The setting sun glinted off the gold heart-shaped locket. SHE NEVER took this off! She must have been here. Off to the 401 and then 115 to the Peterborough Lakefield Police. They just have to look into this lead and investigate.
DAMN! FUCK'n Asshole cops! Damned do-nothing pigs!
The police said, "We cannot go out there on a wild goose chase just because you found a locket she could have lost months or years before she disappeared. You EVEN admitted that her friends told you she has been known to go there more than once. There are 4 farms and a half dozen businesses in that area. WHICH property do you wish us to get a search warrant for? No judge is going to issue search warrants for that many properties without some substantial evidence like a dead body or two or more. They are especially not going issue a warrant to search for some runaway drunken INDIAN SLUT! Until you have something more to go on there's nothing we can do for you. Our hands are tied on this one. If you bring back some REAL evidence, MAYBE we will look into it. Goodbye."
I stomped out of there more determined than ever that she had to be around there on one of those farms dead or alive; hopefully alive.
I found her locket near a farm at the following gps co ordinates 44.003986, -78.219523. After looking at Google Earth I saw there was a wrecking yard next to a pig farm. A chill just went down my spine as I remembered the Pickton Pig Farm Serial killings out in B.C. and the thought of my sister having a similar fate. A wrecking yard could explain why there were so many missing young women and men in this area. None of their cars was EVER found. I will be starting a smaller journal and taking it with me on this more dangerous search. If it is not here with this journal you found than it is near wherever my body and my sistersâ body must be. I will try to hide it near my body. My time is getting short. Doctors told me I have a month left at most and within a few days the pain will be too much to drive or operate machinery. They once again insisted I enter hospice care. They did warn me that stress could speed up the affects and the cancer could disable me or kill me in as little as a few days.
Now that I read the journal I had a lead to try finding her or her body. Now came the moral dilemma whether or not to tell the cops about, âYET another missing INDIAN womanâ and where she COULD be. Or, I could get a career making scoop?! I decided to "go for glory" and if I actually found anything or any bodies or if I felt in danger I could call the police. To be on the safe side I grabbed a deer hunting rifle I inherited from my uncle Gerry a few years ago.
Then I got a bright idea of dressing like a hunter and carrying the rifle unloaded with me while I searched. It didn't take me long to find the body of Julie partially decomposed and partially eaten by animals. Julie was under a thin layer of leaves with a needle with a residue of what I now knew was morphine still clutched in her right hand. Under Julie in a small freezer bag was a pen, small notebook and her cell phone. The notebook was what I really was after. What I read still gives me nightmares a decade later. I had brought and put on latex gloves so that I would not disturb any evidence unless this was not her version of âdying with dignityâ. I grabbed the baggie, left for a nearby coffee shop so that I could take photos of Julie's last journal and take it back to her body for the police to find.
I started to sip my coffee and began.
Read this first and DO NOT WATCH the video on my phone. That IS POLICE EVIDENCE and will give you more nightmares than anyone deserves.
I DID watch the video when I got to my car before returning it to Julie's body. I wished I had heeded her warning. It did make me realize how brave Julie had been and how much she had loved her sister.
I found some fresh tracks of an old truck I think and, followed them to a wrecking yard. I nearly tripped over a pile of clothes in the twilight. On the edge of the pile I saw some shoes the size and type Marie wore. I looked closer and saw a scarf starting to blow away and it had written in marker Marieâs full name. She loved that scarf and now I knew she must be dead. Then I heard them; pigs. As tears ran down my cheeks I feverishly tried to get 911 to work, but there was no cell coverage in this area yet. Then I heard a scream from a nearby well-lit barn, pressed record on my phone and started recording what I was sure would give me nightmares for the rest of my short life.
What I saw was a naked pale brunette teen girl tied up leaning against an empty horse stall. A young man about 18 naked, tied and gagged on his knees on the ground. There were two men, apparently brothers, in their early 40s talking. I could barely hear them. I covered my mouth to prevent myself from screaming as I saw the older brother swing a sledge hammer and cave in the boyâs skull. The girl screamed as loud as she could to no avail. There was nothing I could do as I saw the older brother go to one end of the barn and start to cut up the boy's body to later feed the pigs with. Then the younger one pulled down his jeans and raped the girl. Her screams will forever haunt me.
Once he came inside her he turned towards his brother and said, "Not as good as that Indian girl we did a few months ago. She was a REAL SCREAMER. Her friend was not bad either. Them and their boyfriends kept the pigs fed for weeks."
As one brother zipped up his pants the other took his turn with the poor girl and she screamed even louder.
I could not take any more and by the time I got to the end of their driveway I vomited everything I had in my stomach.
My legs started to feel wobbly as I tried to get 911 again and no cell coverage still. I knew the stress from watching the horror I just witnessed had accelerated my cancer faster than even the doctors thought. While my hands still work I am going into the woods out of sight of my car so that those evil sadistic brothers do not find me and do unspeakable things to my body in the few days I have left. I WILL NOT BE PIG FOOD as my sister had. Now I know and I am too sick to make it to somewhere where I can call the police from. I will record a last suicide note/dignity with death message for the police and our father. Please tell him how we died.
I got out of my car, puked, returned the notebook with the phone and bag to Julieâs body. I knew the cell reception areas pretty well and knew that once I got to Cobourg the reception would be good. I called 911 and told them who I was and how I had discovered everything. I gave them the gps co-ordinates for the crime scene and even met them there. Shortly after I arrived I heard gunfire in the distance towards the now notorious farm and wrecking yard. I later found out the death toll was 30 couples and they mostly figured out who was dead due to the cars in the wrecking yard which still had their plates on them. Many of the women were Indians from area reserves and a few drug addicts or runaways of various other races.
The police notified their father and told him the sad news. I attended the funeral and after everyone left I gave him the notebook I found at his house. I strongly advised him to NEVER READ the other notebook or watch the video. I told it disturbed me so much that I would soon be going for counseling as payment for my curiosity. I doubt I would ever forget what I saw in the video and I would never forget his girls EVER.
The older brother died in the gunfight with police. He had many weapons and even a few illegal assault rifles. He was ready for this eventual outcome. The younger one was wounded by a few stray rounds. The pigs had alerted them to police approaching. The younger brother was a coward, known pedophile who was bullied into murdering their victims by his older brother. He lasted a month in jail until he was murdered by inmates in a riot apparently orchestrated to kill him.
The story I wrote for the Peterborough Examiner gave full credit to Julie and mentioned that I merely followed the breadcrumbs she had left for me. The article did little to excise the demons of watching that video and a year of counseling only helped a little. When I co-wrote the book about Julie's Story my mind finally found peace.