Murder verdict has ripple effect among Indigenous community

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This article was published 09/05/2019 (2485 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brett Ronald Overby’s murder conviction was still resonating the day after the verdict with relatives of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) and their supporters, well beyond Christine Wood’s immediate family.

For some, the guilty verdict renewed hope for justice. Others were reminded that Indigenous women and girls are four times more likely to go missing or be murdered compared to other Canadian women.

“You heard George Wood come out of the courthouse. The family, of course, was happy with the verdict, that it was second-degree and (not) just manslaughter. They felt that they got justice. As did the other people in the community,” said Bernadette Smith, whose sister Claudette Osborne’s disappearance in 2008 is still unsolved. “Of course, as a family member of one of the missing, you’re always thinking about your loved one.”

Smith, now an NDP MLA for Point Douglas, spent years shining a public spotlight on her sister’s disappearance as part of the MMIWG issue in Canada and she also started Drag the Red, where volunteers in boats search for traces of the missing in the murky waters of the Red River. Drag the Red volunteers start training again in three weeks for this summer.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls in Canada has described the province as “ground zero” for the deaths and disappearances, and it was 15-year-old Tina Fontaine’s murder, in 2014, that reignited calls for the national inquiry.

By comparison, Raymond Cormier’s 2018 acquittal on second-degree murder in Fontaine’s death brought out hundreds in protest against the verdict.

“When we look at Cormier’s case and Tina Fontaine and him being found not guilty, and being released, people certainly felt that justice hadn’t been served and that this little girl who was 15 and really galvanized Canada had no justice,” Smith said.

In another high-profile trial, Shawn Lamb was sentenced to 20 years in 2013 after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith, but he denied killing a third woman in whose death he was initially charged. The family of Tanya Nepinak is still looking for justice, Smith said.

“All the families go through that over and over and over again, every time someone goes missing or they’re murdered and somebody is brought to trial,” Smith said.

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee singled out police and the Crown for praise after the swift jury decision Wednesday that found Overby guilty in the 2016 murder of 21-year-old Wood.

“The Winnipeg police conducted a thorough investigation and the Crown prosecutors presented substantial evidence that led to a conviction,” the grand chief said.

“The journey for justice has been a difficult one… “Christine was from a remote, isolated community and had relocated to Winnipeg to pursue her educational goals. Christine did not deserve to die,” Settee said.

The Wood family is from Oxford House in Bunibonibee Cree Nation, a fly-in community located 575 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, the manager of the MKO’s MMIWG liaison office and the co-chair for the Manitoba Missing and Murdered Women and Girls Coalition, drew attention to the financial burden families take on to attend trials hundreds of kilometres from their northern homes.

MKO was still trying to raise $10,000 through crowdsourcing to cover off accommodation, travel expenses and lost wages for Wood’s parents, George and Belinda Wood, and other family.

The Wood family will be back for the Overby’s sentencing, scheduled for July 2.

“It’s important to have family and support around them, the parents; the sons, daughters, whoever it may be, for healing… and to have a sense of closure,” Anderson-Pyrz said.

An estimated 200 women from Manitoba are listed by the RCMP among the nearly 1,200 across Canada who have been killed or gone missing between 1980 and 2012.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca