Reporter Reflections: Cherisse’s spirit still among us

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/01/2010 (5960 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When I drive past battered and darkened downtown corners, I sense the presence of Cherisse Houle. She had that effect on hundreds of people, especially after her death.

The 17-year-old Winnipegger was known to police and social service agencies as the number one high-risk kid in the province.

And yet, despite the millions of dollars poured into programs to help youth like her, Houle’s body was found on July 1 dumped face-down in an RM of Rosser field.

RCMP called the death suspicious. No arrest has been made.

Barbara Houle, Cherisse’s mother, later told me privately she knew her daughter, a chronic runaway who struggled with addiction, wouldn’t make it to 25 years old. But even with her daughter fading before her eyes, Barbara never stopped loving Cherisse.

In life, the little girl slipped through cracks in the system. But in death, her story renewed the rallying cry for a integrated task force to look at the deaths of high-risk women, which the RCMP denied was a possibility until after the death of Hillary Wilson six weeks later. On August 20, Wilson’s body was found in a field in the RM of East St. Paul.

Houle had been friends with Wilson, as well as with Fonassa Bruyere, another sexually exploited young woman who was killed and dumped in 2007.

Amid mounting public outrage the week after Wilson’s death, the Winnipeg Police Service and RCMP joint task force was announced.

And the week after that, a plethora of politicians came to a hastily announced press conference for an action group to protect high-risk women.

Eric Robinson, acting aboriginal affairs minister, had the courage to state the obvious: the action group was "long overdue."

But was it too late, at least for Cherisse? I’d say yes.

In the following weeks and months, I realized how legendary Cherisse was on Winnipeg streets and among social workers, police officers, Manitoba Youth Centre employees and other justice officials.

Police had arrested her repeatedly and feared for her. Social workers told me about stacks of files outlining her placements, her addictions, the son she had.

When I would cover a vigil, a North End community forum, or other sundry crime stories, I would often meet Cherisse’s teenage friends.

For many of them, violence against women is so common it’s like a residual memory stamped into them. At best, they are angry. At worst, they are accepting and stoic, as if it’s not only their fate but their birthright.

All these people cared for Cherisse. And yet, their care simply was not enough.

It still hasn’t been enough to find the person (or people) who threw Cherisse’s body in that desolate field like a crumpled piece of trash.

Some people tell me finding Cherisse’s attacker would be a hollow victory for those who are already hoarse from crying for help.

Under the law, I can’t tell you everything I know about Cherisse and her entanglements with the justice system. I can tell you this: Cherisse still walks among us, motivating Winnipeggers who know she deserved better than 17 troubled years on earth.

We can laud ourselves as a polite and compassionate Canadian society, but we all sentenced Cherisse to death long before she turned up in that field.

We just didn’t say it until she was gone.

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca