252: The Viral TikTok of a Stalker & Family Massacre... Now She's Telling It All | Fallon Farinacci

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Speaker 2 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Seriously.

Speaker 2 Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Seriously with me, Annie Elise. I hope you are ready for a deep dive today, but I also want to give you a little bit of a warning.

Speaker 2 It's going to be an emotional one. Now, this episode isn't the same format as our normal deep dives.

Speaker 2 It is definitely going to be a long episode, but we have a very special guest joining us for this episode today. And here's the reason why.

Speaker 2 Let me backtrack a little bit and let you know why I chose this case that we're talking about today.

Speaker 2 As you know, I get a lot of case recommendations, case requests, suggestions, all of that, whether it's through our website, through email, DM, comments, whatever it may be.

Speaker 2 Well, a couple of weeks ago, when I tell you the amount of times that I was tagged in this TikTok video, I'm talking like well into over 1,000 times.

Speaker 2 My notifications were just going crazy and I'm like, what is going on? So I go to this video that I keep being tagged in.

Speaker 4 Today marks 31 years since my family and I were held hostage by my mother's stalker and we witnessed him take both of my parents lives before he took his own.

Speaker 4 One of the RCMP constables that was alerted that we were being held hostage accidentally fell back asleep after receiving the initial call.

Speaker 4 The first 911 call went in at 2:30 in the morning, and the RCMP didn't enter our home until after 8:30 in the morning. And by then, it was too late.

Speaker 4 My younger brother and I sat just feet away from both of our parents for several hours before the RCMP finally entered our home.

Speaker 4 It goes without saying, my brothers and and I endured a lot of trauma and unfortunately we never received proper post-traumatic care and as a result of this both of my brothers have since taken both of their lives.

Speaker 2 The moment I saw this, I was immediately moved because not only what this girl had to endure and watching her mother and father die and be killed by a stalker who was also a family friend of sorts.

Speaker 2 This guy grew up with her father. They were best friends.
They were childhood friends.

Speaker 2 So then to have that level of betrayal betrayal on top of it and being a young child and being frightened and then sitting with your deceased parents for hours waiting for the police to show up.

Speaker 2 The amount of trauma that somebody would endure after that, she has done so much advocacy work. She is so incredibly brave.

Speaker 2 She was really trying to use her experience to platform better causes and champion other people. So when I saw this video, I was, as I said, immediately moved.

Speaker 2 I contacted her immediately and basically said, Oh my gosh, your story is so powerful. I am so sorry for what you've had to go through, what your family endured.
I would love to talk with you.

Speaker 2 I would love to give you the opportunity to share your story on my platform where you hopefully will reach a wider audience, where you can affect change, where all of these goals and things that you want to accomplish can be had.

Speaker 2 And so, we had been talking back and forth for a little bit, and she is here now. We flew her out from Canada.
She is here with me in Orange County in studio today.

Speaker 2 And I really really want you to hear this case from her point of view. It would be so easy for me to share it with you.

Speaker 2 I have researched it and I have all the details, but it's not as impactful in my opinion unless you hear it directly from her, from her first-hand experience.

Speaker 2 So I am very excited because today I have Fallon Farinacci joining me and she is going to talk us through that horrific night, the events that led up to it, and what unfortunately happened even after that nightmare that she and her siblings had to endure.

Speaker 2 So without further ado, let's bring in Fallon. Hi, Fallon.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I am really excited to have you here.
I already mentioned in the intro, I saw the viral TikTok.

Speaker 2 I'm not even kidding. I haven't even told you this yet.
I think I was tagged over a thousand times in this. Oh my God.
And so I was incredibly moved the second I saw it.

Speaker 2 And I'm just so excited to speak with you in person. I'm so happy you're here.
Thank you for coming out.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 4 I'm going to cry right away.

Speaker 2 Don't do that.

Speaker 4 It just means a lot.

Speaker 2 Thank you. No, I'm so glad you're here.
And I'm glad you're having a good time and away from the cold weather.

Speaker 4 So that's good.

Speaker 2 So, what I would love to do is just start at the beginning a little bit. I want you to feel as though you can be the one in charge of this, telling your story, sharing what you're comfortable with.

Speaker 2 And I would love to start more of just your childhood. If you could tell me about that, and then we can just slowly move in to the times of what happened.

Speaker 4 Okay, absolutely.

Speaker 4 So I grew up in a tiny, predominantly Indigenous community in Manitoba. So in Canada,

Speaker 4 this community has approximately 300 people. It's still holding strong at 300 people.
Still, still, yeah.

Speaker 4 I go home a lot. So for people who are listening and watching, I talk about two homes.
So not to confuse people, I will try to make it clear.

Speaker 4 Manitoba is my soul's home. It's where I was born and raised.
My parents, parents, my father is Métis, so in Canada there are some Métis in the States. However, here they're not recognized as Métis.

Speaker 4 I believe they would just be under the category of Native Americans in the States.

Speaker 4 And I am Metis and so was my father. My dad was the reason and is the reason why I'm so proud.

Speaker 4 He was a very proud Indigenous man and I'm forever grateful for that because I don't think if he was the way he was,

Speaker 4 then I wouldn't, you know, have that instilled in me at such a young age. So we lived a, you know, what you would consider, and I, and I hate saying this, like a normal life, right?

Speaker 4 Like I had both my parents, we lived in our family home. I had an older brother and a younger brother.

Speaker 4 So my parents' names are Morris and Sherry Paul, and my older brother's name was Carson, and my younger brother's name is Clinton. And so we grew up there around community, culture.

Speaker 2 What is it like growing up with such a small community? I would imagine. I grew up in what I thought was a small community.
It certainly doesn't compare to the size of yours.

Speaker 2 So I always thought everybody knew everything about me, that I knew everything about everybody else. What was that like growing up in a community of 300 people?

Speaker 4 That's exactly what it was. Everyone knows everyone's business to fault sometimes.

Speaker 4 And,

Speaker 4 but it's also nice because it's that community feeling. It genuinely feels like home.
That's just where my father had grown up as well. My mom is non-Indigenous.
She grew up in St.

Speaker 4 Catharines, which is the place I call home now.

Speaker 4 And that's in Ontario, just a little bit outside of Toronto. They met and then they decided to settle in our little Saint-Estash community.

Speaker 2 Great. Well, so then walk me through.
So you're young, you're growing up there, what you had described as, you know, a normal childhood, a normal life.

Speaker 2 What age were you when you were first introduced to your mother stalker as a family friend, even?

Speaker 4 Before you knew he was dangerous? Probably like younger than I can even remember. So he was a part of the community.

Speaker 4 So he himself was also raised there. And I want to also mention when I say normal, I also say that to kind of get people to question what they think

Speaker 4 when something bad happens to someone. Does it really matter if they lived in, quote, a normal life? That's a great question.
Because I think so many people think, oh, that was deserving.

Speaker 4 Oh, that was like part of their

Speaker 4 social like group of people. And they don't question sometimes that it happens to everyone.
So my mom's stalker, I honestly, I feel like there was in a time that I don't really remember him.

Speaker 4 He was in our life to a certain degree. Like I remember my

Speaker 4 people telling me afterwards that my mom's stalker

Speaker 4 at one point, because it is a Métis community they are mostly Catholic communities and so we were raised Catholic in this community and my father was as well and that my parents had had the priest over even with him one time to try to help him on like the straight and narrow

Speaker 4 I know that the media also coined him the town bully

Speaker 4 because of how he was within the community. I know a lot of people were scared of him.

Speaker 2 Now, what was he like? Was he, you say get him on the straight and narrow. Was he a drinker? Was he a drug user? You say bully.

Speaker 4 What he was just kind of. He was, he was a drinker.
He was definitely an alcoholic. He was violent.

Speaker 4 A lot of he had other prior convictions, and I believe that most of them were all from drinking and driving. There were DUIs.
Drugs, I've only heard.

Speaker 4 I don't know for sure like what it was that he was he was using drugs wise. He'd come over.
I remember one instance I was outside.

Speaker 4 It was the summertime and my dad was working on our deck actually and he had come over

Speaker 4 and he was just standing outside and drinking or sorry not drinking smoking and my dad was building the deck and I just kind of remember him there. I don't actually have any memories of him.

Speaker 4 inside my home. Like even that dinner that was mentioned, I don't recall that dinner of him with the priest, like having him in our house.
He was there.

Speaker 4 That's it's not to say that he wasn't but I also remember another time um he had given me

Speaker 4 I want to say it was for my birthday so it makes me think that this had happened

Speaker 4 right before

Speaker 4 the year before all of this went down that he had given me a package of temporary tattoos and I had found them at some point and I must have found them

Speaker 4 after he had threatened my mom's life because I found them and I wanted to put them on and I remember walking out and asking her if I could put it on and her her face was just in shock she was like where did you get those and I was like from your closet because I remember I was like in her closet you know my mama had all she was like the fashion one so I like all her shoes her high heels and everything and And she was like, no, give me those.

Speaker 4 And she took them away. And I remember like that feeling of like, oh, I did something wrong, but not understanding it either.
And it's wild because the whole tattoo thing trickled into

Speaker 4 my two youngest. I don't know, or my two oldest.
I don't know if you could ever find a temporary tattoo on them. Really? Oh, when they were younger.

Speaker 4 No. And I realized that only after when I started, you know, really thinking about my family's story.
My youngest, however, he is

Speaker 4 covered constantly.

Speaker 4 But it's funny how those things.

Speaker 2 They just have a way of sticking.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and it might not be related, but I mean, who knows with trauma, right?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 your mother stalker was a family friend, a childhood friend of your father's, correct?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 2 But not a close enough family friend that you would ever say, he was like an uncle to us or he was close. He was just around.
It was a tight-knit community.

Speaker 4 Came to dinner every now and then, but no core memories or big things that stand out i don't like i wouldn't even say he came to dinner like that's how little and yeah and i would say that i tried to use the term loosely with him being friends with my dad because i wouldn't say that he was friends with him but it's one of those community things that i don't know maybe one person thought he was friends with him at one point right but just so small and tight-knit that of course you're going to be friendly and know everybody.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So at what point, to your knowledge, did things then start transitioning? He, of course, was an alcoholic, as you're saying.

Speaker 2 He was a bit of a bully in the town and, you know, had to get back on the straight and arrow.

Speaker 2 But when was the behavior shift where it went from him being friendly to people to then becoming fixated on your mother?

Speaker 4 Right. So he had, before he even became fixated on my mother,

Speaker 4 I know that there was a case where he had held a woman hostage. Yeah.
Wait, what?

Speaker 2 And he wasn't ever arrested or held in jail or

Speaker 2 tell me about that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think he was, I believe, for that case, he was arrested.

Speaker 4 And then they, the RCMP, there is a case that they had fought bail in 1990 for him, saying that he was a danger to the community if he was released out on bail.

Speaker 4 And I believe that that is when he had held the woman hostage, but that news article doesn't mention that he had held a woman hostage in that one. So I don't know what the case was specifically.

Speaker 4 And so it was now fast forward to 1992.

Speaker 4 And this is for my memory of when things started to shift was I'm going to assume that before that he had done things to make my mom feel uncomfortable to put up the boundary she did this day because we, and I remember this, we got ready.

Speaker 4 It was just my dad, my mom and I, and we were heading to Winnipeg. My mom worked at a hospital in Winnipeg and it was one of the physician's birthdays who she was friends with.

Speaker 4 So the three of us were going to this birthday party. I got really sick in the car and they had to turn the car around.
And then I stayed home with my dad.

Speaker 4 I remember my dad saying, like, no, no, you go to Winnipeg and I'll stay home with Fallon. And so we stayed at home.

Speaker 4 And then it must have been the very next day because it coincides, my mom's doctor and this physician had the same birthday. And so then the next day he called and said, you know, where were you?

Speaker 4 And he must have got when that my parents and I or whatever, my mom at least were going to this party. And he got upset about it.
And he said, where's my birthday cake?

Speaker 4 And my mom said, I threw it in the garbage. I have to go.
Our community had a kids' bingo that night.

Speaker 4 And she's like, I have to go. We have the kids' bingo.
And I threw it in the garbage and hung up the phone.

Speaker 4 And then he called back and and she answered and he that was when he told my mom that she wouldn't live to see her next birthday and that he wouldn't live to see his.

Speaker 4 My mom never made a cake. Like that wasn't, it was a

Speaker 4 way of like getting rid of it. I need to get you off the phone.
Yeah. Like I threw it in the garbage.
I have to go.

Speaker 2 Now, what had been happening up until this catalyst of events of the birthday?

Speaker 2 Are you familiar or do you know looking back or have you heard any information about what that dynamic was like? Had he been just fixated on her?

Speaker 2 Was there altercations with your dad trying to be like, hey, you need to back off? Like, and I know your mom was setting boundaries. What did that look like?

Speaker 4 Nothing. Like, they were, they were just, you know, they were a part of the community.
And I don't know if it just started for him that it was getting a little more.

Speaker 4 Nothing that I know of that, you know, he was touching or and that my dad had to like step in. It was never anything like that.
It literally felt like it went from that extreme right away.

Speaker 2 Just so he felt like entitled to your mom's attention and affection.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and that, and that was it for him. He was offended by what she said and he

Speaker 4 he made the threat. And then right away, that's when my mom called the RCMP because she was taking it quite seriously, especially someone like that.
And who knows?

Speaker 4 Like I think back, maybe she knew what had happened with that other woman being held hostage, or maybe there were other things that kind of had led up to it that made her feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 So she called the RCMP.

Speaker 4 My dad brought us to the hall still. So me and my younger brother went to that bingo, but my mom had called the RCMP.
And I'm, I'm, this is me assuming that she stayed at home

Speaker 4 because my dad made a phone call while we were at the hall and he couldn't have called the house that you would assume because they didn't have a phone line.

Speaker 4 So what had happened was my dad brought my brother and I to the town hall. He was there with me.

Speaker 4 And then he shifted us over in the middle of the bingo and put us with Ken and Debbie Bowden. And so those are my parents' best friends.
That's my best friend's parents. And so we sat with them.

Speaker 4 And I remember, like, just my memory is that he got us to move really quickly while the bingo was going on. And everyone was there, right? From the community.

Speaker 4 And so we then, my dad didn't say like, you know, you're going to stay with them, okay? So that my dad went and he called my mom.

Speaker 4 And I had always thought when I was younger that my mom had went straight over to my aunt's house that night, but she couldn't have because that aunt didn't have a

Speaker 4 house line. So she had to have stayed there in order for my dad to have called.
And he called to say he's here.

Speaker 2 He was at bingo.

Speaker 4 He went to the bingo later to find out that he had actually entered the bingo with a.22 caliber sought-off rifle under his coat.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 So he was, he was serious, like immediately serious.

Speaker 4 So that's when my mom then went over to my aunt's house because that's where the RCMP had taken her statement based off of my memory of what had followed after that. Eventually.

Speaker 4 I go to my aunt's house while these statements are being taken, but it's not unusual in a tiny community like that.

Speaker 4 I didn't feel fear because the it's unusual obviously to call the rcmp but it's not unusual to see them because one day they're community members and the next they're not you know what i mean so i wasn't scared by it no adults made me feel anything to be worried about that yeah you're young i would imagine they're protecting you and what you're exposed to and a nine-year-old isn't going to know something is dangerous or sketchy or that something bad is happening unless they're made aware of that.

Speaker 2 And I would imagine they weren't making you aware of that, of course.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was never like a fear for us. Maybe my older brother, obviously he would have probably known the details.
I think if, God forbid, something like that happened,

Speaker 4 I would think that my older child would be aware of what was happening, but who knows, right?

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 then I don't like, I have no memories of anything kind of afterwards. It's more all just

Speaker 4 court documents for the next month because I'm not made aware of it as a nine-year-old. And so what happened was he was arrested that night and he was brought before a judge.

Speaker 4 Now what happened was the judge failed to with the threat of life

Speaker 4 he failed to order a seizure of any weapons

Speaker 4 and those officers never told the judge that my mom and dad's initial worry was that he had a.22 caliber rifle. They They were aware of this.
Like, like I said, it's a hunting community.

Speaker 4 You just know, like, my dad would have known what kind of weapons he would have had, right? Like, just like my dad's best friend would know what my dad has because it's like.

Speaker 2 And why weren't the weapons seized? Was it because it's a hunting community and it wasn't a threat? Like, they just did not.

Speaker 4 They didn't even mention it when he went before the judge that night. And there's, there's, again, it's like human error is like a lot of stuff was kind of blamed on human error.

Speaker 4 So those RCMP officers never did anything about it. He didn't have a seizure of weapons.
He didn't have a search of his home.

Speaker 4 And he was released on bail, even though the same RCMP, you know, dispatch or whatever station had fought bail in 1990, saying he was a danger to the community.

Speaker 2 But because he was never formally charged with that or convicted, they probably couldn't use that to then further bolster this case, I I would imagine. Right.
And just for all of our U.S.

Speaker 2 listeners, RCMP, and you might know more about this, but from my preliminary research, it's basically your federal government that also does sometimes act locally. So for us, it would be like our FBI.

Speaker 2 However, they occasionally will act locally as well because it's a small town.

Speaker 4 So that's how it works with the U.S.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they have their, so my community doesn't have its own policing, they have the RCMP, where Winnipeg, I believe, believe, now has Winnipeg police, but they also have RCMP.

Speaker 4 All little rural communities have RCMP, especially westward and I believe eastward of Ontario, but then Ontario, we have OPP, so that's our provincial police, plus our like local cities and community policing.

Speaker 4 Okay. And

Speaker 4 also the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were put into place to control Indigenous people. That was like the very premise of this policing ever existing in the first place.

Speaker 4 So now it's, I mean, it's still there and it does, you know, like I said, provincial and then community policing as well. So

Speaker 2 he's released on bail.

Speaker 2 They don't seize his weapons and he's basically effectively just out to continue to wreak havoc and stalk whomever he wants, make threats and not having any sort of reprimand to that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And it wasn't technically a restraining order. I forget what

Speaker 4 the wording is, but there was

Speaker 4 something like a restraining order put into place.

Speaker 2 A piece of paper saying, stay back, stay away, which we know those are not always the most useful tool.

Speaker 2 It's great to have it documented, but the only reason it's good to have it documented is for when something severe happens. It doesn't prevent the something severe from ever happening.

Speaker 4 Yeah, like my grandma, my mom's mom has always said a piece of paper is not going to protect you.

Speaker 2 No, of course not. Of course not.

Speaker 2 You would hope that law enforcement would be the ones to step in and take those precautionary measures, such as seizing the weapons, doing something, keeping him locked up.

Speaker 2 And I would imagine, too, even if there was a restraining order in place or whatever that was, you were in such a small community. So how does somebody even abide by that?

Speaker 2 Because he lived very close to you as well, correct?

Speaker 4 Yeah. And that's like a point, a great point, because I make that all the time with people is you think of such a small community.

Speaker 4 If you just went a little down my street, especially even I think to this day, because it hasn't built up that much, there's new homes and everything, but you could stand on my street and you could look across.

Speaker 4 There would be one street in between us, and you could see where he lived.

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, so there's just by living proximity alone, he'd be violating whatever restraining order was in place.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and there was no restraining order put on to stay away from my father, and there was no restraining order put on us kids either

Speaker 4 because the judge said like he didn't threaten uh us kids and the judge didn't feel that we were in any kind of danger from him at all um so like there's parts of that i understand but then at the same time i don't

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Speaker 4 So then he's released out on bail and he's, you know, free to be in our community.

Speaker 4 And because it is such a small community, community members can, like, they remembered him saying he was going to kill her. He couldn't live without her.
He was going to kill my dad.

Speaker 4 He didn't want to go on if he couldn't be with my mom. Like, it was this whole thing.

Speaker 2 And what was the community saying to that? I mean, that would be, I would imagine, I would be fearful if I ever heard somebody say that.

Speaker 2 And I would, of course, go to your mother or to your father and warn them. But again, I understand that even if you go to the police with that, it's idle threats.

Speaker 2 It's nothing that is tangible to arrest somebody. But what was the community's response to that?

Speaker 4 Well, I think a lot of people were scared from what I have read, like through news articles, is that people were kind of like, what were we supposed to do when we were like, I'm scared of him

Speaker 4 myself, right?

Speaker 4 And I didn't know this about my dad because, you know, I, it was been my story for so long that I knew certain parts.

Speaker 4 I knew the way it, you know, had kind of all, you know, A to Z kind of happened, but there was parts I didn't know in between and not until an adult, you start to reflect on it.

Speaker 4 And I remember asking my dad's friend to say, like, how did my, how was my dad? Like, did he think this was going to happen? And he said he remembered my dad being genuinely scared.

Speaker 4 He's like, I could see it in his face. He was scared that he was going to go through with what he had been threatening.

Speaker 4 And I mean, it shows my parents at that point had started to kind of get their affairs in order. My mom had life insurance money through her work and they were, you know, starting to sort that out.

Speaker 4 At some point in December of 1992, my parents had heard, I don't know from who,

Speaker 4 that they,

Speaker 4 he had a revolver handgun.

Speaker 4 Forgive me, I'm not very, I don't know what, but I just know

Speaker 4 wrote the RCMP. And this is after he's on bail.

Speaker 2 And so she's hearing he still has a weapon. Okay, so she responds to the RS or RCMP.
She writes them.

Speaker 4 She writes them a letter and she tells them that she's concerned that he has a handgun and

Speaker 4 nothing is ever done with the letter. And a lot of people have asked me, like, why do you think your mom wrote a letter? I don't know.

Speaker 4 Was it because it was the 90s and you like picking up and calling? Did she try to pick up and call? And no one, like, we would never know that now. Um,

Speaker 4 and, or was she wanting it to have it in writing?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it could just be she wanted to add it to the file to make the case even stronger for whatever was going to hopefully not, but come to fruition.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and nothing happened. And then, somewhere along the way, my parents' case lands on the desk of a crown attorney for family.
He is not related. Yeah, this is not a family law.

Speaker 4 No idea. And as far as I know from documents that I saw, that was again, it was a human error, and that the crown got the case and then just moved forward with it.

Speaker 4 That there was no rhyme or reason as to why.

Speaker 4 Maybe there was, but nothing that I've seen for documents or that I can make sense of at least anyway.

Speaker 4 So he continued on. And the next steps were mediation.
And mediation was not

Speaker 4 something that my parents were willing to do.

Speaker 2 And what would the goal of mediation even be in that moment? Of like, oh, let's all come together and agree that he's going to stop stalking her and go on his merry way.

Speaker 4 Right. Because you come together

Speaker 4 to resolve it. Find a resolution.
Yeah. The issue.
And so I just, I never understood. And it was one of those things, again, human error that it happened that way.

Speaker 4 And so what happened at one point was there was a clerk that was in a temp position that had to mail out documents. What documents? I don't know.
I'd love to know.

Speaker 4 And she accidentally mailed my mother,

Speaker 4 her stalker's documents,

Speaker 4 and my mother's stalker got my mom's. What specific documents? I don't know, but I just know that they received something that the other shouldn't have.
And then that was at the beginning of January.

Speaker 4 So now we're in January 1993 and we're going around the 26th of January they're supposed to have a mediation and my mom had decided

Speaker 4 earlier that week there was a woman in Winnipeg that was shot and killed outside of the Misocordia hospital and that's where my mom worked and my mom's first instincts were to run outside and see the woman's color of her hair.

Speaker 4 And my grandma is the one who had told me this because obviously my mom was confiding in my grandma and telling her these things.

Speaker 4 And the fact that that was her instinct because she thought her stalker mistaken this woman.

Speaker 2 Oh, so she wanted to see, did this woman look like her? Was he there to kill her?

Speaker 4 Yeah, but in fact, it was this woman's stalker. And earlier that same week, another woman was killed by her stalker in Manitoba.

Speaker 4 There was, and again, I'm not like a legal expert, but there were laws that were in place, but not enacted at that time to help protect women. And so I do know that after that,

Speaker 4 that they did move forward with that, whether that has saved men. Well, I would hope so.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it sounds like stalking was a clear problem if two people were killed in the same week.

Speaker 4 Right. Three.
Through wool. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 now my mom was terrified. And she, that was enough for her to say, no, I'm not going to this mediation.
For years, I didn't know why. I've told people, I don't know why.

Speaker 4 I think it was maybe she was scared. She thought, like, what was the point? My grandmother, the same thing, was kind of always saying, like, she always thought, like, what was the point?

Speaker 4 That was the reasoning was she had seen what had happened and was like, there's no point to a mediation. They've failed at them so many times up to that point.

Speaker 4 So it was like, maybe if I don't go, they can't. If she didn't go to the mediation, then she could proceed with criminal charges.

Speaker 4 And that was her intention.

Speaker 4 But he was released from jail on the 26th.

Speaker 2 So why was he back in jail?

Speaker 4 Because he was not. Or sorry, not jail.
I think, you know, when you go to court and then you have to stand before a judge, so you're not like arrested, but then you're released again.

Speaker 4 So he was released again after because no one came to the mediation.

Speaker 4 And he was released. He, this is where I talk about the drugs because I know that he was taking prescription drugs that day

Speaker 4 based off of people

Speaker 4 testifying that he did, that he was taking,

Speaker 4 I don't, I don't even know what, but he was taking painkillers and then he was drinking in very cliche. He had drank a bottle of sherry.
My mom's name was Sherry.

Speaker 4 And he drank a bottle of sherry. And

Speaker 4 then it was just after midnight. So from the 26th to the 27th, my older brother was waiting for a friend.
They had exams. They were 17.

Speaker 4 They had exams and you know that time between you don't have an exam. So it's like free time, right? I have two older teenagers.

Speaker 4 I've been through that where it's like they don't have, they have a couple days where they get to just hang out and hang out with their friends. We were all sleeping.

Speaker 4 including my parents and my brother was waiting for his friend to come over and he heard a knock at the door and so he opened up the door

Speaker 4 and on the other side of the door was my mom's stalker and And he had the same.22-caliber rifle that my parents had told the police about.

Speaker 4 And he held it to my brother's stomach and told him not to scream or say anything.

Speaker 2 And your brother was only 17.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And then he took my brother into the basement

Speaker 4 and he tied him up.

Speaker 4 And he verbally tortured him with, you know, threats and telling my brother what he was going to do to my parents.

Speaker 4 And at one point, he had my brother write him a suicide letter like a will so to speak to say you know that he was sorry to his family for what he had done and that he couldn't go on anymore I've actually never seen the letter the note was written on from your brother on behalf of the stalker yes okay yeah so he had my brother write that I think it goes to show you the state of the mind that he was into

Speaker 4 that he was so confident to take someone into the basement yet what if my father or mother heard him in the basement uh and they were sleeping the whole time you know so um i don't think someone that was thinking straight would

Speaker 4 be so confidently you know like for hours they were in the basement until just before 2 30 in the morning he had my brother down there for that just the two of them just the two all while you all were still asleep upstairs yeah and how old were your parents when this was happening so my my father was was just shy of 38 and my mom was just shy of 37.

Speaker 4 So 36 and 37.

Speaker 4 And so they were upstairs sleeping. I was in my room and eventually he told my brother, I'm going to go upstairs and do the deed.

Speaker 4 And he left my brother in the basement and my brother heard

Speaker 4 some yelling in French. And then my father was shot immediately.

Speaker 4 And he heard my mom scream he heard a gunshot go off and that's when my brother decided he needed to get out and go get help somehow miraculously he was able to untie himself thank god that he was able to do all of that and he climbed out of his bedroom window which was in the basement uh he could have went up the stairs and out

Speaker 4 but

Speaker 4 Again, it was probably one of those, like, if I go up that door, then he'll know I'm going out that door.

Speaker 2 Right, I would imagine it's like you want to get out out as sneakily as you possibly can.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so he snuck out and then he did make a stop at my aunt's house and I had heard different things over the years that he had stopped at my aunt's house to get boots because he didn't have any and it was January in Manitoba and like Manitoba just so people know it's it's colder than you know Church Hill sometimes or the same temperature which is far north Manitoba.

Speaker 4 It's freezing there. I just got back from there.
It's like feels like it's I don't know if Americans will know, but it is as cold as feels like minus 48, sometimes 40.

Speaker 2 But is that Celsius or Fahrenheit? I need the math.

Speaker 4 So someone told me that they were both the same for minuses. So I don't know.
Okay. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 2 But freezing nonetheless. You definitely wouldn't want to be like walking around without boots.

Speaker 4 Freezing. So my brother, I had heard that my brother had stopped and got boots and then went straight to Ken and Debbie's house.

Speaker 2 And those are the same friends from bingo. Yes, the best friends of of your parents.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and then my best friend as well.

Speaker 2 And how close did they live to your house?

Speaker 4 Very close. Like you could, from my bedroom window, you could see their home.
So close enough. And then my aunt was just over as well.
This is rural. So, you know, it's a lot larger yards,

Speaker 4 but close enough, right?

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 he then went to their house and the first 911 call went in. Well, I will say it's not 911 at that time.
It It was a seven-digit number because it was, you know, the 90s and it was a small community.

Speaker 4 So they didn't have 911 out in these communities.

Speaker 4 And so the first call, emergency call, went in, and my brother told them that she was concerned that

Speaker 4 he had entered our home, my mother's stalker, and that he heard a gun shot off and that my parents had been in court with them. My brother's words were obviously jumbled in the call.

Speaker 4 Like he just said, we're in court with them right now or with him right now

Speaker 4 and that he had a gun and that he was inside with my mom and my dad and his two siblings and at the time my younger brother had just turned six and I had turned nine at that point and my older brother like I said he was 17 so we're all in the home waiting for this help I don't even know like really at that point so when the gunshot went off that's what woke me up out of bed And that was at approximately 2.30 a.m.

Speaker 4 Yes. And when I woke up, I, my, my little brother's over here

Speaker 4 in the hallway, standing in front of his bedroom door. And my parents' door is like right next door to his and mine was here.
So I'd come out and I could see him crying.

Speaker 4 And so I was like, I didn't know what was going on. And so I tried to push my parents' door open, but it did, it did like, there was resistance.
So it did open.

Speaker 4 It wasn't like shutting but yeah something against the door yeah and so I imagine that was him on the other side of the door and so I try to push and I can't get open like I can't get it open and he's screaming so like I think that is what set off my fight or flight and so I went running down the hallway and I picked up the phone to call the emergency number but my brain said call 911 and then it was the dark so I was dialing zero

Speaker 4 one one instead of 911

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 and then I could just see a shadow coming running towards me and I didn't know who it was but I my brain just said like run and so I dropped the phone and I went around the corner and I ran downstairs and I hid in the basement and at that point it was my mom's doctor who had run towards me

Speaker 4 And eventually they come downstairs. It feels like it took them forever to come downstairs long enough that I was standing behind.
I didn't do a good job of hiding.

Speaker 4 I was standing behind my brother's bedroom door and he had

Speaker 4 a dresser with a mirror on it. And I'm just looking at myself in the mirror thinking,

Speaker 4 what is happening? What is happening? Like I couldn't, I couldn't even think of what was happening because, I mean, I had never. ever been exposed to any kind of violence.

Speaker 2 No, when you're nine years old, how could you even start to calibrate in your mind what the situation is and what's going on? And where was your younger brother at this point?

Speaker 4 Upstairs still. Okay.
And so they come down eventually and I could hear him like, find her, find her, find out where she is, find her, where she is.

Speaker 4 Then he started getting mad and I could hear him say, where is he?

Speaker 4 And I'm sure he was like swearing and everything else, but I don't remember because now he realizes my brother isn't in the basement either. And he is like.
livid.

Speaker 4 And so eventually my, it was my younger brother who found me. And I remember him pulling on my arm and I'm like, I'm like, no, please, no, no, no, no, don't, don't say I'm here.
Don't say I'm here.

Speaker 4 And he's pulling me out. And then eventually I must go or they must hear, obviously, us saying these things.
And he pulls me out. And now we're at the bottom of the stairs.
And he's losing his mind.

Speaker 4 And I remember he tells my mom, you better find him. If you don't find him,

Speaker 4 you're going to have to pick which

Speaker 4 one I kill between me and my younger brother. And I remember being like, I'll look for him.
I'll look for him because I'm like, I don't want to die.

Speaker 4 Like he's threatening if he can't find my brother, he's going to kill me or my brother. And my mom's like screaming at this point.

Speaker 4 Like she's not going to pick who he's going to kill between the two of us.

Speaker 4 I remember looking behind the couch and when I looked behind the couch, he followed me to look behind the couch because it was like on one of them was like on an angle.

Speaker 4 And so he looked behind it with me because he probably didn't trust because I was like, no, he's not back there.

Speaker 4 And he didn't trust me. So he, he did, he looked.
And then at one point, I walked into the storage room and I like kind of looked. And I think he kind of had given up at that point.

Speaker 2 How long do you think? And I would imagine. Time, of course, felt like it stood still and took a lot longer.
How long do you think you were actively looking?

Speaker 4 Oh, maybe 10 minutes. Like if that, like, if anything, it took that long because he was looking, he would follow and look behind us.

Speaker 2 And where was your mother during this?

Speaker 4 with us the whole time so you were all just kind of moving from area to area before

Speaker 4 just like searching and uh

Speaker 4 so then eventually he's like he's getting mad and so that's when he whatever he's doing i he must have been in like kind of in the storage room like it was it was open because i'm just thinking where was he enough time that it gave my mom to whisper to me stay downstairs and call for help call the police and she whispered it to me and she said she loved me.

Speaker 4 And then she was like, let's go upstairs to him. And she was trying to separate him from us at that point.

Speaker 4 I don't know what she said to get him to go upstairs, but he agreed to it and that we could stay downstairs.

Speaker 4 And so I went to pick up the phone and it had been ripped out of the wall. And I thought.
if I plugged it in, I would get electrocuted.

Speaker 4 So I didn't put it in because at that point, I mean, I had never had to plug a phone into the wall. So I just left it and we stayed down there.

Speaker 4 And eventually I was on my knees and my younger brother was lying on the bed. And so, like, my hands were up like this on my brother's bed with my legs on the floor.
And I just like looked at him.

Speaker 4 And I remember it was so cold in the room. And that's because the window was open.
It was freezing. Before your brother had left.
Yeah, it was freezing down there.

Speaker 4 So he must have realized that my brother had escaped.

Speaker 4 And my mom took him upstairs or he did. They both went upstairs and we stayed down there and then we fell asleep.

Speaker 4 This was probably around 3.30 now at this point that they finally left us to go upstairs.

Speaker 2 And how many calls at this point have been put in? There was the one from your brother. Yep.
Then

Speaker 4 my attempt.

Speaker 4 And then my brother.

Speaker 4 They called again. They called at 3.30 and they asked, where are you?

Speaker 4 So the initial call, I'll go back to that at 2.30.

Speaker 4 What happened and why there's such a big gap is that at 2.30, when that initial call went in, the way the like chain of command goes, so the dispatcher gets the call and then they

Speaker 4 relay the call to these officers, the two officers that are on duty. But at the time, the Headingley Police Department, where this, where like they patrol our community, they closed at 2.30.

Speaker 4 So that call, those officers were already in Winnipeg. So it closed, I believed to closed from 2.30.

Speaker 4 I don't know if it's 6.30 or 8.30, but either way, it's closed at that time. And there is another community that's close by.
It's called Portage La Prairie.

Speaker 4 It was actually closer than Headingley, a little bit by a little bit, I believe. And but they don't patrol our community, only Headingley police do.

Speaker 4 And so those officers receive all the information and then they have to call the constable on duty at his home because he's sleeping. So they call the constable to tell him what is happening.

Speaker 4 And they say, by name, my mom's doctor, because they know him. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And they tell him that he has entered the Paul residence, that a gunshot had gone off,

Speaker 4 and that there was two, like that, who was in the house

Speaker 4 in the house, and that the brother had called for

Speaker 4 help.

Speaker 2 And this is at 2:30.

Speaker 4 Yes. And that constable, his name is Constable Dunford.
He said,

Speaker 4 go out to the Paul residence and see if you can talk to him. Get him to come out, secure the area, and then call me when you get there.

Speaker 4 And then he hung up the phone, and he was a hostage negotiator for that police station.

Speaker 4 And instead of calling his superiors or sending backup,

Speaker 4 he hung up the phone and he then accidentally fell back asleep. So So

Speaker 4 he falls asleep and at 3.30, my brother calls again and says, like, they're like, where are you? Why is it taking so long?

Speaker 4 And my brother also says why a 17 year old is thinking of these things, but he said, don't come down the road with your lights on because he'll see you coming.

Speaker 4 Do not come down. Yeah, you can impulsively do something.
Right. And so he says that.
And they arrive just shortly after that call.

Speaker 4 I don't know if anything was said about like what their timeout was, but they do arrive after 3.30 in our community.

Speaker 2 So I guess my question is, where were the people that the constable had said go out there, check on things, try to lure him out of the house and talk him down, and then let me know, like, what were they doing for the past hour?

Speaker 4 Right. So they were making their way from there, because they live in Winnipeg, so it's like, you know, it's January, so let's just say it's 45 minutes to an hour.

Speaker 2 Oh, so they were in, they were en route, but they hadn't arrived.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And I don't know if they had to stop at the station first before they could come out to our community.
What that all I don't know if any of that is in any kind of documents. But

Speaker 4 so, yeah, so they come out to our community. They do make contact with my mom.
And at this point, so they call and my mom talks to someone and they say, like, okay, where is he? Are you hurt?

Speaker 4 And she says, I don't know.

Speaker 4 Is he shot? Or is your husband okay? I don't know. Like, she's obviously not in a clear mind, but also answering one-sided kind of questions.
So, not to alert him.

Speaker 4 And again, this goes to show you the state that he was in because who would be calling our house at 3:30 in the morning?

Speaker 2 For him to just allow her to be on this phone call, yeah.

Speaker 4 Like, she picked it up and let her talk.

Speaker 4 And you could tell she was rushing off on the um when she's talking because she's like, Okay, I have to go now. I have to go call call me back in the morning.

Speaker 4 And I think even the person on the other line was a little um taken back by it, just by I have a bit of the transcript. And she was like, and they're like, What do you, what do you mean?

Speaker 4 Or something like that.

Speaker 2 Then she was speaking in code. She didn't want him to know that she was trying to get help.
So she's like, That's fine. We'll talk in the morning, of course.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but it took them back so much. Again, like, how are you not?

Speaker 2 How are you not trained for this?

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly. And so she's says, okay.
And the last things they say, Sherry, help is on the way. And And then she said at 3:30.
Yep, call me back in the morning. And she hangs up the phone.

Speaker 4 So my mom thinks that now there's help. Like, obviously someone was talking.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 this all happens and we're downstairs at that point.

Speaker 4 It said that my mom was flicking the lights on and off in my bedroom to try to signal for help outside and that they could see it, that the lights were being flicked on and off.

Speaker 4 And we're in the basement at this whole time and then at 5 30 um we wake up and at the time I you know I didn't know what had woken me up and it's only to assume that he had taken his first shot at my mom and so he shot her in the arm but this is now two hours later two hours later from when they say Sherry help is on the way yeah and there's still no help there no so it's two hours after that three hours in total since the first phone call went out from your brother yes and my brother still has not been seen by a police officer to take his statement until 5.30.

Speaker 4 That is when they go over to,

Speaker 4 I don't know if they go to the Bowdoins or where at that point, if they had evacuated the area yet. I don't believe it was evacuated.

Speaker 4 I think the chain of commands was then they took my brother to finally take his statement. And only, I believe it was at six that they started to secure the area around our home.

Speaker 4 So people were evacuated out that lived near us.

Speaker 2 Hold on. I want to just make sure I'm understanding this right.
Five hours after he's entered the home now, their priority is evacuating the streets nearby before even making entry into your home.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 4 And they start to set up a command post. Now, this officer who fell back to sleep, they eventually start making up a command post.
They don't even make it in our community.

Speaker 4 And there's no rhyme or reason as to why they say it's because the other community had the fire station so that they could set that up. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 You're not sending anyone anyway.

Speaker 4 Right. And as far as I know, the command station wasn't now again, this is from a community member that it actually wasn't even set up in the police station, that it was set up in a shop.

Speaker 4 Someone that I know that their family's shop. It was set up there.
And my brother, when he got there, he witnessed them.

Speaker 4 And this might sound like people might think like oh like what is that important it just goes to show you the lack of urgency he was watching them draw a map of the house with a ruler and like

Speaker 4 it literally was our our bedrooms what a living room dining room kitchen like it wasn't it's not like we had this like elaborate home it was everyone had and if you're seeing lights going off and on in a room you know where they are like you know where the basement is make entry there wow yeah and so I'm awoken by that sound and I run up the stairs and I run down the hallway again to go into my bedroom because I can hear that the sound, like the arguing and that's coming from my bedroom.

Speaker 4 My brother's with me the whole time. And so I go to push the door open and I can't.
And I hear my mom say, Why do you have to shoot me? You already shot me in what I think she says is the I.

Speaker 4 And I remember thinking, oh my God, I need, like, I need to get my mom help now.

Speaker 4 And so I turn and I go into her bedroom and I pick up the phone and I call 911 and I'm like, I need an ambulance for three people because I don't know where my brother is at this point.

Speaker 4 Or I know, I think I call 911 first and I just say that I need help. And at some point I call and the 911 dispatcher hangs up on me or the emergency number.

Speaker 2 And this is still around 6, 6.30.

Speaker 4 Yeah, this isn't 6.30. 6.
Okay. Yeah.
So, um, and then I turn and I look and I see my dad lying in bed. I don't see him.

Speaker 4 I just see like the blanket is over him and I'm like trying to wake him up and I'm like dad like what like I remember feeling so like I can feel it in my body so relieved. He is here.

Speaker 4 Why isn't he waking up and helping us? And I'm just shaking him

Speaker 4 and my younger brother comes around and I can tell by my younger brother's reaction that something was wrong with my dad because he started to cry and scream and that was enough for me to back off and not like i never even looked at my dad any further than what i had at that point and so i just backed off and at the same time it kind of like in my memory is all happening at the same time and then i'm sitting on the bed and i hear noise and then my mom falls to the ground because the bedroom door is open so I can see her basically like from her waist up and so so she's lying on the floor, and she just looks like she's sleeping there.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I hear a really loud noise, and I think it's a shelf that's knocked over. I had a shelf with like, you know, all my stuff as a nine-year-old on it.
And I think, oh my God, he's mad.

Speaker 4 He's mad at my mom right now.

Speaker 4 So he's knocking things over. So I remember thinking, like, we have to be so quiet.
I was just frozen on my parents' bed. And you were on top top of the bed at this point.
I was on top of the bed.

Speaker 4 This was 6.30. And then I eventually, I feel like I must have stayed frozen on that bed for half an hour because at 7 a.m.

Speaker 4 when my mom's alarm goes off, because she should have been waking us up at that point for school. And so when the alarm goes off, I was on the bed and I hadn't yet got off the bed to hide.

Speaker 4 And so I turn it off because I think, oh my God, he's going to be so mad. He's going to be so mad at us for making noise.
I pick up the phone at some point and I call again and I ask for help.

Speaker 4 I asked for, that's when I asked for three ambulance because we can't find my brother. And I know something has happened to my dad.
And my mom is obviously hurt because she's lying there.

Speaker 2 But it's now four hours after the initial call.

Speaker 2 And nobody has made entry. No one has made it.
And how many calls have been made at this point? Several. Yes.

Speaker 4 And the noise was him turning the gun on himself. And so he killed himself in my childhood bedroom

Speaker 4 on the floor and I had no idea that he had done that otherwise I could have told people right at that point

Speaker 4 and so we waited eventually they try to make contact with the house but I had taken it off the hook because I was worried again that he was gonna come in if he heard the phone ringing he would like you're bringing him to me.

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 You're reminding him that we're in here and yeah, you're drawing attention to it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and then eventually I do put it back on and I must have put it back on at 8 a.m. So they're outside and they're waiting and there's no, I believe SWAT gets to our house only around 7.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 I keep going back to the timeline, I know, but I guess I'm just trying to really understand here and reconcile it. Are there no 24-7 emergency services nearby? Or is it that things are closed down?

Speaker 2 Like, how is it taking eight hours at this point from when he first made entry into your home for anyone to even come and try to enter?

Speaker 4 Right. I do believe that

Speaker 4 Portage La Prairie was 24 hours, but for whatever reason, from my understanding, is that that station would have had to initiated them coming out, like for backup, right?

Speaker 4 And because of that constable falling asleep, he wasn't making contact with other people to let them know. And there was no

Speaker 4 they fought to the end to say that they didn't think that we were in danger, that they didn't know the severity.

Speaker 2 When you have a nine-year-old calling multiple times saying we need ambulances, something's wrong with my dad. There's somebody in here with a gun.

Speaker 2 And when you have a 17-year-old also saying that, how do you, how does anybody equate that to children not being in danger, to anybody not being in danger? That makes absolutely no sense. Yeah.

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Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 2 okay, so eight o'clock SWAT arrives. Yeah.
You're still inside the home now with your mother, your father, your mother, Stalker, who are deceased at this point.

Speaker 4 Yes, so we are sitting inside for a total of two hours with three dead bodies waiting.

Speaker 4 Where we do hide on the other side, when I say hide, we just put ourselves on the other side of the bed so that if he happens to walk by the door, then you're going to see us maybe, you know.

Speaker 4 And so I put the phone back on the hook. I do talk to my grandpa at one point because he asked, like, where are you? Where's your dad? Is he okay?

Speaker 4 Like, he's asking me all kinds of questions, but I specifically remember him asking about my dad and where I am and where we are.

Speaker 4 And one officer then at that point asks, can we jump out of the window? Is there any way we can jump out of the window?

Speaker 4 And just, I was like, no, I'm like, my, I have a broken arm with a cast up to here. I had been, you know, it's Manitoba with all our snow and I was jumping on a snow hill and I had broken my arm.

Speaker 4 And so I was in a cast like this and I was stuck like that. And the bedroom, like a lot of those bungalows, like on the outside,

Speaker 4 the

Speaker 4 because of the basement and then the floor and then the windows are a little, they're up higher, not like in a living room, let's say where they're lower. And I was like, no, I can't, I can't get out.

Speaker 4 Meanwhile, they're trying to outside see if they could, um, like the idea of I don't know what they were trying to figure out outside to try to get in.

Speaker 4 It was told to me only in the last couple of years that the reason why the RCMP came in when they did was because my grandpa had had enough at that point. And they said that he like, he said enough.

Speaker 4 I'm gonna go in.

Speaker 4 I don't know what it was that made them come in at that point finally at 8:30, but they came in.

Speaker 4 And when they came in, they yelled out RCMP, you know, whatever they would have said with like weapons down or whatever.

Speaker 4 But then following it, they said, This one's gone, this one's gone, this one's gone. And I can hear it like it was yesterday.
And then, two seconds later,

Speaker 4 like

Speaker 4 I can see the police officers kind of split and two people come into the room. And then they throw blankets over me and my younger brother.
And they carry us out. And it's two of the EMTs.

Speaker 2 Did they keep you and your brother together or did they separate you?

Speaker 4 We're not carried out together, but we're carried out, like in the not in the same arms, but we go out of the house together.

Speaker 4 And I remember we got outside, and I can feel that it's cold coming up the blanket. And because I, my gown, like it was a nightgown that I had on, and I could hear a voice.

Speaker 4 And I remember like just shifting a little bit in the person's arms because, like, I wanted to get out of it. Because I thought, oh, that's Carson.
Carson's here. Like, he's okay.

Speaker 4 Cause I had no idea yet if my brother was okay or not. And I don't know if he's.

Speaker 4 if he had killed him somewhere or what what the problem was why my brother all of a sudden wasn't there and so we get into the ambulance and i remember looking looking at the AMTs and I'm being, I'm like asking, where's Carson?

Speaker 4 Is Carson okay? And they just said to me,

Speaker 4 we don't know where he is, but we're going to take you to the Ms. Accordia hospital.
We're going to bring you to your mom's work. All her friends want to see you there.

Speaker 4 They're going to bring you there and we're going to get you checked out. And, you know, they're distracting us.
Like we're kids.

Speaker 4 Like kids are, they are, I hate saying it, so resilient because they're distracting us with like, they had like a cool, I remember it would look like a pen, but it was actually a light, like a flashlight.

Speaker 4 And they're like, you know, looking us over to make sure that we're okay. And they're like, you can have this.
And then they had like a pen that was actually like a syringe.

Speaker 4 And so they're like, you can have this too. And so we're just like, now all of a sudden, you know, I'm asking,

Speaker 4 is my mom and dad okay? Are they coming?

Speaker 2 But like, nothing's so nothing has settled in that of what had taken place inside that house?

Speaker 4 Nothing at all. So we're brought into

Speaker 4 Winnipeg, and the two EMTs were childhood friends of mine's father's. Oh, wow.
And so, you know, we're brought into Winnipeg and we're brought to the hospital.

Speaker 4 They do examine us to make sure that he hadn't hurt us in any way.

Speaker 4 Up until my mom died, he had...

Speaker 4 he never sexually assaulted my mom, but he had

Speaker 4 abused her and hit her. And so I think my mom had, I'll just say a number of contusions all over her body come to find out with the autopsy

Speaker 4 and so they they wait now we have family that's coming in from Ontario my aunt my uncles and then we have my family obviously all my dad's sisters my dad had a very big family and a brother and they

Speaker 4 eventually put us all together and I remember when I finally saw my brother Carson like oh my god he's here he's up What was that moment like? Oh,

Speaker 4 the best. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Man, sorry. I can't imagine.
I'm very close with my siblings. And I think that's why when I heard your story, it just affected me so deeply because I can't imagine what you went through.

Speaker 4 And I'm so sorry that you had to experience that. Thank you.

Speaker 2 You guys were all just so failed as a family.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was like, just worried the whole time what had happened to him yeah like the excitement when

Speaker 4 to have just been carried out of the house but the excitement when i thought i heard his voice and it was an officer or i don't know who outside i thought oh my god that's him he's okay

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 so we're all put into this room and we're sitting there and

Speaker 4 My younger brother's sitting on my brother's lap.

Speaker 4 And I remember looking at my brother and I said, I'm not gonna cry. And his face was just

Speaker 4 disgust. I don't know, because he was like, what do you mean?

Speaker 4 And I don't know if it meant like, or if he was like, why are you saying that? Like,

Speaker 4 what do you mean? Like, what, you're not gonna cry. Maybe he didn't.

Speaker 4 He did not know at that point, right? Like, he did not know. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, and we weren't told that we were being put in that room to like for anything, but I just something told me to say it or like that that's what was gonna be told to us

Speaker 4 and he's like what do you mean and i said i'm not gonna cry and then they came in and they said that everyone had that both my parents had in fact died and the whole room

Speaker 4 just

Speaker 4 like it's like white noise it just was

Speaker 4 screams and cries.

Speaker 2 I'm so sorry.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so that was like

Speaker 4 all of my aunts were in that room except for one from my dad's side of the family because

Speaker 4 my one aunt was

Speaker 4 she was just a she's very she's she is very sensitive and so it just had to be handled in a different way to to tell her

Speaker 4 And she's like the sweetest soul, so she just had to be told separately. And she didn't know about anything of what was happening.

Speaker 4 They probably didn't want to tell her, obviously, until they knew what was happening. And then we were brought back to my community eventually.
And all I kept saying was, I want to see Sheena.

Speaker 4 I want to see Sheena. That was my best friend.
And eventually they

Speaker 4 brought her to me that night.

Speaker 4 And we just cried. Eventually, the RCMP wanted to take my statement.

Speaker 4 So we were, I was put into my one cousin's room. And I was like right behind the door.
It was so weird now that I think about like where I was put.

Speaker 4 And he takes my statement. And I get to the point where I say,

Speaker 4 my mom said, why do you have to shoot me? You already shot me in the eye. And he stops me and says, I'm going to stop you right there.
Your mom never said that.

Speaker 4 I said, yes, she did. No, you weren't there.

Speaker 2 I'm going to try to get you to come there and you weren't. So how are you going to tell me right now?

Speaker 4 And I remember looking at, I don't know if it was my aunt or my uncle, but there was an adult in the room with me. And I remember looking at them like,

Speaker 4 why,

Speaker 4 like, why is he saying this to me?

Speaker 4 And I was like, yes, she did. He said, well, your mom was never shot in the eye.
So I don't know why you would say that.

Speaker 4 And so I just left it at that. And it didn't dawn on me.
Well, I didn't actually know. My mom was actually shot in the shoulder the second time.
And and just based off of the type of weapon it is

Speaker 4 from what I've been told the bullet spirals and so it severed her spine and she died

Speaker 4 instantly.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 she was shot in the arm and so that made sense to me later when I found that out. I never knew my whole life until like adulthood that she was actually shot twice and

Speaker 4 then I thought, oh, that's why I heard heard arm, not I.

Speaker 4 But it like recently dawned on me that we have authority figures who

Speaker 4 don't believe us

Speaker 4 and make us believe

Speaker 4 what is,

Speaker 4 you know, whether it's true or what they want to the storyline to navigate.

Speaker 4 And I just thought, I remember, you know, sitting there one time and I, I must have been listening to someone speak or, you know, a podcast or something. And I just thought,

Speaker 4 wow,

Speaker 4 that's what he did to me like it was an authority questioning what I had lived through yeah and that happened make you doubt your own truth yeah and it happens so often so often so I was just like yeah that was like just a blow um for so long my whole life

Speaker 4 I believed that I was wrong I had heard it wrong the whole time like what had happened you don't even know what happened you know and so

Speaker 4 eventually we have to move to Ontario my mom's one I say eventually it happened pretty fast my my mom's doctor allowed my mom to write a letter that night and my mom in the letter stated that she wanted us kids to go to her sister in Ontario and then she also stated she wanted all the insurance money to be left for us as well

Speaker 4 and we had to move to Ontario unfortunately obviously my family my dad's side of the family was quite upset about that.

Speaker 4 But there wasn't really anyone that could take us on. Or, you know, I'm sure at that point, too, it was

Speaker 4 people do funny things with deaths. So it was probably a mix of like,

Speaker 4 do we fight like their family? Against family. Do we put the kids through this? You know, like, I don't, I don't know what.
any of those aunts and uncles thoughts were but so we had to move there

Speaker 4 and we lived with my aunt. I lived with my aunt for about a year with my brother, my younger brother.

Speaker 4 My older brother turned 18 a couple months after moving to Ontario, a few months after my parents' death. And so he aged out, you know, like they're not getting financial support for him anymore.

Speaker 4 And he also is 18, so he can live on his own if he wanted to.

Speaker 4 And so we lived in a tiny

Speaker 4 two-bedroom home. My brother and I shared it with my older cousin and

Speaker 4 her daughter. And

Speaker 4 we lived there for about a year. So I didn't like living at my aunt's house.

Speaker 4 My uncle reminded me a lot of my mom's doctor. He was an alcoholic and he would often sit outside at this shed and he would just drink.
and I hated it. I like, I didn't like it at all.

Speaker 4 It brought so much back for me.

Speaker 4 And I don't remember, like, that being the deciding factor, but eventually I do move in with my grandma. I never got to really ask my grandma, like, why did I move in with you?

Speaker 4 I remember I asked her once. I said something like, oh, so how come I did leave Aunt Bonnie's house? And she's like, oh, you didn't like Sid.

Speaker 4 And I was like, oh, okay. That was my uncle.
And I was like, okay.

Speaker 4 And then, you know, as time went on, I kind of realized more about it, like the depths of like watching his behavior and it being so close to my, my mom's docker.

Speaker 4 Even though it wasn't like I was around my mom's docker a lot, it just, as a kid, there's it's a trigger, right? And I didn't like it.

Speaker 4 My brother, though, had to stay there and I move in with my grandma. And she lived just around the corner.
My younger brother and I still went to the same elementary school and everything.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 yeah so I barely got to see my older brother though because he didn't live with us right and I mean I don't know I've been 18 too and

Speaker 4 you know my younger brother wasn't exactly my priority either to be around and so when I did get to see my older brother it was like

Speaker 4 it was always that same

Speaker 4 feeling

Speaker 4 when I first saw him at the hospital. It was that same feeling every time

Speaker 4 because it just like

Speaker 4 it was nice to have him around it's just comfort and safety and happiness yeah so when i got to see him i feel like i was like i was probably that really annoying overbearing little sister because i just wanted to be with him and i remember like

Speaker 4 hugging him and kissing him and and him just being like oh my gosh like

Speaker 4 get off me but like i literally was just wanted him glued to him yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 4 and so anytime i could spend with him i absolutely wanted to and my younger brother and I we would fight like normal siblings like our life went to you know normalcy I had that and but I always was always want to go home to Manitoba and so I'm so grateful because you know my grandma always made it a priority for me to be able to go back and I would spend every summer back in Manitoba and I always stayed with Ken and Debbie Bowden and so I got to spend time with them and I mean hi it was a dream come true I got to spend my summers with my best friend who we would like ever since we were little our parents would buy us like matching outfits and so we continued to do that as teenagers too and so that was a lot of fun and then eventually

Speaker 4 when I was 14

Speaker 4 My I had come back from Manitoba my aunt called me and was like why don't you come over to my other aunt's house so I went over and she said do you want to move back to Manitoba?

Speaker 4 And I was like, yes, let's do this. She's like, okay, you can't tell your grandma.

Speaker 4 And I was like, okay. And I didn't know why.
She's like, well, because she'll never let you go back, but I'm your guardian. So you can go back if you want to.
So I said, okay.

Speaker 4 She said, okay, I'm going to call you and I'm going to pick you up. I'm going to get you a flight and you can move back to Manitoba.
Wow. So I moved back to Manitoba.
My grandma had no idea.

Speaker 4 It was like an actual type runaway thing. But my grandma couldn't report me missing because my aunt was my guardian.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And she was the one to make the decision.

Speaker 4 And she got me the ticket and sent me there. So I moved back to Manitoba.
Eventually, after some time, I move in with Ken and Debbie.

Speaker 4 And it's like the best thing because I'm like actually living with my sister, something like we had wanted our whole life. And I live with them.

Speaker 4 And I, you know, I got to finish high school out in Manitoba with all of my friends out there. Not to say I didn't have the most amazing friends and relationships

Speaker 4 in Ontario.

Speaker 4 You know, it was, it was hard because like I wanted to be with my friends there. And it took me a long time.
I actually spent a few summers in Manitoba and I never came back to Ontario.

Speaker 4 One summer I thought, okay, I'm going to come back and I got to, you know, hang out with all my friends again.

Speaker 4 And I go back to Ontario. I went back to Manitoba.
And then I remember like

Speaker 4 talking with my a friend of mine and her just saying, like, you know, if your grandpa's not doing well, why don't you move back to Ontario? It doesn't have to be permanent, just move back.

Speaker 4 And I said, okay.

Speaker 4 So I do make my way back to Ontario with the intention of that I would eventually move back.

Speaker 4 And I

Speaker 4 don't.

Speaker 4 I stay and now I and then I eventually meet in a short period of time my now husband.

Speaker 4 And we have our kids and we raise them and just I don't know I live life and we started you know establishing roots there together so it if you had asked anyone in Manitoba if I would be living in Ontario now they would say absolutely

Speaker 2 no way absolutely not no well what was that like I'm curious going through your teenage years and dating all the way up to meeting your husband where did you look at relationships differently did you look for red flags and things because you saw the behavior of your mom's stalker and how dangerous situations could become?

Speaker 2 Or do you think that you were so young that you didn't carry the weight of that in regards to intimate relationships with you?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I didn't carry it like that at all with me.

Speaker 4 No, no, it didn't affect anything. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Speaker 2 Because I would imagine... Had you done that, it would maybe,

Speaker 2 like, I have my own, for another episode, my own issues with trust issues and things from my childhood that made me definitely struggle with finding a partner and dating the right people.

Speaker 2 And I think it's so easy and something we don't talk about enough: like the trauma just lives on and it manifests in different ways, and it can impact you in different ways.

Speaker 2 So, to hear that it did not hinder you from meeting your person is that's such a blessing in all of this.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it didn't, it didn't affect me like that.
And, and I mean, my husband is he's just amazing partner and so supportive.

Speaker 4 Um, and he always, he had been since like the beginning of our relationship too, because

Speaker 4 the whole reason why I had moved back to Ontario was also my grandfather wasn't doing well, but I was turning 18.

Speaker 4 And when I turned 18, I would then inherit my parents' life insurance money, right? And

Speaker 4 so my aunt picked her up. And we made our way on my 18th birthday to the bank.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 just just before we got to the bank she said like she let me drive almost all the way to the bank and she um looked at me and said i don't know how to tell you this but there is no money and we spent it all what

Speaker 4 spent it on what nothing because they had to claim bankruptcy at that point she was like living in but because she was the legal guardian she'd have access to the she wasn't supposed to have legal access she was not the money was held in trust for us but a judge in saint catharines allowed her to access that money oh my gosh and

Speaker 4 she had spent all of it and i was said what about clinton's money she said all of it it's all gone and i just remember like blacking out like looking at her and like what do i do then like where am i going yeah and she was like just drive me home so i drove her home and i had to drive back to my grandma's and i i remember coming in and i was bawling i hadn't met my husband yet at this point.

Speaker 4 And I was like just bawling. And she was like, what's the matter? And I said, it's all gone.
And my grandma looked at me and she's like, can I swear?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Can I swear?

Speaker 4 She's like, I fucking knew it. I knew it.

Speaker 2 Well, and they already had a fractured relationship. Do they?

Speaker 4 The reason they're fracture, come to find out, the only reason my aunt let me move back to Manitoba was not because she gave a shit about how I felt.

Speaker 4 It was because if I wasn't in the province, my grandma couldn't get legal custody of me and my aunt would remain my guardian and my grandma would never find out about well I don't know what my aunt thought.

Speaker 4 I was turning 18 eventually. Yeah.
Like I don't know if she thought she was going to get some money and she could pay it back or whatever.

Speaker 2 Well, I would imagine too, if she, it's all strategy, right?

Speaker 2 But I would imagine that if she's giving you what you want as a young girl like or young teenager, you can live with your best friend, you can move back there.

Speaker 2 It's almost that she's getting in your good graces so that you think of her as the best. Like she would never do anything.

Speaker 2 Or, once the shoe drops and you do find out that, like, well, she let me go live with my friend. She loves me.
Like, it's all

Speaker 4 manipulation. Exactly.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 4 So, my grandma, you know, come to find out that's why she didn't want me to leave. She was like, it's not because I didn't want you to go there.
I couldn't, you couldn't. I had to be here.

Speaker 4 You had to be here with me.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 so then that started like a whole thing of another court process. So one thing I didn't didn't mention was there was an inquiry, right, into my parents' death as well and the police misconduct.

Speaker 4 So we had to, our family had to go through two different like kind of courts.

Speaker 2 And is that what you would equate to like what we would call a civil suit here?

Speaker 4 An inquiry, I'm not, I don't know because an inquiry is usually, from my understanding, is it's something like more in depth that they're like looking at all the, I mean, maybe it's a civil suit as well.

Speaker 2 Where they're just like looking into it, they're investigating to figure out if there's, if there was misconduct, if something was done incorrectly along the way.

Speaker 4 Right, yeah.

Speaker 4 And so, and that had happened, that happened way before I had turned 18. That happened just shortly after my parents' death.

Speaker 4 And so, in that whole process, you know, they looked at the, if the RCMP had actually not fallen asleep, the one officer, would it have moved things along quickly?

Speaker 4 Would that have saved my mother's life? My father would have died regardless.

Speaker 4 They, you know, they just kind of

Speaker 4 brought everything to human error with the court documents and the crown attorney with family law and just all of the letter not being filed.

Speaker 4 It was, it seemed like they just kind of always backed it with that it was human error. And so no one was being, no one, not one person was held accountable at all.
The judge,

Speaker 4 the judge for the case came out out to our family home and i think that's because i don't know if it was my uncle or my brother someone had asked him like come out come out and see that they could have taken a clear shot with swat that they could have a sniper could have shot through the window but they argued no that um a however you know a couple panes of glass that and that far of distance would it have shot like and killed him and i just think nowadays like that would not fly because like that they would be able to do that, right?

Speaker 4 Like, but I understand things were different in the 90s. And

Speaker 4 had they made it there in time, had, you know, they acted more quickly, what, what, if anything, could have changed? The judge eventually blames the townspeople.

Speaker 4 He said that they should have done more to help protect my parents.

Speaker 4 Don't know why it would be townspeople's

Speaker 4 land on them to protect our family. One police officer took the stand and said that only my mother knew the danger she was in.

Speaker 4 He insinuated that there was more happening between my mom and her stalker, which like an affair?

Speaker 4 I don't know if it was an affair, but like he, because he doesn't say that. I don't know how he says it, but he likes it just insinuates that there was more.

Speaker 4 That if she was in such danger, then like, why didn't she do more? I, again, I don't know what more.

Speaker 2 Right. Wait, like, how, why are you blaming her? What more could she have done? She wrote the letter.
She reached out to them. She was scared.

Speaker 4 All of the things.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And so they, so nothing, nothing was, no one was held accountable at all in our family's case.
And I get often asked now, like, why don't you, you know, why don't you take them to court?

Speaker 4 It's like, one, I couldn't. And two,

Speaker 4 like, what, what could be done? And also, now it's so long, nothing could be done because I'm sure a lot of the documents have been destroyed and,

Speaker 4 you know, people aren't serving still as officers, like really,

Speaker 4 who could be held accountable.

Speaker 2 Well, but it's also like the argument could be even if in a perfect scenario they made entry early on, there weren't all these calls, even if it couldn't change the outcome of the deaths, it certainly could change the outcome of the trauma that you and your siblings went through.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 What you witnessed, what you had to sit through, the memories you have, what lives with you for so many years after that.

Speaker 2 And I don't know what you're comfortable sharing, but I would like to ask you about that because if we're speaking about trauma, your brothers, of course, carried a great deal of weight with them as well.

Speaker 4 Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And can you walk me through with your first brother when he passed away?

Speaker 4 How old were you?

Speaker 2 And whatever events you're comfortable sharing with both of them.

Speaker 4 So, when to go back a little to my aunt, when we lived there initially with her,

Speaker 4 There was a process to bring us to

Speaker 4 therapy.

Speaker 4 It was a child-based play sorry-based therapy and we went and I always when I speak and I you know share my story and advocate I always I was always generous always generous up until last year and I would say We received one play-based therapy that I remember.

Speaker 4 That was me and my younger brother because my older brother turned 18 so like there was no criminal compensation you get criminal compensation because then at the time like this is my understanding is that my my aunt would get it and then that could go towards like our therapy if we if we needed it we had to be deemed that

Speaker 4 we needed it in the first place should be a standard no matter what that's ridiculous right and so we went and I would always say we had one for sure maybe two and it was one come to find out I was right that it was one because we went to one and then my aunt got the CPP for us and that check never went to therapy we were never given any therapy after that

Speaker 4 and so like my older brother I can't I can't speak for what either of them went through or felt or any of those things because I always say to people like yes we all went through the same like night we all lost our parents the same way, but we all lived completely different things.

Speaker 4 And there's going to be things that had come up for them or me even at different parts of our life.

Speaker 4 Like, it wasn't until just a couple of years ago that I got so hard on myself because I thought, why didn't you run up the stairs and go out that door? It was right there.

Speaker 4 You could have taken your brother out. right there and then we would never have had to go upstairs.
My brother wouldn't have had to see my dad.

Speaker 2 Like, I could have just a million what-ifs, though, and you can't torture yourself a hundred percent because that weight does not fall on you.

Speaker 4 No, but it's like those are the things that I think people don't always think about. Like, oh, well, like, how come you're me, quote, okay, but maybe they weren't.

Speaker 4 And it's like, yeah, but it's different, like, we're all gonna process things differently.

Speaker 4 And so, um,

Speaker 4 at the age of 29, my older brother, Carson,

Speaker 4 my husband and I were dating at that time, and we had went out. We have a festival in Ontario in St.
Catharines, and we went to that festival. And I saw one of my brother's friends out,

Speaker 4 and he said, Where's Carson? Where's Carr?

Speaker 4 And I was like, I don't know. I thought he'd be here with you.

Speaker 4 My brother didn't like it. It's not like I thought I would see him out all the time, but this was a festival that maybe he'd be at.
And he was like, no, you you should call him. And I was like, yeah.

Speaker 4 And, you know, I kind of left it at that. And then

Speaker 4 I went back to my husband's house. And in the morning, I had a million, what feels like a million missed calls.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I looked at my phone and they were only from my grandma's house and from my brother's house, my older brother's house, because my younger brother now lived with my grandma because of my aunt taking the money.

Speaker 4 And I said, I looked at my husband and I said,

Speaker 4 I'm not going to call them back. And he said, What do you mean? I said, I'm not, I'm not calling them back.
Bring me back to my apartment. I'm going to go home.
I'm going to get ready.

Speaker 4 And then I'm going to go. I'm going to go to one of their houses.
And he was like,

Speaker 4 my husband was just like, I feel like he was looking at me like, why don't you call? And we're sitting in the car and we're driving. He's driving me back to my apartment.

Speaker 4 And I was like, I don't know who I want want to be dead more.

Speaker 4 My grandma or my brother? Because one of them died.

Speaker 4 And if I call,

Speaker 4 then I'm going to know.

Speaker 4 I was like, I don't want to know.

Speaker 4 And so I went back to my place.

Speaker 4 I think I showered. Like, I was in definitely a state of shock.

Speaker 4 And I showered and I got ready.

Speaker 4 And I went to my brother's house. I chose to go to my brother's.

Speaker 4 I don't know why.

Speaker 4 And I got there and I could just see everyone. My eyes were just scanning everyone sitting on the front porch because I was like, who is who's there and who's not?

Speaker 4 My grandma wasn't there, but neither was my brother. And I could just see them and they're all looking at me.
And it felt like it took me forever

Speaker 4 to get out of the car. And something said, just get out and go.
And I stood on like the front of the yard, and I was like, Who is it?

Speaker 4 And they just all were looking at me, like,

Speaker 4 who's gonna tell her? And I was like, just screaming, who is it?

Speaker 4 And finally,

Speaker 4 my cousin Shane,

Speaker 4 who's really close with my brother,

Speaker 4 he said, Carson.

Speaker 4 And that was it.

Speaker 4 I think I went to leave and I think someone was like, no, no, don't go.

Speaker 4 And then eventually I go inside.

Speaker 4 And I remember my younger brother hugging me and I couldn't hug him back. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I was just like, don't touch me. Do not touch me.

Speaker 4 And he was hugging me and I just was like dead in his arms and I felt so bad, but I was like,

Speaker 4 I can't hug you. Like, I just didn't want, I didn't want anyone to touch me.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 that's when I found out he had killed himself.

Speaker 4 And it was just, like, awful. It was like learning all over again that he had died.

Speaker 4 And it was just

Speaker 4 like... A lot of people don't ever understand when I say this, but losing my brother

Speaker 4 was a thousand times harder than what I had to go through with my parents.

Speaker 2 I can understand that.

Speaker 4 I had always shared my story, but I wasn't aware that I was sharing my story the way it is obviously now, right?

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 it was in 2017.

Speaker 4 A cousin of mine had messaged me on Facebook and she said,

Speaker 4 I don't know if you're interested. I know like you share your family story, but there's a national inquiry for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and two-spirited plus folks.

Speaker 4 And I was like, I remember reading the message and just thinking. I mean, yeah, sure, of course.
Like I've always shared my family story. And so I testified.
I shared my story.

Speaker 4 I actually went back to Manitoba. It was really important that I be there to testify.

Speaker 4 Ken and Debbie were with me and my best friend. And then I actually had some of my childhood friends with me as well when I testified.
So I was around folks that, you know, loved and cared for me. And

Speaker 4 so I testified and I shared my story.

Speaker 4 And then it was in, and so I went through that process. And it was over the next couple of years that I started hearing other stories that were like.
eerily similar to mine.

Speaker 4 And I thought, for so long, I believe that that's just my story. That's the way it happened.

Speaker 4 Like, I think that that's that's what all of these systems that are in place that people go through, they make them believe like that's normal.

Speaker 4 What you're going through is that's normal. That's just a part of your life, that's who you are, especially people in BIPOC communities or people who are BIPOC.

Speaker 4 It's just like, this is your plate, this is what's being served to you, and now live with it because, like, that's kind of the way things are for you.

Speaker 4 So, you, you do, you get, you start to believe it. Um, And in 2019, I was asked if I would join the National Family Advisory Circle.
It was then that I was like, okay, this is what I want to do.

Speaker 4 I want to start sharing my story on a larger scale. If people are going to listen, then I'm going to tell the story.
And I'm going to, I won't ever, I was always taught by

Speaker 4 like an elder, you don't ever say someone else's story. Like, that's why I can't speak to why my brothers, you know, what they went through, because I don't know.
And so, but I do know my own story.

Speaker 4 And so if I can use it and, you know, I'm so grateful that you have this platform that you wanted to share with me to share. And so then I just started sharing and advocating.

Speaker 4 And that's when I like really started to like piece together more of, you know, what had happened and the injustice that my family had to go through.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 it was only at the closing ceremonies, and I often share this, that I realized I was sitting there and I thought the whole time I thought I was an imposter. Like, why am I here?

Speaker 4 Like, I'm Indigenous, but my mom's not Indigenous. It was my dad, but this is an inquiry, is not an inquiry for Indigenous men.
Although I will say that Indigenous men are murdered and missing.

Speaker 4 I believe it's as a higher rate than Indigenous women. And there is no inquiry as of yet.
I know that people are fighting for one.

Speaker 4 And so it's, and I'm not taking taking away from Indigenous women or girls, so I hope anyone, you know, doesn't take it that way.

Speaker 4 But my dad was Indigenous and he was murdered. And so

Speaker 4 it was at the closing ceremonies that I grabbed my husband's leg and I whispered to him, I said, oh, I get it. And he's like, you get what? I was like, I'm the girl.
I should have died.

Speaker 4 I shouldn't be here. Or I also shouldn't know anything about my culture, my background, or be connected to my community.
And so like that

Speaker 4 really stuck with me. My younger brother was, he had continued to be in my life, and he built a beautiful life with his wife and his kids.
Um,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 I mean, I often think, like,

Speaker 4 I don't know, I think I'm a good mom, but my brother was like a great dad,

Speaker 2 a great dad, yeah,

Speaker 4 both of them,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 in

Speaker 4 it's so weird to say. And in 2023,

Speaker 4 I think just I again I can't speculate what was going on with my brother and his own mental health, but

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 he committed suicide in November of 2023

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 it was really

Speaker 4 yeah. And how old was he?

Speaker 4 Uh, 36.

Speaker 4 So the day he died, my, I was in my daughter's room and I was cleaning her room. And it's funny how trauma sits with you because we moved in the last year and I refused,

Speaker 4 refused to clean my daughter's room when we moved, when we got to the new house.

Speaker 4 We lived at our current house for probably

Speaker 4 it was five months before

Speaker 4 and I didn't think about it and then it just hit me one day. I was like, oh, that's why I'm not cleaning her room.

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Speaker 4 Cause

Speaker 4 I had

Speaker 4 it took me that whole time to even realize it because I was cleaning my daughter's room, her closet, organizing it.

Speaker 4 And for the first time, I mean, my phone is in my pocket usually or at the desk all the time. Like, it's always around me.
And

Speaker 2 it didn't...

Speaker 4 It wasn't near me that day. I left it downstairs.
My youngest was playing on the main floor. My oldest was in the basement.

Speaker 4 So I was cleaning my daughter's room and my phone wasn't anywhere near me. It was on the main floor.

Speaker 4 My youngest was on the main floor, just playing, and that while I was upstairs, and my oldest was in the basement.

Speaker 4 I

Speaker 4 didn't think I had anything of it. I went downstairs, and I saw some missed calls from a phone number I didn't know, and my husband's cousin.

Speaker 4 I thought, Why is she calling me? You know, like, I don't, I'm close with her, but I was like, She wouldn't call me, and I didn't know the other phone number, so I just kind of left it. Um,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 I took a break, and I was standing in my kitchen and my my husband walked in and I just saw it immediately, his face.

Speaker 4 And I said, Who?

Speaker 4 Who? Who died?

Speaker 4 And he just shook his head.

Speaker 4 And I was like,

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 And I screamed

Speaker 4 so loud.

Speaker 4 And I had, like no concept that my youngest was right behind me

Speaker 4 and I was just screaming

Speaker 4 screaming

Speaker 4 I was like no no I said no I said I said are you sure like are they sure

Speaker 4 and that's

Speaker 4 he's like yeah I think so I think they're sure and I said no no they have to check him I think he's okay and like I immediately went into denial.

Speaker 4 I,

Speaker 4 even with my parents' death and my older brother's death,

Speaker 4 there's like the type of denial, like, I can't believe they're not here that time was absolute denial. Like, he is no way.
They actually have to check him. Like, he's obviously okay.

Speaker 4 Like, we'll go to the hospital.

Speaker 4 And then he was like, no, he's gone. And so my

Speaker 4 little brother committed suicide. And I feel like I just went into instant fight or flight.
I had to make all the same phone calls.

Speaker 4 And I remember calling Debbie and Ken, and I called their house, and they weren't home, and they didn't answer. And I called mom's phone.

Speaker 4 And then eventually I called Sheena. And I was like, I have to tell you something.
I don't know where mom is. I have to tell her.
And when I told Sheena.

Speaker 2 Did you call her mom?

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I called Debbie and Ken mom and dad.

Speaker 2 That's really sweet.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Just because like they've always treated me like they're owned. And like my kids call them a mare and peper for grandma and grandpa in French.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 yeah, we just, I remember lying, literally lying in the grass with a blanket wrapped around me. It was cold, it was November, and just watched the sunset.

Speaker 4 And I remember thinking while I was talking to Sheena on the phone, and I remember just thinking, wow, is the sky so pretty?

Speaker 4 And I just want to die. Like, this is awful.

Speaker 4 And just like immediately, just like with my older brother, when my older brother died, I had like all of my girlfriends around me.

Speaker 4 I remember laying in my, on my futon couch in my apartment before kids and marriage, and they were all around me, just like supporting me.

Speaker 4 And the same thing with this time, it was the exact same process this time. Like, immediately, I just had,

Speaker 4 and I'll never be able to repay all those friends for just the way they rallied around me. It was

Speaker 2 well, to have such good friends like that, and a support system is a testament to you and who you are.

Speaker 4 Truly, I mean that sincerely.

Speaker 4 In November and on November 12th, and

Speaker 4 I

Speaker 4 had started a fundraiser that had started back before he died. So, the year that I was turning 38,

Speaker 4 it was going to be a really hard year because at that time, my younger brother was still alive, but I was officially going to be the first person in my family to turn 38 because my mom, my dad, and my brother all died before.

Speaker 4 So, I started a fundraiser, and it was like it was a crutch for me to like not have to think about it.

Speaker 4 And I thought if I start a fundraiser and it wasn't for me, to be clear, the fundraiser was a GoFundMe I started and it was celebrate Indigenous Resilience.

Speaker 4 I thought I'm going to celebrate the fact that I'm here because I love to self-sabotage. Thank you, trauma.

Speaker 4 And I hated my birthday. Like I love my birthday.

Speaker 4 But I hated it. Like it's like a really weird place for me.
So I thought if I start this fundraiser and the funds were going to go to two Indigenous organizations.

Speaker 4 One is my hometown community, like for the youth, the Indigenous youth there. And they could use it for whatever they wanted.

Speaker 4 No red tape, no grants, no like writing proposals for funds that they know they need.

Speaker 4 And then the other money was half of it was going to go to Abbey House, which is a transitional home in Saint-Estache for Indigenous women with or without children.

Speaker 4 And I thought, can I start this fundraiser? It's going to be, we're going to raise $3,800

Speaker 4 because I'm turning 38

Speaker 4 and I like didn't want to press enter it made me sick to my stomach I was instantly sick I was sitting at my desk I went from setting up a GoFundMe to like

Speaker 4 immediate depression like right away I was like no one's gonna care if I'm gonna press enter no one's cared so far the history proves it who's gonna donate I want and then I'm gonna to make these organizations like

Speaker 4 I'm going to feel bad that I'm going to promise, like, I'm going to do this fundraiser. Nothing's going to come about it.
Something came over me, and I pressed enter.

Speaker 4 And within 24 hours, we raised $10,000.

Speaker 4 And then it kept going. And to date, I think that GoFundMe has, it's just shy of $110,000.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh, that's incredible, Felon.

Speaker 4 That's amazing. Yeah.
And the goal was to take it down, but people kept donating. No, it's still.
Guys, scoop it all at go.

Speaker 2 Don't take it down.

Speaker 4 So I did that. And then I started a yearly fundraiser.
I love Christmas. Christmas is like my jam.
I love it so much.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I started a fundraiser. It was an event that my girlfriends and I had always done.
They're called urns. And so to explain it for people.
I'm like, hold on.

Speaker 4 It is not an urn of ashes. It's a planter.
You know, you walk up to someone's house and they have this like beautiful planter with all the Christmas and the evergreens all stuffed into it.

Speaker 4 That's what it is. And so it's a Christmas one.
And so we started that. And I started that in 2000 and

Speaker 4 well, the fundraiser part of it was in 2001. It was the same year of the beginning of the GoFundMe.
And then it just grew and it grew.

Speaker 4 And so I had that fundraiser that was supposed to happen two weeks after my brother died. And my friends came to my rescue like

Speaker 4 absolute superheroes. The first thing they said, like, Kay, what can we do? What can we do? We're going to make this fundraiser happen still because I had been putting it on every year.

Speaker 4 So now it's 2023. This is going to be my, at that point, I think that was, make it my third annual, right? My third annual for this fundraiser.

Speaker 4 And a lot of money is raised that day and i mean my world just came out from under me and i was like i mean i went into fight or flight too because i said okay i'm gonna get out of bed i'm gonna take a shower and then we're gonna do this i always say to people don't feel bad for me because i'm not without i have like

Speaker 4 the most incredible group of friends

Speaker 4 and family around me so i'm not without um do i wish I could go back and change things? Yes. Can I? No.
So it's like one of those things. What am I going to do now with it?

Speaker 2 Aside from your advocacy work and sharing your story in hopes to evoke change and fundraise and make a difference. Have you found it to be any sort of healing for you through sharing it?

Speaker 4 Absolutely. I said too, I had said to an elder once, I don't know, I feel really bad.

Speaker 4 I remember like hugging him after I spoke and, and he, you know, he thanked me for sharing my story and, and my traumas. And I just said, I, I feel bad though.
And he said, why? Why do you feel bad?

Speaker 4 I said, because I'm leaving with like healing. I'm,

Speaker 4 I'm taking something away and then I'm leaving this story behind. And he was like, no, no.
you have to stop thinking that you are leaving you're leaving something behind for other people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, and I think to your point, it's, it's amazing that you are resilient enough to continue sharing your story and like dig deep and share what's, of course, uncomfortable and traumatic.

Speaker 2 But to echo what you already told, I want you to know, too, that when people hear your story, they will learn from it and apply it to their own lives.

Speaker 2 There will be something, whether it's a small detail or a new value or something they look at differently in their life once they hear your story.

Speaker 2 aside from just self-healing, it is helping other people, even if it's indirectly. And so I hope you know that truly.

Speaker 2 So, you're working on a lot of things, you have a lot of stuff going on at any given moment. I know after this, you're going to LA and you've got things going on.
So, what is it?

Speaker 2 Is there anything you want to leave the listeners with in terms of not only where they can find you on socials to follow all of your projects closely and hear more of your story, but any

Speaker 2 details or any statistics or anything you want them to know?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 One thing I'm a new I want people to think about is:

Speaker 4 I'm going to shock some people too when I say this. He was Indigenous as well, and I'm not giving him any kind of,

Speaker 4 believe me, there is nothing in me that is saying what he did is like, oh, you know, whatever.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 think about systems that Indigenous people

Speaker 4 are raised in.

Speaker 4 You know, the justice system, the way that they're looked at, their communities.

Speaker 4 What made him and his mental health that way as well? For people who are watching and you're looking at me, I'm white passing. I'm white passing and I have so much privilege.
I know that.

Speaker 4 And there are people who are not going to be listened to or heard

Speaker 4 or even given the same decency that I am because of how I look.

Speaker 4 And I have to acknowledge that. And if I don't use that, then what's it for

Speaker 4 because I say like my story had used me for so long and now I'm going to use the shit out of my story and I am going to use the fact of how I look because people will listen would you have listened to me and felt all the same things or would you have skipped on by if I looked a little different absolutely so I'm very happy that you have found who sounds to be an amazing husband and have good kids and have some happiness in your life because I think that that's so incredibly important.

Speaker 2 Because,

Speaker 2 even just in resharing your story, too, you're dealing with the weight of it every single day.

Speaker 2 So, to have that outlet of somebody who is so supportive and just loves you for you, and you have a family, I think that is just so incredible.

Speaker 4 And I'm really happy for you. I'm very lucky.
And then, for where people can find me and everything. So, I had mentioned the inquiry.
So, if people want to look up the national inquiry

Speaker 4 as for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two-spirited LGBTQQIA plus folks. You can find that online.
And then you can also find the final report.

Speaker 4 So in the final report, it gives all the findings. It's not this big document.
A lot of people think, oh gosh, I don't want to read that.

Speaker 4 It's done in such a beautiful way and it's done in a storytelling way. And I want people to know when they're reading it, you're reading real stories.
And there's calls for justice.

Speaker 4 So there's 231 calls for justice that families and survivors have asked of the government and folks. And so in there, there are 13 for Canadians.
So for any Canadian listeners, there's 13.

Speaker 4 It's quite simple. Like

Speaker 4 they are laid out.

Speaker 4 And they can be applied in the States too, because unfortunately,

Speaker 4 MMIWG doesn't

Speaker 4 know borders and it's happening to Indigenous women across the globe. And so there are calls for justice that can easily be implemented.

Speaker 4 And then people can find me on Instagram and TikTok at

Speaker 4 Fallon Farinacci. You'll have the spelling.

Speaker 2 Yes, I'll have all the links, the direct links and the spelling for all of this.

Speaker 4 And then I have my website too, fallinfarinacci.com. So people can follow along.
And the fundraiser for anyone that wants to donate, it's still there.

Speaker 4 They could just either Google Celebrate Indigenous Resilience, gofund me and my name or it's linked in my bio um we'll link it here in the show too just so that it's an easy click thank you of course of course well i want to thank you again for joining today and for sharing your story because i know it can never it's never easy each time so i really appreciate it and i want to echo my thanks back because without spaces and platforms like this to share um you know it just it's like i just think of myself when i was pressing enter and the gofund me like no one cares

Speaker 4 you are,

Speaker 4 you're honoring myself, my parents, and my brothers. So I just want to express to you how grateful I am for this space.

Speaker 2 That means a lot. Thank you.
Well, and thank you to all of you guys for listening. I know it's definitely a longer episode today, but we had so much important stuff to go over.

Speaker 2 I'll be back with you on Thursday. Thank you guys for tuning in.
Check all of the links out below and we'll be back soon.

Speaker 4 All right. Bye.
Thank you.

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252: The Viral TikTok of a Stalker & Family Massacre... Now She's Telling It All | Fallon Farinacci

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