Metis seeks clues to unsolved murders

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Over the past decade, several young Native women have been murdered or gone missing from Thunder Bay and the outlying district.

There has been frustration in the Native community because it was felt that the justice system (the courts, police and government) has not put enough effort into the investigation.

Joe Major, a Thunder Bay resident, formed a citizens' group to push for more action to solve these crimes.

In December 1992, Philip Edwards joined the Thunder Bay Police Services Board as a private citizen. Of Metis-Ojibway background, Edwards moved back to north-western Ontario in 1985 and became politically active.

Along with Major and several others, Edwards worked with the Grassroots Coalition on Unsolved Murders in Thunder Bay, and eventually became quite a controversial figure on the local scene.

At the Police Board meetings, Edwards constantly argued that the local force was not following up leads. There were allegations of a police cruiser being seen near the spot where a young Native woman's body was found at about the time she was left to freeze to death. Later, local police admitted that a cruiser was in the area, but said that it had been "accounted for".

Edwards eventually left the board when his term was up. "I did not win the trust of the Native community; they saw me more as a police person than as one of them."

He had continued to speak out, and eventually an investigation was conducted by the Ontario Police into the conduct of the Thunder Bay force. The city police were found to have performed properly.

Edwards has studied the Saskatoon situation where the remains of four Native women were found. Three of them had been dead for about two years and only bones were found, but one was found shortly after her death with a plastic bag over her head. There are similarities between those murders and some committed in Thunder Bay.

"Similar means of death - the plastic bag over the head is one aspect.

He thinks there are probably serial killers in most communities of any size. With at least 200 people either missing, murdered or who have died suspiciously, he is quite certain there are one or more serial murderers in northwestern Ontario.

As to whether the same person or persons are involved, he has drawn no conclusions. Serial killers act out their fantasies, he explained.

"They need to attach ritual to their experiences, and would be attracted to highly -structured ceremonial activities.

"It could be an international network, but also possibly a lot of smaller groups; there is certainly a pattern across Canada, and some probably are into the occult while other killings are spontaneous.

"I try to look at it from an Anishnabe perspective, thinking like a hunter. You study the quarry, understand your prey. The victims are marginalized, on the fringes of society; and Native women certainly fit the profile. For many white males, the cultural domination factor (need to dominate by victimizing) is a strong consideration."

Edwards has had a lot of support from the Native Councils; however, he feels that non-Natives are more interested in the appearance of justice, than in justice itself.

"They don't want public confidence in the system to be eroded."