Friend reveals deadly secret about missing Manitoba woman
CBC hears new information on one of Canada's missing and murdered women
A Cree grandmother who says she's kept a deadly secret for more than 15 years wants to break her silence. She knows what happened to a woman who went missing in 1999. She claims the woman was murdered and she says she knows who killed her.
The woman, who fears for her safety if her name is disclosed, told the CBC this week that Elizabeth Dorion, who was last seen outside Pukatawagan in September 1999, was beaten, bound with rocks at her feet and then pushed into the nearby rapids.
Almost two months later, RCMP officially declared her missing. Despite two ground searches, her body was never found.
The woman said she tried to get RCMP to investigate, but she admitted she never told them what she actually knew. Fear of reprisal kept her silent then -- and for the years that followed.
"I was terrified," the woman, who was a friend of Dorion's, said. "I was afraid for my own life.... if I said anything, I would end up the same way."
At the time of her disappearance Dorion was 44, a mother of three and a widow, struggling with alcohol after the death of her husband.
On the day she went missing, Dorion spent the morning with her friend and two others. After that, her friend went home alone. Hours later, she heard the other friends talking about Dorion, more specifically, how one of them killed her, she said.
Once they knew she'd heard them, she said she was warned not to tell anyone. What followed were years of threats, she said, and years of violence.
"I wear dentures on my upper and some down below because [I was kicked] with steel-toed boots [I was] stabbed between my legs, in the head and on my hand," she said, pointing to the scars.
Robbed of a relationship with her mother
Eventually, she moved to another community, taking the secret along with her. Finally she broke her silence when she called one of Dorion's daughters and disclosed what she believed.
For Georgina Sims, who was adopted as a baby and never knew Dorion, her birth mother, it was a bittersweet piece of a puzzle she's struggled with for years.
"I only found my mother two weeks before she disappeared," Sims said, crying. "I have never, ever known what happened to her. I needed answers."
No call from the RCMP
Neither woman has gone to the RCMP but both said they want the police to investigate and would be willing to talk to them.
Last Thursday, an RCMP spokesperson told the CBC they wanted to talk to Sims about this latest twist to the case. But a week later, Sims said no one from the RCMP has called or visited her, even though they have her latest phone number.
Meanwhile, the woman who finally spoke out said she's still afraid of reprisal, and rarely leaves her home.
"I'm a prisoner in my own home. I'm always afraid I'll meet one of [the alleged attackers] in the street," she told the CBC. "But I feel better. Like something just big has come off my shoulders. I feel light. I know [Elizabeth] is listening."
According to the Pukatawagan RCMP, Dorion was reported missing on Nov. 13, 1999.
She was last seen on Sept. 20, 1999 at a local fish camp called Mile 94, between Manitoba's The Pas and Pukatawagan.
Dorion's niece, Patricia Turner, said police were not diligent enough in their initial investigation of the incident.
"It is the worst because they didn't even try help us," she said.
She says her aunt was written off by police and society.
"Maybe like she was just another 'drunken Native,'" she said.