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1:26

how are you guys doing tonight? Hi

1:28

Justin, we are doing awesome. Thank you for asking.

1:30

Yeah, we're doing great. How are you doing? I'm

1:33

doing wonderful. Before we get

1:35

started, I need to wish a happy

1:37

anniversary to Olivia Hunt and her husband

1:39

Jeff. All right, go ahead and introduce

1:42

yourselves. All right. Hello, I'm Caitlin.

1:44

I am one of the hosts of

1:46

True North True Crime, a Canadian podcast

1:48

that focuses on missing people and victims

1:51

of violent crime in Canada and my

1:53

co-host. Oh, hi everybody. I'm

1:55

Graham. I'm Caitlin's husband and we started

1:57

the podcast in 2020. when

2:01

many, many people started podcasts,

2:03

and three years later, we're

2:05

still here. So,

2:08

Aaron and I had done a live stream

2:10

probably a couple months ago now, and

2:13

we asked our listeners, what

2:16

do you wanna hear more from us? What do you

2:18

want us to cover? And the

2:21

number one thing that they said was

2:23

murdered and missing indigenous women.

2:26

And when I heard that, I was like,

2:28

I'm gonna call up True North True Crime, because that's

2:30

what they do. We do do

2:33

a lot of MMIWG cases. We can't

2:35

be a Canadian podcast and not

2:37

cover those cases. You just, you can't

2:40

do it. So, we have

2:42

covered a number of MMIWG cases.

2:44

We've done the Jack family, we've done

2:46

Chelsea Poorman, we've done Helen

2:49

Betty, right? What else have we done? Yeah,

2:52

that's the thing is like we, like as a

2:54

Canadian podcast, we have to recognize that missing

2:56

and murdered indigenous women and girls, but also

2:59

missing and murdered indigenous men and boys is

3:03

an epidemic that occurs, not just in

3:05

Canada though, but it's actually a global

3:09

situation and issue that's happening. But in Canada,

3:11

if we're gonna tell stories from Canada, we

3:13

need to cover these cases, we need to

3:15

help to raise awareness for these families, all

3:18

of the missing and the murdered. And

3:21

so, we have gone as far back as we

3:23

could to trace some of

3:25

the history of missing and murdered indigenous women

3:27

and girls. And we actually settled on, what

3:30

we believe was one of the first cases was in 1971, on

3:36

January 1st, 1970, an

3:40

11 year old Métis girl named Geraldine Satie.

3:43

She was living in Winnipeg. She actually was

3:45

asked by her dad to go to the store to get

3:47

him some matches. And so,

3:49

she walked to the local corner store and

3:51

she was stabbed multiple times by

3:53

an assailant who has never been arrested.

3:56

And that was 45 years ago that that case. remains

4:00

unsolved. Then on

4:03

November 13th, 1971, Helen Betty

4:05

Osborne, she was a Cree woman. She was

4:07

just 19 years old. And

4:09

she was originally from Norway House,

4:11

which was a very remote area

4:14

of Manitoba. And she

4:16

was living in the town of the Pa

4:18

because she wanted to become a teacher. And

4:21

one night she was out with friends

4:23

and she was kidnapped by four men.

4:25

And she was assaulted and murdered while

4:27

she walked down the street. And

4:30

only one of those four men was ever

4:32

convicted in that case. And that was 15

4:34

years after the case occurred. So, you

4:37

know, we traced this back as far as we could. And those

4:39

are some of the cases that we originally found. Right.

4:42

And it being unresolved or

4:44

only one person ever being arrested

4:46

and convicted, it's going

4:48

to be a theme here throughout

4:51

these MMIWG cases, unfortunately. And being

4:53

you're from Canada, obviously,

4:56

there's a large

4:58

indigenous population up there. So what

5:01

are the numbers up there? What does that

5:03

look like to Canadians? What

5:05

really brought the plight of missing

5:07

and murdered indigenous women and girls

5:09

to the forefront was

5:11

that in 2004 Amnesty International

5:13

published a paper called Stolen

5:16

Sisters, a human rights response

5:18

to violence and discrimination against

5:20

indigenous women in Canada. And

5:22

so it was at that point that people

5:24

really started to gather statistics. And I have

5:26

like some statistics here that might be able

5:28

to help sort of shape things for people.

5:30

So in Canada, 1,807,000

5:33

people identify themselves as indigenous as of 2021. So that accounts for

5:35

about 5% of our country's

5:42

total population. However, indigenous women

5:44

represent 10% of

5:46

the total population of missing women

5:48

in Canada. And now indigenous

5:50

women by the numbers are only 4% of

5:53

the women population or

5:55

the population of women in Canada, but they

5:57

are 10% of the missing. So over double.

6:01

In 2014, the rate of

6:03

homicide of indigenous women was almost

6:05

six times higher than non-indigenous women.

6:08

In the prairie province of Saskatchewan, the latest

6:10

data indicates that almost 45% of people who

6:13

vanished between 1940 and 2020 were indigenous. In

6:19

2020, the rate of homicide

6:22

for indigenous people was seven

6:24

times higher than for non-indigenous

6:26

people. And then according to the RCMP, there are

6:28

more than 1,000 indigenous women and girls who were killed

6:31

or went missing between 1980 and 2012, but the experts

6:33

believe that that true

6:36

number is closer to 4,000. Yeah,

6:39

so those numbers are pretty

6:41

awful. And it was the result

6:43

of those numbers that in 2015, the

6:45

Canadian government called a national inquiry.

6:48

And so that inquiry was actually launched and

6:51

the subsequent paper was

6:53

published in This

6:55

is a massive undertaking. It

6:57

took two years of interviews. They interviewed

7:00

2,800 families from all across Canada. They

7:02

went from town to village to community

7:04

to town, and they interviewed the families

7:06

of the missing and the murdered. And

7:09

2,800 families took part in this. And it

7:11

took, like I said, over two years. The

7:14

2,000 page report was published. And at the very

7:16

end of it, it was like one of the

7:18

most challenging things as a Canadian

7:20

to hear. It said, and this is a

7:23

direct quote, The truth is that

7:25

we live in a country whose

7:27

laws and institutions perpetuate violations of

7:29

basic human and indigenous rights. These

7:32

violations amount to nothing less

7:34

than the deliberate, often covert

7:36

campaign of genocide against indigenous

7:38

women, girls, and two-spirited people.

7:42

Wow. They called it

7:44

genocide. And that's, I

7:46

know that's a controversial word that a lot

7:48

of people don't like to use. But when

7:51

the numbers are so high and when there's

7:53

so many unresolved or

7:55

unsolved cases, I don't think they're

7:57

wrong there. I know it's

7:59

scary. word for a lot of people, it's a word

8:01

with a lot of baggage for a lot of people,

8:03

but I think it's pretty fitting

8:06

in this. Well, I mean, it's a controversial term because

8:08

when we think of genocide, we think of Rwanda, we

8:10

think of 1 million people who were murdered over the

8:12

course of 30 days. But

8:15

with regards to missing and murdered indigenous women

8:18

and girls, what it has been is

8:20

it's been an ongoing

8:22

slow burn of separating

8:25

them from power, from education,

8:27

from affluence, from wealth. When

8:30

you begin to separate people so

8:32

much from the handles of power,

8:34

then they do find themselves in poverty.

8:36

They find themselves needing to hitchhike to

8:39

the nearest community in order to see

8:41

a doctor. They find

8:43

themselves doing things that other people would consider

8:45

risky, but that's just a part of life

8:47

if you're living in a northern community. We

8:50

still have, and I don't want to get

8:52

on too much of a pulpit, but we

8:54

still have several indigenous communities in Canada that

8:56

are on boil water advisories. And

8:59

it's 2023, and we're one of the richest

9:01

nations in the world. It was

9:03

a hard pill to swallow for many people to

9:05

see the word genocide there, but if you look

9:07

at it in that context, the word is fitting.

9:12

But I do believe using that word

9:14

helped people to stop because it was

9:16

so arresting and to begin

9:19

to listen. And I've heard

9:21

people talk about the Highway of Tears

9:23

in Canada. What is that all about?

9:26

Yeah. So the Highway of Tears is actually

9:28

in our province. We live in British Columbia,

9:30

and the highway is about, I think

9:33

it's like 750 kilometer stretch

9:35

between Prince George and Prince Rupert.

9:38

And for all the Americans that just died a little

9:40

inside, that's 466 miles. Thank

9:43

you for that added context. How many elephants

9:45

is it though? And

9:48

along that highway, the Highway 16, it

9:51

actually extends past Prince George

9:53

and Prince Rupert. It actually stretches throughout

9:55

the country. I think it connects four provinces. But

9:58

the more acute area that is referred

10:00

to as the Highway

10:02

of Tears is that Highway 16 piece

10:05

from Prince Rupert to Prince George. And

10:07

what had happened was, unfortunately, bodies

10:09

began literally being found along the highway.

10:11

And not only that, but missing people

10:13

were often last seen along that highway.

10:15

This was in the 80s when it

10:17

first started getting detected. So there was

10:19

like, you know, there's no lighting, there's

10:21

no cell phones, there's no security along

10:24

that highway for people who are hitching

10:26

as a means to actually travel because

10:28

of their socioeconomic situation.

10:31

So in 1981, the RCMP held

10:33

a conference to investigate these unsolved

10:35

murders or missing persons along Highway

10:38

16. And at

10:40

that time, it was simply known as the Highway Murders. But

10:43

then in 2005, the British Columbia

10:45

RCMP, their unsolved unit created

10:47

something called Project Epana. And they looked

10:49

to extend the scope of the Highway

10:52

Murders Initiative. And that's when we began

10:54

to hear the term Highway of Tears.

10:57

Now the exact number of people who have disappeared or

11:00

been murdered along Highway 16 is disputed.

11:02

The RCMP acknowledges that there have been

11:04

18 murders and disappearances along the Highway

11:06

of Tears, dating back, I think it's

11:08

between 1969 and 2006. However,

11:12

indigenous groups argue that this number is

11:14

actually misleading, and that the real number

11:16

exceeds 40. But if

11:18

we go outside of the province of British Columbia, you'll

11:21

see that as the highway extends, there

11:23

are more and more and more missing and murdered people

11:25

along it. There was a

11:27

TV series here in the States called The

11:30

Killing Season by Josh Zeman. And

11:32

we have our own sort of version of

11:34

this with truckers and

11:37

whatnot that will murder and

11:39

dump bodies along our highways.

11:41

So it's similar in that

11:43

aspect. Right. And a lot of

11:45

people do believe that there is a serial

11:48

killer or perhaps multiple serial killers

11:50

operating in this area. So

11:52

I mean, there's lots of rumor and

11:54

speculation about the Highway of Tears. But I

11:57

think at the end of the day, whomever is...

12:00

carrying out these homicides or

12:03

whatever is going on up there. I think they know that

12:06

it is a great place for them to, and

12:09

I don't like to use the word hunt,

12:11

but it is their hunting grounds, right? And

12:13

it's because there's no cell coverage. They know

12:15

it's remote. They know that there's just

12:17

not a lot of cameras up there. So

12:19

they know it's a great place to get

12:21

away with what they're doing. Yeah. And there

12:23

have been actually two serial killers who were

12:25

arrested who'd used Highway 16.

12:27

One is the most recent one. He's the

12:30

youngest serial killer in Canadian history. His name

12:32

is Cody Ledgebokov. And then the

12:34

other was Bobby Fowler. They

12:36

both were arrested and put into jail.

12:38

But at the end

12:41

of the missing and murdered indigenous women

12:43

and girls inquiry that we spoke about

12:45

earlier, there was 290 recommendations that were

12:47

put forward and 90 of those were

12:49

for the RCMP. But some

12:52

of those recommendations were really quite simple. We

12:55

have three huge telecommunications companies in Canada

12:57

right now that make billions of dollars

12:59

in profits. And that whole area still,

13:02

you can't get cell reception. Just

13:04

a simple safety mechanism. Greyhound used

13:06

to run a bus between some of the

13:09

communities, but it became economically not viable. And

13:11

so they stopped doing it. I'm not saying

13:13

everybody's a hitchhiker who's

13:15

a victim, but there are safety things that we

13:17

could put in place from this inquiry that came

13:19

out four years ago now that still

13:22

haven't been put in place to keep people safe.

13:24

It's so simple, like just cell

13:26

coverage, better lighting, CCTV

13:28

cameras along that along that

13:31

transportation, exactly. And more, more buses

13:33

and ways for people to get between

13:35

communities. Though there's like four very simple

13:37

asks that are totally doable. And unfortunately,

13:40

I don't believe that they have been done as of 2023. It

13:43

sounds like basic infrastructure to me

13:45

that right. Yeah. And

13:47

it is a remote, like rural area. I mean,

13:49

you can, you know, we were recently, just

13:52

in our area of the world, we were recently on

13:54

a search for a 17 year old

13:56

who went missing in 2017. And we were deep

13:59

into the wilderness. of British Columbia

14:01

and it is vast, vast rugged

14:03

terrain. Well, I think we've established,

14:07

at least given our audience some numbers,

14:10

some statistics to work with here, but

14:12

we're going to be talking about one

14:14

case tonight, one in particular that you

14:16

guys are very familiar with and have

14:18

worked with the family on. So

14:21

what are we talking about tonight? Well,

14:23

we are talking about Lisa Marie

14:25

Young and she's not a highway

14:27

of tears case, but she is

14:29

a prominent MMIWG case in Canada,

14:32

specifically on Vancouver Island and in

14:34

the Nanaimo area. So Vancouver

14:36

Island is located off the west coast of

14:38

Canada in British Columbia. Think of Vancouver, it's

14:40

about a two and a half hour

14:42

ferry ride away from Vancouver. It's

14:45

a large landmass about the size of

14:47

Belgium with multiple cities along its coasts

14:49

and for our American listeners, it's actually

14:51

larger than the state of Vermont. And

14:54

the island has a total population of about 900,000 people,

14:56

it's got mountains, rivers,

14:59

forests, and stunning beaches. You should

15:01

absolutely come visit Vancouver Island for

15:04

that because it is amazing here. Yeah, that's the

15:06

thing is like we wanted to just kind of

15:08

give you this, your listeners, the scope of how

15:10

big Vancouver Island is. Like people here are like,

15:12

oh, an island and they might think, you know,

15:14

as one of the small islands off the coast

15:16

of Seattle or something like that. But this is

15:19

Vancouver Island is like as if a giant chunk

15:21

of the mainland just kind of broke off. So

15:24

it is a very big, vast place,

15:26

but it's also not super populated. There's

15:28

only 900,000 people here, you know, spread

15:30

over an island mass that's larger than

15:32

Vermont. So it is a

15:34

very unique and beautiful place. And that's where

15:37

the city of Nanaimo sits. Yeah,

15:39

it's located mid island on the east

15:41

coast of the island. And it's so again,

15:43

it's a direct access to Vancouver by that

15:45

like two and a half hour ferry or

15:47

the 90 minute ferry. Yeah,

15:50

depending on where you're going from in

15:52

Vancouver. There's two different harbors

15:54

in Vancouver you can go from. So

15:56

it's known as a hub city for being

15:58

an accessible port town. The population of

16:00

Nanaimo itself is about 90,000 people. And

16:04

Nanaimo has always had a bit of a rougher

16:06

edge, much like most larger cities

16:08

these days, but it's got a

16:11

lot of biker activity and its economy is

16:13

based in natural resources. Because of

16:15

Nanaimo being a port city, it was a

16:17

drug import town too. So there

16:19

was a lot of organized crime activity

16:21

that was bringing in those amounts of

16:24

drugs. But the thing is, it's

16:26

not 100% the drug activity as much as

16:28

it is the side

16:30

activity that comes out of drug use,

16:32

or drug sales, which is violence, right?

16:35

There's violence, there's addiction,

16:38

there's human trafficking, there's exploitative

16:40

sex work. There are all kinds

16:43

of things that sort of occurred in Nanaimo. Now we don't wanna

16:45

paint Nanaimo as a bad place because there's

16:47

amazing people who live there. And it is

16:49

like, there are stunning areas of Nanaimo, but

16:52

it always has had a bit of an

16:54

edge. It's still a beautiful

16:56

place to live and I would absolutely live there. To

16:58

everyone in Nanaimo, I'm so sorry that we just

17:00

made it sound like a scary place, but no, it's

17:02

a beautiful place. There's been

17:04

an edge to it for a long

17:06

time. So Lisa Marie, she was a 21 year

17:08

old woman in 2002. And

17:14

her parents were Joanne Martin and

17:16

Dawn Young. And Joanne was from

17:18

the Clay Kokuyat First Nation, which

17:20

is located on the west side

17:22

of Vancouver Island, near the town

17:24

of Tofino. And Joanne's family,

17:26

which is Lisa's mom is quite large.

17:29

And Joanne's father and Lisa Marie's

17:31

maternal grandfather was actually a tribal

17:33

chief of that First Nation. And

17:36

Lisa's father was a white man originally

17:39

from Ontario and he came out west

17:41

looking for a better life. Dawn

17:43

and Joanne fell in love and would go on to

17:45

have Lisa, as well as Lisa's two brothers, Brian

17:48

and Robbie. Yeah, and

17:50

this family spent a lot of time camping.

17:53

They spent a lot of time over on one

17:55

of the islands. I think it's the LeSkeety Island

17:57

across from them. And they had like

17:59

a... pretty normal working

18:01

class upbringing. Lisa,

18:03

she was born on May 5th, 1981, and

18:07

she was actually known as a pretty determined

18:09

kid even then. When

18:11

Joanne walked her to her first day of

18:13

kindergarten, Lisa Marie didn't cry. She just said,

18:16

bye mom, and like ran off. Like she

18:18

was super excited to meet other kids. She

18:21

was also like super thoughtful. When she

18:23

was a kid, she would open presents with like

18:25

precision and care. She would really

18:27

take care of the wrapping paper and that kind of stuff. And

18:30

now as Lisa grew into a

18:33

teenager, she became very protective of

18:35

her younger brothers. She

18:37

got the family nickname Bossy Lisa. In

18:40

middle school, she got really into sports and

18:42

fitness. And it was at this time she

18:44

got inspired at the idea of becoming a

18:46

sportscaster, like or a sports journalist. She

18:49

also volunteered with the local parks board and

18:51

she was a camp counselor. And then she

18:53

landed her first job at

18:56

McDonald's. And by all accounts, she was

18:58

well liked and well respected by her

19:00

colleagues and managers there. So

19:02

she sounds very responsible. She sounds

19:04

like she wasn't into partying,

19:07

wasn't into anything that I was into

19:09

when I was a teenager in my

19:11

20s, yeah. You and me both. Yeah,

19:13

no, she was, by all

19:15

accounts from her family, she was incredibly responsible.

19:17

She was never late for anything. She was

19:20

just, you know, super on top of things

19:22

for somebody who was in her early 20s.

19:24

It was quite remarkable. There

19:27

was some conflict though in her late teens. And Graham, why don't you tell us

19:29

a little bit more about that? Yeah, so the

19:31

conflict was that there was a

19:34

period of time where she wasn't getting along

19:36

with her parents. And at that time she

19:38

advocated to go into care. Wasn't that there

19:40

was violence in the household or anything like

19:43

that. It's just that there was sort of

19:45

this determination or this desire to be independent.

19:47

And so she did spend a small period

19:49

of time in foster care and living independently.

19:51

And then when she came out of that,

19:54

she actually moved in with some friends in

19:57

the same apartment building as her parents, Don

19:59

and Joanne. So, They were still a very

20:01

close family. It was just like, it seems

20:03

like there was a small period of conflict

20:05

in there in her late teens, but

20:07

the family had clearly worked through that.

20:10

Yeah, and moved past it. So

20:12

by that time she was about 21 years old. She

20:15

was a typical 21 year old woman, you know,

20:17

loved her friends, going out

20:19

to the live music scene in Nanaimo.

20:21

She loved fitness and she decided to

20:23

be a vegetarian at this time. Her

20:26

personality remained jovial, fun, and at times

20:28

bubbly. And she was a hard worker, like

20:30

we already established. She was a

20:32

very responsible person. And she

20:34

was determined from childhood into adulthood to just

20:37

be the best person she could be. And

20:39

she had just turned 21 on May 5th and

20:41

she was slated to start a new job

20:43

at a call center later

20:46

in July. And she was also moving into a

20:48

new apartment at this time as well. So this

20:50

was kind of a time with a lot

20:53

of changes in Lisa's life. She was starting

20:55

to get her footing as a young adult.

20:57

She was getting a new apartment, getting a new

20:59

job. It was a big time for her. Yeah,

21:01

she was really excited to leave the fast food

21:03

industry. It was a big thing for her. And

21:05

like, you know, the idea of working at a

21:07

call center and getting trained in

21:09

this new position was pretty exciting for her.

21:12

And the idea of getting her own new

21:14

apartment was very exciting for her as well.

21:16

So things were really kind of on an

21:18

upswing for Lisa Marie. In

21:20

Canada, we celebrate Canada Day and it

21:22

occurs on July 1st. And

21:25

then our US friends celebrate their day

21:27

on July 4th, which is Independence Day.

21:30

Oh, your friends. Our friends to the south.

21:32

We love you guys. We're America's hat.

21:35

So that's sort of like a big

21:37

midsummer party weekend in Canada. A lot

21:39

of people go camping, but people in

21:41

cities go to the clubs. A lot

21:44

of people do barbecues. Like there's fireworks

21:46

in certain communities. So it's usually a

21:48

big celebration and let some steam off

21:50

kind of weekend, right? But the thing

21:52

is, for Lisa, is that she

21:54

had actually planned to move that weekend.

21:57

So she had asked her mom and dad.

22:00

Can you help me move on Sunday June

22:02

30th?" And

22:05

then she said, oh, but one more thing. It's

22:08

my best friend Dallas' birthday on

22:10

Saturday, June 29th, so I'm going to go out to

22:12

the club. And you

22:14

know, Joanne and Don were like, maybe don't

22:16

do that because we've got to move tomorrow

22:18

morning. And she was like, oh,

22:20

whatever, I will be fine kind of thing. And she

22:23

actually ended up, she went over to her parents' house

22:25

and she had a beer that night and hung out

22:27

with them. They talked about the move. And

22:29

then again, before she went out around 11 o'clock,

22:31

they were like, hey, maybe don't go out tonight.

22:34

And she said, no, it's Dallas' birthday and I

22:36

love birthdays, I want to celebrate it with him.

22:39

She headed downtown. The

22:41

resilience of the youth, I don't think I would

22:43

go out the day before I would move, but

22:45

yeah. No, I mean, in your 30s,

22:47

things are a lot different or your 40s. So

22:50

that week was a big week for her.

22:52

Like Graham said, she was planning on moving

22:55

a lot of things on Sunday, June 30th.

22:57

And she was actually supposed to physically get

22:59

the keys to her new place on Monday,

23:02

July 1st. And

23:04

then, as we mentioned, she was getting

23:06

a new job at a call center and she

23:08

was actually originally scheduled to begin that job

23:10

later in the month of July. She

23:12

had pushed the company to let her

23:14

start earlier. She was so excited to

23:16

get going. So her start date, they

23:18

moved it up to July 2nd. So

23:21

this was a big, busy three-day

23:23

period for Lisa. So why don't you get into

23:25

the timeline now? Sure. So

23:28

at 11 p.m., Lisa Marie leaves her parents'

23:30

place in the same apartment building that she

23:32

lived in and she headed downtown

23:34

to Naimo. Like we said before

23:37

she left, her parents reminded her about the move

23:39

and she said, no, it's fine, I'll be fine.

23:41

So she meets up with her friend Dallas

23:43

and they go to the Jungle Cabaret, which

23:45

is located on Skinner Street. And

23:48

they got to the club around midnight, it seems. And

23:50

by all accounts, it was a fun night. It

23:53

was a busy bar due to the long weekend.

23:55

And then at two o'clock, the bar closes. And

23:58

so everyone's sort of like forced out. what it's

24:00

like at the closing time of a bar. It's

24:03

people milling around the front door. They're

24:05

milling around the side parking lot that's

24:07

beside the bar. And Lisa's kind

24:09

of hanging out with her friend, Dallas, and some

24:11

other friends, and they're just talking. And they had

24:13

heard about a house party. So they got excited

24:15

about the idea of a house party. And

24:17

it was just then that a man in his mid-20s approached

24:20

the group and began chatting to them.

24:23

Now, they didn't know this guy, but

24:25

he was a white dude, he was

24:27

clean cut. And he said, hey,

24:29

can I give you guys a ride to that house

24:31

party? And he had a very

24:34

sweet car, especially for a man

24:36

in his mid-20s. He had

24:38

an older red or maroon Jaguar

24:40

with square headlights. So based on the headlight

24:42

description, this is believed to

24:45

be a European-released Jaguar XJ40, which

24:48

would have been manufactured between 1986 and 1994. Now,

24:52

this was a rare car in

24:55

itself, but let alone in the NIMO in 2002,

24:57

and even more rare for, again, a young man

25:00

in his 20s to have. So

25:02

the first party that night was in

25:04

the Harewood neighborhood. And at this

25:06

time, this was a rougher area of NIMO.

25:09

And so they left that party and ended up

25:11

going to another party in the Westwood Lake area.

25:14

And while at the second party, Lisa

25:16

mentioned that she was hungry, and

25:18

she was a vegetarian, and her options were very

25:20

limited as it was about three or four in

25:22

the morning at this point. Your options

25:24

are limited, even if it's three or four in

25:26

the afternoon. Yeah, exactly. And

25:28

if you imagine, it's a party

25:30

on Canada Day long weekend, so

25:32

whatever food might be at the

25:35

party is meat-based, or leftover

25:37

barbecue from earlier, or

25:39

a half a bowl of chips sitting around, or

25:42

something like that. So Lisa wanted to get something

25:44

to eat, and she knew

25:46

that there was a Subway sandwich

25:48

restaurant, and many vegetarians will know

25:51

that the Subway sandwich veggie

25:54

sub is your only option. She was

25:56

like, hey, can someone bring me to

25:58

that Subway? So the- Jaguar

26:00

guy, or Jag guy as he became

26:02

known, he offers to

26:04

drive Lisa to the subway. And

26:06

so her friend Dallas was pretty intoxicated at this

26:08

point and he just wanted to stay at the party.

26:11

So it's like they had already hung out with

26:13

this guy for two hours. And it

26:15

was like, oh yeah, he's a nice guy, he drove us

26:17

to two parties, of course he will drive Lisa to

26:20

the subway and then drive her right back. Lisa

26:23

leaves the second party with the Jag

26:25

guy and that was the last time

26:27

that she was seen. A

26:29

very specific car, they have descriptions

26:32

of this person she's leaving with,

26:34

should be safe. Should be,

26:37

but unfortunately about an hour later

26:39

at 4.30 a.m., Dallas received a call

26:41

from Lisa and Dallas recalls this as

26:44

being kind of odd and

26:46

she said that the Jag guy didn't end up

26:48

taking Lisa to get food but that he had taken

26:50

her to another party. Lisa actually said

26:52

the words, Dallas, I don't know

26:54

what's going on. This guy won't bring me

26:56

back. We're sitting in a driveway on Bowen

26:58

Road and he won't bring

27:00

me back. I'm bored, I'm getting pissed off. And

27:03

at this point, Dallas got the feeling that Lisa

27:05

was more annoyed than she was scared but

27:08

keep in mind that he was intoxicated and

27:10

it has been said that this phone call

27:12

was followed up by a text message to

27:14

Dallas and text messages, again, were rare

27:16

in 2002. Everybody had

27:18

flip phones, you had to push the buttons

27:20

a million times to send a text message. You remember

27:22

those days? Yeah, T9. Yeah, exactly.

27:26

And so it was usually only used when you absolutely couldn't

27:28

talk or if it was an emergency. And so

27:30

that text message is alleged to have

27:32

stated, come get me, they

27:34

won't let me leave. Yeah,

27:37

the wording there has changed, right, Justin? Like

27:39

we've gone from Jag guy to, like

27:41

from he has taken me to a place

27:44

to they won't let me leave. And

27:47

at that point, I think

27:49

you could argue she's kidnapped.

27:51

Right, it is believed that

27:53

the second location was on Nanaimo Lakes

27:56

Road. Dallas suggested that Lisa

27:58

grab a cab, but. Lisa

28:00

did not text Dallas back from this

28:02

point on. And the final signal from

28:04

Lisa's phone was traced to the departure

28:06

Bay area of Nanaimo, which is where

28:09

the ferry to and from Vancouver is

28:11

located. Yeah, it should be added here

28:13

that the ferry would not have been running. The last

28:15

ferry leaves at 10 p.m. and starts at 6 a.m.

28:19

That is a harbor location. If

28:21

you are trying to get rid

28:23

of anything, the harbor is a great

28:26

place to do that. She's

28:28

at a party, a house party. No

28:31

one knows where that house party is. And

28:33

she's at this harbor area. So

28:35

the opportunities are endless as far as

28:38

taking her somewhere. Right, and it's

28:40

kind of hard to tell exactly where

28:42

she last was because it's just

28:44

a cell tower that's in

28:47

the area of departure Bay. So she really could have been

28:49

a lot of places at

28:51

this point. And this is 2002 technology too.

28:55

So the next morning, Joanne and

28:57

Don are concerned. Because

28:59

Lisa is not there. They're supposed to help

29:01

her move. They know it's

29:03

the candidate day, long weekends, but she is

29:05

a person of her word. And all of

29:07

a sudden, she is not there. And they

29:09

spent the first couple of hours calling everybody

29:11

who was friends with Lisa Marie. They

29:14

actually found her black book where she had

29:16

people's phone numbers and stuff written down. And

29:18

from what we understand, Joanne called everybody in

29:20

there. But again, they were, you know, maybe

29:23

she's sleeping it off somewhere or something

29:25

like that. But they didn't end up

29:27

hearing from Lisa Marie. So

29:30

Don and Joanne first contact the police on

29:32

Monday, July 1st. But unfortunately, they're

29:34

told to wait 48 hours before

29:37

they can file a missing person's report.

29:40

And as most of us know, this

29:42

isn't true. There is no mandatory waiting

29:44

period to report a missing person in

29:46

Canada. So later on that

29:48

same day on July 1st, after

29:50

Lisa's parents had initially called the police, an

29:52

RCMP officer did end up coming to their

29:55

residence to ask for a photo of Lisa.

29:57

And at this point, Don...

30:00

and Joanne avoided telling the police that

30:02

their daughter was indigenous as they were

30:04

afraid that it would result in the

30:06

case being taken less seriously. That's

30:09

really horrifying to hear.

30:12

It's brutal. Yeah, and that's like, you

30:14

know, the whole setup at the beginning of this

30:16

episode around MMIWG cases is

30:18

to highlight these moments, like

30:21

these moments, whether the

30:23

Joanne was so concerned that

30:25

her daughter's case wouldn't be taken seriously. And

30:27

not just by the RCMP, it wasn't just

30:29

that, it's just the public's reaction too. And

30:32

the media. Yeah, that it was like, oh,

30:34

it's an indigenous girl missing, shrug, terrible

30:37

stereotypes come into play, and then

30:39

people don't care. She

30:41

was supposed to be moving and starting a

30:43

new job. She had all of these things

30:46

happening. I mean, it's obvious something is wrong.

30:48

It's obvious she didn't just say, oh, well,

30:50

I'm just going to go walk off and

30:52

do something else. It's like your

30:54

child goes missing at a

30:56

store. There's something wrong. It's

30:59

not that your child just ran off.

31:01

In this case, it's so obvious. She

31:04

leaves with this guy and she's never heard from

31:06

again. Oh, yeah. So

31:08

on Tuesday, after Lisa failed to

31:10

show up both to picking up

31:12

her new apartment keys on Monday, like we said

31:14

she was supposed to do, and the first day

31:17

of training at that new job on the Tuesday,

31:19

Lisa's mom repeatedly tried to get into

31:21

contact with the officer that had come

31:23

by asking for a photo of Lisa.

31:26

And she was eventually informed that that

31:28

officer was off work until Friday, July

31:30

5th. So the matter would have

31:32

to wait until then. He's on

31:34

vacation or PTO time. Exactly.

31:37

And the police even said nothing suggests

31:39

foul play at that point. So

31:42

further persistence on Joanne's side resulted in

31:44

the case being assigned to a different

31:46

constable on Wednesday, July 3rd. So luckily,

31:48

they didn't have to wait until the 5th. But

31:51

it's interesting in the media here in

31:53

the ensuing days on July 6th, in

31:55

the Nanaimo Daily News, it was reported

31:57

that no evidence has emerged to indicate

31:59

two... police that foul play is involved.

32:01

However, police state that each passing day,

32:03

their concern was growing and they had

32:05

a number of tips that they want

32:07

to follow up on. And then

32:10

on July 9th, the Nanaimo Daily News reported

32:12

that the RCMP had five serious crime investigators

32:14

working on the case and they had received

32:16

over two dozen tips. And then

32:19

just four days later after they initially reported

32:21

that there was no evidence of foul play,

32:23

the RCMP released a statement

32:25

saying Nanaimo RCMP now believe a

32:27

21 year old woman who went missing

32:30

10 days ago has met with foul

32:32

play. It doesn't matter

32:34

if we're in Canada or the United

32:36

States or Britain. It's like when you're

32:39

taking a police report, I don't care if it's

32:41

a missing persons report, I don't care if it's

32:44

an accident. Sometimes you just need

32:46

not speak and just take the report.

32:48

It's like what police tell you when they arrest you.

32:51

Everything you say can and will be used against you.

32:53

Well, everything a police officer

32:55

says can and will be

32:57

hung on to. And it's just like,

32:59

well, maybe if you don't know, then

33:02

just take the report. Yeah.

33:04

And it's so clear that like

33:06

what you just said that the

33:08

dark shadow of the early days

33:10

of this investigation haunt this case

33:12

to this day. These

33:14

early, early mistakes and these

33:17

weird comments about like, yeah, I'll

33:19

be back on the fifth little comments

33:21

that they hear, they stay with them for

33:23

20 years. Yeah. It's like

33:25

a doctor's bedside manner when you're at

33:27

a hospital. And I always say it's

33:30

a bedside manner. It's how you treat

33:32

the person reporting this. And

33:34

sometimes it's just better to just take

33:36

the report, not give any commentary

33:39

or any opinion in the

33:41

beginning because that way the victim's

33:43

family is going to think that you're

33:45

taking it seriously. But

33:47

when you make a statement, no foul play or

33:50

nothing's wrong here or wait 48 hours or the

33:53

guy's off work now, this is

33:55

their daughter that's missing. And

33:57

it's absolutely going to turn

34:00

off the family if they think

34:02

that you're not taking this as seriously as you

34:04

should. Exactly. And, you know, the

34:06

family at this point knew that they likely

34:08

weren't going to get any help from the

34:10

police. So Joanne sent out word

34:13

to the Klokwiat First Nation that they needed

34:15

help. And so many relatives and friends made

34:17

the three-hour drive from the west side of

34:20

the island over to Nanaimo, and they actually

34:22

did the first searches alone

34:24

by themselves. Yeah. And actually, there was

34:27

a radio hit, like a news radio

34:29

hit, went out on the island that

34:31

there was a missing girl in Nanaimo,

34:33

and strangers showed up from towns like

34:36

Port Alberni and other island cities

34:38

and towns. They showed up in

34:40

pickup trucks. They were like mailmen

34:43

and working-class people that showed up

34:45

to help this family on their

34:47

searches. And we had mentioned earlier

34:49

that Joanne didn't want to say

34:52

that Lisa was First Nations, but

34:54

Joanne, she asked Dawn to speak

34:56

to the media if there was ever

34:59

going to be photos or videos, because

35:01

she was scared if people saw her

35:03

as a First Nations woman that they

35:05

again would not care. So Joanne really

35:08

drove this investigation from outside of

35:10

the public view, but she was absolutely

35:14

tenacious. But she felt

35:16

the need to put her white husband in front

35:18

of the cameras because she felt that

35:21

she wouldn't be taken seriously, and that's

35:23

heart-wrenching to hear. Yeah. And

35:26

again, it goes back to what we said

35:28

earlier, the agency and the power had been

35:30

taken away from Indigenous women for decades, you

35:32

know? And so she was like, you know,

35:34

I just want to get my daughter back.

35:37

So if this is going to hinder it,

35:39

then I'm going to not stand in the

35:41

forefront or stand in the spotlight of this

35:44

investigation. Yeah, she quietly stepped back and really

35:46

did all the work off camera while Dawn

35:48

was tasked with being the family

35:50

spokesperson. And she did that quite

35:52

purposely. And so eventually the RCMP

35:55

did do a search, but it

35:57

wasn't until September 18th, which was

35:59

over. three months after Lisa initially

36:01

vanished. So it took them three months

36:03

to get an official RCMP search out.

36:06

The search itself consisted of just over

36:08

20 officers and two dogs. And this

36:10

was in the Dumont and Biggs Roads

36:12

area. And this is an area of

36:14

Nanaimo, kind of near departure bay. And

36:16

it's a bunch of trails and campgrounds,

36:19

so it is wilderness, like a lot

36:21

of forests and whatnot. So I'm not

36:23

sure what led them there, but clearly

36:25

they had some tip that led them

36:27

to that area. And this

36:29

was the only official police search for

36:32

Lisa until they finally did a second

36:34

search 18 years later, just

36:37

three years ago in December of 2020. So

36:40

her family's been out there searching.

36:42

Her family just knew that

36:44

they weren't going to get

36:46

the response and the support.

36:49

So they are doing it all themselves.

36:52

And it's obvious where Lisa

36:54

Marie got her go-getter attitude, because

36:57

her family definitely instilled that hard work

36:59

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That's aura.com/safety to learn more and

38:29

activate the 14-day trial period. Yeah,

38:34

and Joanne did. She started her own

38:36

investigation into what happened that night. She

38:39

obviously said she found the address book,

38:42

she phoned all the phone numbers, and

38:44

then she learned about JAG

38:46

guy. So Joanne walked

38:48

around at night in downtown Nanaimo and

38:50

she spoke to everyone she could, including

38:52

sex workers in the area. Several

38:55

of the sex workers were able to identify

38:57

the JAG guy as a young man

39:00

by the name of Christopher

39:02

William Adair and

39:05

that the JAG is actually

39:07

his grandmother's jaguar. So

39:09

what we've learned about Christopher William Adair

39:12

is that he was a preppy man in his

39:14

early twenties who was from the Parksville area, which

39:16

is just north of Nanaimo. His

39:18

grandmother, Jerry Adair, was a prominent

39:20

realtor in the area. Her

39:22

husband was a former alderman and

39:24

former mayor of the town of

39:26

Parksville. So this was an affluent family.

39:29

And although Christopher came from a wealthy

39:31

family, he liked to party with some

39:33

more of a dangerous crowd. He

39:36

was a bit of a petty criminal. In

39:39

2002, there is evidence that Chris Adair had

39:42

a history of involvement with the justice

39:44

system in British Columbia. Some of those

39:46

offenses on his records include assault, fraud,

39:48

and theft. And

39:50

it's obvious this is the guy that she was

39:53

with that night because nobody else drives that car.

39:56

It took her mother to track this

39:58

down, this lead. So

40:00

armed with that information, Joanne goes

40:02

to the detachment. And

40:04

then two weeks after Lisa went missing,

40:07

the RCMP did pick up Christopher. But

40:10

they didn't pick him up at the Naimo detachment.

40:12

They brought him to the Parkville detachment. So it

40:14

was like his home turf. And

40:16

Joanne was asked to come up there. What is

40:18

Parkville like an hour away from the Naimo? It

40:21

is a 36 minute drive

40:23

from Naimo to Parkville. Still 40

40:25

minutes getting the mother of a

40:27

missing woman to come up and

40:29

sit down with who she

40:31

believes to be a suspect in the case

40:33

of her missing daughter. Joanne has to make

40:35

the drive up to the Parkville detachment. And

40:38

he's there in an interview room. The

40:40

police had already sort of debriefed him or

40:42

spoken with him. And they

40:44

kind of cleared him. And

40:46

so Joanne sits down and the

40:49

RCMP inform her that like, hey,

40:51

we've spoken to him. He's

40:53

got a story and this story

40:55

has never been disclosed publicly. We

40:57

don't know what Christopher Adair said

40:59

to the RCMP. But they

41:02

felt very strongly that he was not

41:04

a suspect. Let's just pause

41:06

there. He's in there. He's just done

41:08

his interview. He hasn't even

41:10

left the interview room. Her mother

41:13

comes up and they're already telling her

41:15

his story checks out. When we

41:17

know damn well they haven't vetted his

41:19

story at all. Because he

41:22

just finished talking to them. Right.

41:25

When did they have time to check anything he

41:27

was saying? They didn't have time to look into

41:29

his alibi. They didn't check his car or anything

41:31

like that. Like no work had been done other

41:33

than he told them

41:35

something. At the end of that

41:37

meeting, the interviewer, the RCMP

41:40

member, asked Joanne

41:42

to give Christopher a hug in

41:44

like a no hard feelings kind of way. And

41:48

at that point, Christopher muttered something to

41:50

the effect of, I'm sorry your daughter

41:52

is missing. Give him a

41:54

hug. This is the last person that

41:56

was with your daughter before she disappeared

41:58

and he's completely, completely and

42:00

utterly unhelpful and this search,

42:02

this situation, like, come on.

42:05

Yeah. So then Christopher William

42:07

Adair was released. The police

42:10

did search the car, but not

42:12

until it had been steam cleaned.

42:14

And then shortly after, the grandmother

42:16

ended up selling the Jaguar. And

42:19

again, this is weeks, months later,

42:21

right? Like, this isn't a day later,

42:23

so it doesn't matter if they searched

42:25

his car. Joanne was

42:27

told that it would be in her

42:30

best interest to not put Christopher William

42:32

Adair's name into the media when she

42:34

did interviews. Yeah. In fact, two

42:36

officers from the Nanaimo Detachment showed

42:38

up at Joanne and Don's house

42:40

and warned Don that they would

42:43

charge him with obstruction of justice

42:45

if he pursued media coverage.

42:47

So RCMP said that they did

42:49

not want Lisa's parents interfering with

42:51

the integrity of the RCMP. And

42:54

Lisa's mother was also warned by

42:56

the RCMP for taking photos of

42:58

the Jaguar from the street at

43:01

the grandmother's house of Christopher. And

43:04

Don was warned by the RCMP

43:06

to stop emailing Christopher's

43:08

grandmother. So I think they

43:11

had been kind of doing their own

43:13

investigative work and the RCMP were repeatedly

43:15

telling them to stop. And it's

43:17

hard because I understand where they're coming

43:20

from. Like, they don't want interference in

43:22

their investigation. But at the

43:24

same time, this family has been met

43:26

with nothing but what they perceive to

43:28

be being failed, right?

43:31

So they felt that they

43:33

had to do things on their own. And I

43:35

do not blame them at all for feeling that

43:37

way. It's the most important

43:39

thing to them. That's the only thing they

43:41

can think about every second of the day

43:44

and night. Right. And you

43:46

know, people with missing people in their

43:48

lives, it's so hard to just

43:50

sit idly by and trust law

43:54

enforcement or the powers that be to be

43:56

doing the work that you desperately want to

43:58

do. I don't know that I... would be

44:00

able to trust other people to take things

44:02

as seriously as I'm taking them.

44:04

Yeah, there's absolutely no manual to be

44:07

the family member of a missing person.

44:09

You know, families have to react the

44:11

way that they're going to react, whether

44:14

they become industrious and investigators, whether they

44:16

teach themselves forensics or grid searches, or

44:18

whether they literally just do nothing because

44:21

they're so affected by the

44:23

trauma of it. It's all a

44:25

normal response and there is no playbook. There

44:27

are people out there who will help, there

44:29

are civilian people who will help to guide

44:32

the families through it, but it's really a

44:34

learning as you go. Like, how do I

44:36

speak to the media? How do I source

44:38

people that can give me information? What am

44:41

I doing that's legal or illegal? You

44:43

know, and it's just such an incredibly

44:45

challenging, heartbreaking thing. And you

44:47

know, after Christopher was released,

44:50

he moved to the province of Saskatchewan where

44:52

he ended up having more interactions with law

44:55

enforcement, including assaulting a police officer. He then

44:57

moved to Japan and around the world and

44:59

in 2021, we learned

45:02

that he's now living in Turkey

45:04

and he is working in tourism

45:07

and also in finance. What

45:09

does her family end up doing? So

45:11

decades went by and the investigation kind

45:13

of petered out. After the release

45:16

of Christopher William Adair, after the

45:18

interviews of some suspects and witnesses,

45:20

no arrests were made in this case.

45:22

And so Joanne stepped into the spotlight

45:25

and she started doing a lot of

45:27

media interviews and she found friendly

45:29

reporters on the island who carried the

45:32

case and kept Lisa as a story,

45:34

kept her as a part of the

45:36

conversation and marked anniversaries of her missing

45:38

date. Joanne started asking Crime

45:40

Stoppers if they would do a reenactment

45:42

video for Lisa's disappearance. And for six

45:45

years, Crime Stoppers kind of hedged on

45:47

that, but eventually they did make the

45:49

video. And in this video,

45:52

it's very bizarre because they're standing outside of

45:54

the nightclub and then the stranger who they

45:56

didn't name, they didn't call him Christopher Adair,

45:58

is just a stranger. shows up and

46:01

offers to drive them to the party.

46:03

And now this Christopher William Adair was

46:05

a preppy looking dude and they

46:08

portrayed him as a guy in like a

46:10

tank top and a ball cap, like black

46:12

tank top with a necklace. Like he looks

46:14

like a street level drug dealer. He

46:17

doesn't look like this preppy kid. So this

46:19

video comes out and it doesn't even portray

46:22

the main suspect properly.

46:24

It's almost like they want to spoon feed the

46:26

audience like this is the bad guy and so

46:29

we have to make him look this way when

46:31

really he actually looked like a

46:33

normal guy and had no chains or

46:35

any of the things that they tried

46:37

to make out like this stereotypical

46:39

look. I

46:42

don't even get it, but yeah. So family's

46:44

not happy with that. Yeah,

46:46

and the investigators at like before this

46:48

Crime Stoppers video was made, the investigators

46:51

told the family that he didn't feel the

46:54

video would be helpful at the time. And

46:56

so it took seven years for that video

46:58

to even get made. And then when it

47:00

was the family really felt that it was

47:02

totally botched. There was a lot of concern

47:04

about the choice of actors that were used

47:06

to portray, I mean, especially the driver, but

47:09

kind of everybody involved. And so I

47:11

mean, the Crime Stoppers video, it's available

47:13

on YouTube. You can absolutely watch it.

47:16

It's kind of so bad that

47:18

it's laughable. So in

47:20

the last few years, there's been some

47:22

major turning points with regards to media

47:24

awareness and the investigation into this case.

47:27

And those two major turning points occurred

47:29

because of you guessed it, podcasts.

47:33

One was Casefile. Listeners

47:35

of your show will know Casefile.

47:37

They covered Lisa Marie's story. And

47:40

they named Christopher William Adair. It was the

47:42

first time his name was actually used. And

47:45

they named him as the man who

47:47

drove her and as the man who

47:49

she stated would not let her go.

47:51

Interesting is Casefile ended

47:54

up getting a notice from Spotify

47:56

that their podcast had been pulled

47:58

down for what? what he

48:00

thought originally was a copyright infringement,

48:03

but it turns out that Christopher William Madare

48:05

had actually sent a cease

48:07

and desist to Spotify, I

48:10

guess, claiming defamation or wrongful information or

48:12

something like that, and power

48:15

to case file. He did not

48:17

do anything different and re-uploaded the

48:19

episode. Now, the second major

48:21

thing, and this has been huge, is

48:24

that a retired CBC reporter

48:26

named Laura Palmer created a

48:28

multi-episode podcast called Island Crime,

48:30

Where Is Lisa? And she

48:32

interviewed every single person that

48:34

she could, and she's been

48:37

able to create a lot of buzz. Like,

48:39

she has gone into the depths of this

48:41

case and found everybody, but the one person

48:43

who refuses to speak to her is

48:46

Christopher William Madare. It

48:48

probably doesn't behoove him to speak up,

48:50

but at the same time, if he

48:52

just gave any sort of statement of,

48:55

well, I just dropped her off, and that was the last I

48:57

saw her, it would be something.

48:59

But the fact it's complete silence just

49:01

makes everybody wonder, well, what did you

49:04

do? You know, in the

49:06

aftermath of the Where Is Lisa podcast, two

49:09

new investigators have been put on Lisa's file, and

49:11

I really want to highlight here that I know

49:13

that we, you know, there

49:15

were some digs at the RCMP

49:18

throughout, you know, this episode, but

49:20

these two new investigators, they are

49:22

Constable Pinfold and Corporal Munter. They

49:25

have been amazing to work with. They

49:27

have been helping all of the activists

49:29

that are involved and organizers

49:31

who are involved with Lisa Marie's story. They

49:34

have put out multiple press releases

49:36

saying, if you previously gave

49:38

us information on this case and you felt

49:41

like your information was ignored, we are asking

49:43

you to come forward again. And

49:45

so they did. Like, people came out of

49:47

the woodwork, they told their stories, because some

49:49

of the people that had information were known

49:51

to police, or they were, you

49:54

know, on hard times at the time and stuff

49:56

like that. So they felt that their voices couldn't

49:58

be heard to the investigators. but now they

50:00

were given permission to come forward again.

50:03

And people really started to respond. That's

50:05

super awesome because it doesn't take much.

50:07

And they're the ones that drive the

50:10

investigation. The families can only do so

50:12

much. So it's awesome that they go

50:14

back and revisit that and are trying

50:16

to make it right. Even if it's

50:18

a day late and a dollar short,

50:21

it's something. And I'm sure the family

50:23

appreciates that. A lot of relationship building

50:25

has occurred between the family and the

50:28

RCMP over the years. One of Lisa's

50:30

uncle's, Mike, is actually an RCMP member.

50:33

And he carved a paddle. He's

50:35

an indigenous carver. Yeah, and

50:37

he carved a paddle for two of the

50:39

corporals. So there's been a lot of just

50:41

rebuilding of relationships over the years,

50:43

which is obviously incredibly necessary. It's

50:46

amazing to me that the family is

50:48

able to forgive. And I don't know

50:50

that they have totally forgiven everything, but

50:53

the fact that they're even able to

50:55

continue working together is

50:57

amazing, especially for everything

50:59

that went wrong in the early stages

51:01

of the investigations. And we've participated in

51:03

the Lisa Marie Young marches for justice

51:06

that occur every summer in the NIMO.

51:08

And we've walked shoulder to shoulder with

51:10

Constable Pinfold and Corporal Mutner. So they

51:13

do participate in the marches. They

51:15

are there. They are present. And

51:17

it's important to note here that the

51:19

RCMP file for Lisa Marie Young consists

51:21

of 15,000 documents, over

51:24

100 witness accounts. I've

51:26

been wrong in the past, and I like

51:28

being wrong about things like this. But when

51:30

so much time passes between the time of

51:32

the actual crime and then

51:34

the investigation, so much

51:37

evidence, so much witness testimony, all of

51:39

it is lost. Witness

51:41

statements are lost. People forget.

51:43

But I've been wrong, and

51:45

they have come back and solved a

51:48

few cases, especially the Golden State killers.

51:50

And even, unfortunately, Dallas, the guy

51:53

that she was out that night

51:55

for his birthday, he died in

51:57

a pedestrian versus vehicle accident on

51:59

the... highway just a number of

52:01

years ago. So his testimony can't be

52:03

redeveloped or it can't be respoken about.

52:06

All they have is whatever was handwritten

52:08

in the detachment in those early days.

52:10

And he's a key, key witness that

52:12

night. They can't put him up on

52:14

the stand to tell

52:17

a jury what he knows about that

52:19

night. It's sad. Exactly.

52:21

And so we do know that a lot of

52:24

new information has come forward. A lot of it

52:26

was sourced because of Laura Palmer and her podcast

52:29

through the new found energy inside of

52:31

the investigation and sort of this undying

52:34

will of Lisa Marie Young's movement. We

52:36

know that some of the new evidence

52:38

that's come forward, we do know that

52:40

there is a video cassette and a

52:42

hair sample. We can't speak too

52:45

much to that except for just rumor. And what

52:47

I'm gonna go through right now is a lot

52:49

of rumor that is sort of pouring out right

52:51

now. We know that there are

52:53

three suspects. We can't

52:55

name those suspects right now, though

52:58

their names have shown up quite a bit online.

53:01

We can say that there are at

53:03

least three men and there is possibly

53:05

one other person who is a woman

53:07

who was involved in Lisa's abduction and

53:09

unfortunately now classified or thought of as

53:11

a murder. And some of those people

53:13

are still in the community of Nanaimo

53:15

but one of them has

53:17

died. These people are well known to

53:20

the police and have decades of ties to

53:22

organized crime in the Nanaimo area. Some

53:24

of them have even been rumored to be

53:26

friends with notorious serial killer Robert

53:29

Picton. And then in 2020 the RCMP

53:32

executed two search warrants on

53:35

a house on Nanaimo Lakes Road. This

53:38

property is where they believed that Lisa Marie

53:40

last was. The owners of the house

53:42

now, they actually bought the property in 2003 so that would be

53:44

a year after Lisa went missing.

53:47

A Czech news reporter, which Czech is kind

53:49

of the island news reporter, he

53:51

said that a neighbor had come forward claiming that

53:53

they saw what looked like a body in a

53:56

hammock on the property in 2002. Then days later,

54:00

they saw digging equipment, working on

54:02

the property in the weeks that

54:04

followed. And this is a lot

54:06

of just speculation and things that people

54:08

witnessed and now these rumors are coming

54:11

out. With any case that goes on

54:13

for this long, for 21 years now,

54:15

there's going to be public speculation and

54:17

rumor. But a person

54:19

who has been absolutely just

54:22

amazing in Lisa's case

54:24

is a family friend, a childhood

54:26

friend of Lisa. Her name is

54:28

Cindy Hall and she is instrumental

54:31

in keeping Lisa's story in the

54:33

media. She's the one who organizes

54:35

the marches for justice every

54:38

year. I could get emotional because she's

54:40

just such an amazing person. And

54:42

when we asked Cindy what she thinks is

54:44

the most plausible of the theories out there,

54:47

she said, this is just my opinion. I

54:50

think that I think there were dangerous people at

54:52

a house party. I believe that they

54:54

were going to make a snuff film. I

54:57

believe they murdered her, they buried her

54:59

and then moved her again. So

55:01

she believes that wherever Lisa

55:04

was originally buried,

55:06

that she has been moved at least one

55:09

time throughout the years. And

55:11

the snuff film idea does tie

55:14

in a little bit

55:16

with Robert Picton's style. There

55:19

was this era of this deep

55:21

underground of snuff movie making and

55:23

as implausible as we

55:26

like to think that that type of thing is, like, oh,

55:28

that can't possibly be a thing. Like

55:31

literally sexually assaulting and murdering somebody on camera

55:33

cannot be a thing. Nobody wants their loved

55:35

one to go through that or to really

55:37

believe it exists. So

55:39

much evidence came out of the Picton trial that

55:41

that type of behavior does exist. That type of

55:44

messed up behavior is something that does

55:46

happen in our world. And

55:48

it's really hard to hear. If

55:51

there wasn't much investigation in the

55:53

beginning, whoever the perpetrator was, wherever

55:55

they put her, well, now

55:57

there's an investigation happening now. The heaps of...

55:59

gone. So they think, well, we need to

56:01

move her now. It makes sense. Another

56:04

huge thing happened in October of 2020.

56:06

You guys have like Congress people or

56:10

senators in the United States in your

56:12

political sphere at the federal

56:14

level, right? What we have is MPs

56:16

or Member of Parliament. And so in

56:18

October of 2020, Member of Parliament Paul

56:21

Manley, and he was the Member of

56:23

Parliament for that riding, for that Nanaimo

56:25

riding, he actually told Lisa

56:27

Marie Young's story in the Canadian Parliament

56:29

building. And so he spoke about

56:31

the failures of our system for the missing

56:33

and murdered indigenous women and girls. And he

56:36

spoke specifically about her case. He

56:38

raised concerns that Lisa Marie's case

56:40

was only given attention because of

56:42

Laura Palmer's podcast. He highlighted that

56:44

the podcast brought it to the

56:47

forefront of the media's attention and

56:49

to law enforcement's attention. One

56:51

of the most interesting things that he did

56:53

was he named Christopher William Medair in the

56:56

House of Parliament. Like he named the guy

56:58

saying that he was able to escape, that

57:01

he was able to leave, that he

57:03

went unquestioned. And that was massive. Like

57:05

that actually for our podcast, when we

57:07

covered this case in episode 30, we

57:09

felt very comfortable naming this person because

57:11

his name has now been mentioned in

57:13

like the biggest building in the land.

57:15

Now, I just want to be clear

57:17

that when we were saying the prime

57:19

suspect, we're not saying Christopher William Medair

57:22

murdered Lisa Marie Young. There were two

57:24

or three or four people who murdered

57:26

Lisa Marie Young. Christopher William Medair was

57:28

the last person to be seen with

57:30

her and was the person

57:32

who drove her, in her own words,

57:34

to a party on Nanaimo Lakes Road.

57:36

When you're the last person to be

57:38

seen with a missing person, probably a

57:40

murdered person, I mean, I understand

57:42

why he left the country. I understand why he lives

57:45

on the other side of the globe now. And

57:47

Turkey has had an interesting relationship

57:49

with extradition to Canada over the years because

57:51

it's technically part of the UN and Europe,

57:54

but it's also they also kind of have

57:56

their own thing. And I think really our

57:58

only extradition stuff. with Turkey has only come

58:00

about in the last four or five years.

58:03

And keep in mind that if there's not

58:05

enough evidence, if you're not going to charge

58:07

him with anything and you just want to

58:09

question him, you can't extradite him for questioning.

58:12

He's safe where he is for now. To

58:14

get the indictments, you have to go through

58:16

the whole process and have something before

58:19

you can extradite somebody. I think everyone

58:21

has a pretty good idea what happened

58:23

here. I think Cindy has a pretty

58:25

good idea. Yeah, and Paul Manley

58:28

does too because he went on to say

58:30

again in Parliament, he brought up

58:32

his concerns over the police handling

58:34

of potential physical evidence. He

58:36

pointed to the car. He pointed

58:38

to the fact that it hadn't been examined

58:40

by the RCMP until the owner had it

58:42

steam cleaned and detailed. And then he went

58:44

on to say if this young woman had

58:47

been the daughter of a judge, a mayor,

58:49

or a member of the house, police

58:51

would have been all over this right

58:53

away. And then he also went on

58:55

to state that the RCMP dismissed an

58:57

urgent call from a witness who was

58:59

believed to be an associate and accomplice

59:01

of Lisa's killers who called to alert

59:03

the young family that Lisa's body was

59:05

being moved at the moment. It was

59:07

being moved from the original location. And

59:10

Paul Manley stated that the RCMP

59:12

ignored this caller due to

59:15

the caller having connections to

59:17

criminal activities, which is insane

59:19

to me because this is

59:21

a person who has every reason to

59:23

be afraid of snitching or

59:25

calling in. If this person

59:27

was giving legitimate information, this person absolutely

59:29

did the right thing. And

59:32

just because they have

59:35

criminal ties doesn't mean

59:37

they're any less credible. In fact, I

59:39

would say that probably makes

59:42

them more credible because they might

59:44

know. Did they want a cop or

59:46

a judge to call in? I mean, it's

59:49

so hypocritical here. And that person

59:51

has a lot to lose if

59:53

they're involved in the criminal world.

59:55

Going to the police with a tip is like,

59:58

it's really risky for that person. So it's just

1:00:00

crazy to me that it was ignored due to

1:00:02

the fact that this person, you know, might have

1:00:05

had a record. But Jag guy

1:00:07

had a record too and they took

1:00:09

him seriously like, come on. Jag guy

1:00:11

with the wealthy mom or grandma and

1:00:13

the wealthy grandfather sitting in the Parkville

1:00:15

police station together with a, you

1:00:17

know, nice little polo shirt on or whatever.

1:00:20

He was super credible. But these

1:00:22

people who are on the ground, you

1:00:25

know, criminally involve people who know what's going

1:00:27

on. They're not credible. Well, I

1:00:29

think we can read between the lines and figure out

1:00:31

why someone would be credible and why someone wouldn't

1:00:33

be in this situation. And

1:00:36

then another informants, a former associate

1:00:38

of the prime suspect. So

1:00:40

we all know who that is called

1:00:42

the RCMP in 2006 to report

1:00:45

details of Lisa's murder. And

1:00:47

this person pointed to the snuff film that

1:00:49

we've been talking about a videotape of the

1:00:52

crime and more, whatever that means. We're not

1:00:54

sure what that means. What people

1:00:56

have said about this case is that Lisa was taken

1:00:58

to make a snuff film. They said

1:01:00

she was drugged, sexually assaulted, and then

1:01:02

killed apparently by accident. So

1:01:05

this person is saying that Lisa was

1:01:07

taken and it went a little too

1:01:09

far. And it was an accident that she

1:01:11

died. This is what this person is saying. There

1:01:13

was no intention to actually go through with the whole

1:01:15

process, but that she apparently died in

1:01:17

the process of the crimes that were

1:01:19

occurring. And this is Paul Manley saying

1:01:21

this in the House of Parliament. This

1:01:23

is him taking what he believes to

1:01:25

be witness testimony and saying it publicly.

1:01:27

And he also goes on to say

1:01:29

that there are concerns by

1:01:32

community members that the prime suspect in

1:01:34

this case might have also

1:01:36

been a police informant. So Paul

1:01:38

Manley in the House of Parliament, I

1:01:40

love this quote. This was the last

1:01:42

quote that he said. He concluded by

1:01:45

saying, RCMP and other police forces have

1:01:47

not gone through the proper procedures of

1:01:49

ensuring that these cases are investigated properly.

1:01:52

These young indigenous women have not had

1:01:54

their cases taken seriously if Lisa Marie

1:01:56

Young had been a white woman and

1:01:58

a daughter of a person. prominent business

1:02:00

person in this community, that case would

1:02:02

have been investigated properly. And again, this

1:02:04

ties in with everything that we said

1:02:06

at the beginning of this episode. So

1:02:09

where are things at now? Well, every

1:02:11

year, as we mentioned, there is the march

1:02:14

for Lisa Marie Young, the March for Justice

1:02:16

in Nanaimo. And for the last two

1:02:18

years, we have attended this march. It's

1:02:21

an amazing event. Lisa's family comes

1:02:23

out. A massive

1:02:25

portion of the community of Nanaimo comes out.

1:02:28

The mayor of Nanaimo comes out. And

1:02:31

it's a really nice way to make sure

1:02:33

the family knows that they are loved, that

1:02:35

they are being listened to, they are being

1:02:38

heard. Because it's been 21 years. It's

1:02:41

a long time for a family to go without, honestly,

1:02:44

any answers of what has happened to

1:02:46

their loved one. Again, politicians

1:02:48

and MMIWG advocates, strangers,

1:02:51

other victims, families, police officers.

1:02:54

They're all at this event. It's a huge event. Yeah,

1:02:57

we went this year. And a

1:02:59

very big part of it is

1:03:01

that first we walk. We

1:03:03

walk together. And it's quite quiet. But it's

1:03:05

people that know each other or people who

1:03:08

don't know each other. But we're all together

1:03:10

for the same reason. And we walk down

1:03:12

to this beautiful park in Nanaimo. And there's

1:03:14

a bandshell there. And then there are speakers.

1:03:17

Lisa Marie's family members speak, politicians

1:03:19

speak. The mayor announces every year

1:03:21

and declares in Nanaimo that that

1:03:23

day is Lisa Marie Young Day.

1:03:26

There's musicians. And we also eat

1:03:29

Subway sandwiches. Every year,

1:03:31

they're donated by Subway. Cindy

1:03:34

hands out sandwiches to everybody who's sitting

1:03:36

there in community together. Because eating together

1:03:38

is a very important part of community.

1:03:41

We're sitting. We're supporting the family. And

1:03:43

we are there. We eat sandwiches. Because

1:03:45

that's what Lisa Marie wanted that night.

1:03:47

And also, we have her favorite candy,

1:03:49

which was wine gums. So they hand

1:03:52

out wine gums. And so we're all,

1:03:54

it's really special. We all are eating

1:03:56

there in community with the family members

1:03:58

and everybody else who shows up. It's

1:04:00

obviously a sad event, but it's

1:04:03

quite heartwarming as well to sit there

1:04:05

and just be in quiet

1:04:07

community with everybody and being there

1:04:09

for the same reason. And also

1:04:11

listen to the other families. We

1:04:13

see other families whose cases we've

1:04:15

covered. We see cases that we've

1:04:17

never covered before and we hear their family members

1:04:20

speak from the stage. This year,

1:04:22

I think she was about a 16-year-old

1:04:24

girl who got up and she shared

1:04:26

that she's starting her own nonprofit to

1:04:28

help murder the missing indigenous women and

1:04:30

girls. She was 16 years old. Like it brought

1:04:32

tears to our eyes. It's

1:04:34

just a really important and special day and we're super

1:04:36

grateful that we get invited and

1:04:38

we wouldn't have it any other way. So we

1:04:40

make the drive down and on the drive out,

1:04:43

Justin, on the drive out of Nanaimo on our

1:04:45

way home, we see Lisa Marie Young's face on

1:04:47

a billboard as soon as we get out

1:04:49

of the city limits. Her billboard is

1:04:51

on the Sonamo Nation and we see it

1:04:53

on our way out of Nanaimo and it's

1:04:55

very powerful. On that billboard, it

1:04:57

states that there is a

1:04:59

$50,000 reward for information leading to

1:05:02

Lisa's remains. You can contact

1:05:04

the Nanaimo RCMP. A lot

1:05:06

of us as audience members, we listen to these

1:05:08

stories and we're like, okay, but how can I

1:05:10

help? A way for you to help is

1:05:13

to join the Facebook group Lisa Marie Young.

1:05:15

We would also ask you to listen to

1:05:17

the podcast, Where is Lisa? by

1:05:19

Laura Palmer. It's a whole season

1:05:21

on Lisa's case. If

1:05:24

you join the Lisa Marie Young group, you'll

1:05:26

find out about searches as well as they

1:05:29

do have an Amazon wish list because searching

1:05:31

is very hard. People need boots and gloves

1:05:33

and different items in order to do this

1:05:35

searches. When we

1:05:37

did our episode on Lisa Marie Young, we

1:05:39

spoke with Cindy Hall and she got us

1:05:41

in touch with Carol Frank who is Joanne's

1:05:44

sister. Now the reason why we couldn't speak

1:05:46

with Joanne is unfortunately in 2017, Joanne Frank, Lisa

1:05:50

Marie Young's mom and her

1:05:52

advocate died without knowing what

1:05:54

happened to her daughter. It's really inspiring

1:05:56

to see all the people that have come together to

1:05:58

keep this going, keep her name. name out there

1:06:01

honor the family and the

1:06:04

fact that there's still a billboard and

1:06:06

there's a walk and this brings together

1:06:08

other families who have their own missing

1:06:11

children. I mean, it's this whole movement

1:06:13

now and you know,

1:06:15

it's like that 16-year-old you spoke to

1:06:17

that wants to start their own non-for-profit.

1:06:20

I mean, podcasts are powerful but I

1:06:22

think this younger generation actually is pretty

1:06:25

motivated and want to

1:06:27

see change. Absolutely.

1:06:29

They've seen a lot of injustice

1:06:31

in their short lives and I think

1:06:33

the younger generations are going

1:06:35

to be incredibly powerful. No,

1:06:38

I think that's great and I think you

1:06:40

guys are awesome. I think that

1:06:42

the thing is like, you know, with these

1:06:45

podcasts that we do is that we are

1:06:47

able to provide that awareness and we're able

1:06:49

to provide that digital footprint, you know, so

1:06:51

that when their loved one is searched online

1:06:54

or whatever, their name comes up and it's

1:06:57

not like a six-paragraph news

1:06:59

article or, you know, a

1:07:01

30-second legacy media hit. It's

1:07:03

45 minutes or an hour of who

1:07:06

they were and what happened

1:07:08

in the aftermath, right? And we speak

1:07:10

a lot in these podcasts, especially around

1:07:12

missing about ambiguous loss. The

1:07:14

families are living with somebody who

1:07:17

is psychologically present, emotionally present, but

1:07:19

physically absent and they're not given

1:07:21

the peace that they

1:07:23

need in order to grieve, which is the why,

1:07:25

you know? And, you

1:07:28

know, if somebody is unfortunate enough to die in

1:07:30

a car accident, we grieve and we

1:07:32

accept and we understand what happened. But

1:07:34

when your loved one remains missing and

1:07:37

stays missing for decades, it

1:07:39

is really hard to reconcile. There's the thoughts

1:07:41

that they might come around the corner or

1:07:43

that, you know, when we were on that

1:07:45

search for Jordan Holling, we were out in

1:07:48

the wilderness and he could be anywhere. And

1:07:50

so it's very, very hard for the families. And I think

1:07:52

that what we do with these podcasts is actually, I'm not

1:07:55

trying to say that we're, you know, saving the world or

1:07:57

anything, but what we're doing is we're just nudging it down

1:07:59

the... know, the continuum just a little

1:08:01

bit with every little episode that we do

1:08:03

and every time that we mention their loved

1:08:05

one's name, we're just pushing it down the

1:08:07

continuum hopefully towards something that helps to bring

1:08:09

peace and some answers for the families.

1:08:12

At the very least, we pick up

1:08:14

where the media leaves off. I

1:08:17

think that's why we set out to do what

1:08:19

we do is, you know, a lot of these

1:08:21

stories fall out of the headlines because, my lord,

1:08:23

we live in such a world where it's

1:08:25

just constantly move on to the

1:08:28

next unprecedented event, right? And so we're doing

1:08:30

what we can to just keep these

1:08:32

stories alive and in

1:08:34

people's minds and that's why we do what we

1:08:36

do and I know that's why you guys do

1:08:39

what you do. Thank you. Thank

1:08:56

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