Keep their names in the light

It’s been nearly 14 years since they first disappeared, and in all of those years, we’ve remembered the women.

There was Lorna Blacksmith, just 18 years old, adventurous, close with her mother. There was Carolyn Sinclair, five months pregnant when she vanished, described by friends as a beautiful, loving person. There was Tanya Nepinak, who went out for a walk in September 2011 and never came home; her family have never stopped fighting to find her.

These names: cherished, shared across memorials and vigils, included in the national inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

In that same time, by contrast, the name of the man who killed Blacksmith and Sinclair, and was alleged to also have killed Nepinak, faded from common mention, slowly forgotten.

There was a sort of justice in that. So long as he was behind bars, separated from the community and unable to access more vulnerable women, or do more harm, there was no need to keep his name fresh in our minds. Let the memory of the victims remain in the light, while the killer’s slip into the dustbin.

So how dismaying that now, to keep our community safe, we once again need to remember the name Shawn Lamb.

On Wednesday, news broke that Lamb, now 66, would receive statutory release from prison this week, having served the required two-thirds of his sentence. In 2013, he’d accepted a plea deal for two counts of manslaughter in Blacksmith and Sinclair’s killings; he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with a two-year credit for time served.

He was also initially charged with second-degree murder in Nepinak’s death. Her body has never been found, and that charge was later stayed for lack of evidence.

Lamb’s release, understandably, shocked relatives of his victims and other advocates. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) both put out statements decrying his release; Sue Caribou, aunt to both Nepinak and Sinclair, told the Free Press she’d been crying since the news broke.

“The justice system fails us all the time. I don’t know where the hell he is, and it’s scary,” she said. “We deserve to know where they put Shawn Lamb. I don’t want to be feeling unsafe every day I go out.”

That this day would come has always weighed heavy on advocates for missing and murdered women. When Lamb was first sentenced, many protested in alarm and frustration. But forensic evidence in the cases was skimpy, which limited what the justice system could do; prosecutors had to back off initial charges of second-degree murder.

In fact, the only reason Lamb had been brought to justice is that, during questioning for an unrelated crime, he told police he knew where a body was, and offered to tell them in exchange for a cash deposit to his prison canteen fund.

This fact always made the circumstances even more unsettling. Lamb killed at least two women, weeks apart, and took pains to conceal their bodies. He only came forward when he sensed a moment to gain materially from that knowledge.

After his arrest, he seemed to toy with the attention: he prodded media, at one point inviting an APTN journalist to visit him in jail, without cameras, where he hinted he had information about five other cases of missing and murdered women, though he denied having killed them.

In another incident, relatives of 17-year-old Fonessa Bruyere, who was killed in 2007, wrote to Lamb behind bars, on the hope he might have information about their daughter. Lamb first replied that he didn’t, but later sent a long, rambling second letter with a cryptic phrase: “To get the specific answers that you seek, you gotta ask specific questions.”

It is entirely possible that, in both those incidents, Lamb had no connection to the other cases, and no information. (Police did say at the time they would follow up on any possible links.) Yet the behaviour revealed a cruelty, a willingness to use his infamy as a two-time killer to play with the hopes of other grieving families.

Perhaps the psychological treatment programs Lamb has received in prison have addressed this. For the safety of all women in Canada, we can hope. Yet the parole board’s own risk assessment concluded he still poses high risk of violence to intimate partners, although a low risk to others.

The list of conditions Lamb must abide by now is long. He must live at a halfway house for at least six months; he must tell a supervisor about all of his platonic and romantic relationships, or attempts to start one; he must not touch alcohol and non-prescription drugs until his sentence ends in another six years, by which time he will be in his 70s.

These guardrails, and the public awareness of his name, will have to be enough to keep the community safe. Yet how deeply unfair that the loved ones of his victims had to find out about this through the media, don’t know where he is, and must now wonder whether he’ll settle in their community again.

We can’t change that now. What we can do is once again lift up the names and memory of the victims — and the work of those who still advocate for them.

Tanya Nepinak’s family, for instance, have spent the last 14 years fighting tirelessly to keep her legacy alive, never giving up on a quest to find answers. This summer, they learned the province would once again look for Tanya, in an upcoming Brady Road Landfill search for Ashlee Shingoose, or Buffalo Woman.

The last time the province pushed forward with such an effort, two families were able to bring their loved ones home. May the same story unfold for Nepinak’s family, and for all those who search. And may we never stop supporting and celebrating those who never lose hope.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca