Slain women linked on Facebook

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Hillary Angel Wilson

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RCMP investigate scene where the body of 18-year-old Hillary Angel Wilson was found last week. (BORIS.MINKEVICH@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

Six weeks before her body was found Thursday in East St. Paul, 18-year-old Hillary Angel Wilson wrote a tribute on a Facebook memorial to her friend Cherisse Houle, found dead off Sturgeon Road last month.

Police aren't saying whether the deaths of the two young aboriginal women are connected.

In fact, they're not saying much about the death of Wilson, though RCMP are calling it a homicide.

RCMP and city police have not released the results of an autopsy performed on Wilson Saturday, and have issued no personal details other than her name.

Wilson had been friends with 17-year-old Houle, whose body was found July 2 in a creek in the RM of Rosser. RCMP say they still don't know how Houle died and her death has not been ruled a homicide.

The RCMP declined Sunday to comment on the investigation into the Wilson murder. Her body was found Thursday afternoon in a field in the RM of East St. Paul, near the north Perimeter and Highway 59. They ruled it a homicide Saturday.

Advocacy groups in Manitoba believe there are as many as 75 unsolved cases of missing and murdered women in the province -- most of them aboriginal, some of them believed to be involved in the sex trade -- and there are suspicions that a serial killer is at work.

But police say there is no evidence to indicate a link between any of the unsolved murders.

A Vancouver-based activist said Sunday she believes there is a chasm between municpal police forces in western canada and the RCMP, and that Manitoba needs to create a task force to investigate murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Angela Marie McDougall, executive director of the Battered Women's Support Services, said Wilson and Houle join a long list of unsolved murders of aboriginal women in Manitoba.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," MacDougall said of the police investigations. "They (police) are woeful in their work to this point."

MacDougall, who travelled across the prairie provinces earlier this month calling on the provincial governments to set up task forces to investigate those unsolved cases, said that community groups here told her that they have lost faith in the ability of the RCMP and the Winnipeg Police Service.

"The police (RCMP and Winnipeg Police Service) have lost all credibility with advocates and sex trade workers and the aboriginal community," MacDougall said.

Municipal forces across the west are frequently at odds with the RCMP, she said, adding this strained relationship is allowing murders to go unsolved.

She said it's obvious why the bodies of young Winnipeg women are found outside the city limits, where the RCMP have jurisdiction.

MacDougall said it's been a scenario that's played out regularly across the west.

"It was in Saskatoon, it was in Regina, it was in Edmonton, it was in Calgary," MacDougall said. "Everybody talked about that. They weren't working well together."

MacDougall said the high number of unsolved murders cries out for a joint task force in Manitoba, but cautioned that it will only be successful when the RCMP and the Winnipeg Police Service agree to work together with the necessary resourses.

"It is past time for Manitoba -- the RCMP and Winnipeg -- to develop a missing and murdered women's task force and to ... recognize that aboriginal women are being murdered and to take that very seriously and to put the resources necessary to carry out investigations and to seek justice," MacDougall said.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Extracts from

Facebook tributes

A few weeks before her own body was found in eerily similar circumstances, Hillary Angel Wilson paid tribute to her friend Cherisse Houle in a Facebook group created to memorialize Houle:

"Rest in peace Cherisse i hvae so0o many memories od us chillin out inmyc together and in the mayfair place aw i remember you were trying to steal the staffs key to get us out because we wanted to get out of that reahab place lol awww and then we was chillin outeatting and watching movies together aw i miss you girl you will always be in my heart mind and sould and you wil never be forgotten im so0o so0ry i couldnt make it to your wake service...i still cant believe your gone it' so0o hrard to believe but god seen you suffering and he wanted to take you home and now yur in a better place ...well bro this is it i love you and may you rest in peace you shouldnt have left the world like this..Hill

Sunday, friends of Hillary Angel Wilson were posting messages to Facebook:

"|R.I.P Hillary heather angel renae Wilson..|- I love you meh girl!! :`(... i can't believe it... to me it'z like a bad dream i can't wake up from!!!...i wanna hear your vioce soo bad tellin me your ok..... foreever and always meh girl.. wi...ll never be forgotten.. forever in my heart.. i LOVE you :("

"i can't stop cryin..i miss you... i miss you...:(....i love you i love you..."

"i know u gurlz were so close & i just still cant believe this is happening..!!! everything is gonna be okaii though, u know we got eachother & even though we have 2 live with knowing we can never see her or talk 2 her again we have all the memories & we know who her true friends really were..!!!! Luv You xoxox"

"y0unq& beautiful q0sh i juss rememeber seeinq u it happend so fast all the same qirls are qonq missinq they all look the same nd same backround && we all know its the same person doinq this 2 them R.I.P HILLARY WILSON. ppl like that sh0uld burrrnnn in hell!!!!!!"

"R.I.P. Hillary Wilson luv u bro"

" . . . another stolen angel. R`i`P - HIllary Angel Wilson ! - love, miss`n you !"

"n0w there iis NEVER qunna be a nxt tiime! ): | R.ii.P*[H~W]. .!"

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 24, 2009 A3